Harvester of Hearts: Motherhood under the Sign of Frankenstein

198 Pages·2018·3.629 MB·English

by  Rachel Feder

Harvester of Hearts
Amelia Curran’s oil portrait of William Shelley, 1819. The Carl
H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
Harvester of Hearts
Motherhood under the Sign of Frankenstein
Rachel Feder
northwestern university press
evanston, illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2018 by Northwestern University Press.
Published 2018. All rights reserved.
The poem on page vii is from Lorine Niedecker, Collected Works,
edited by Jenny Penberthy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
Reprinted by permission of the University of California Press.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Feder, Rachel, author.
Title: Harvester of hearts : motherhood under the sign of Frankenstein / Rachel
Feder.
Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018019341| ISBN 9780810137523 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780810137530 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810137547 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851—Criticism
and interpretation. | Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851.
Frankenstein. | English fiction—19th century—History and criticism. | Women
and literature—England—History—19th century. | Motherhood and the arts.
Classification: LCC PR5398 .F43 2018 | DDC 823.7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019341
For M & N

Who was Mary Shelley?
What was her name
before she married?
She eloped with this Shelley
she rode a donkey
till the donkey had to be carried.
Mary was Frankenstein’s creator
his yellow eye
before her husband was to drown
Created the monster nights
after Byron, Shelley
talked the candle down.
Who was Mary Shelley?
She read Greek, Italian
She bore a child
Who died
and yet another child
who died.
— Lorine Niedecker, 1964

Contents
Preface xi
1. Forgetting 3
2. Channel 9
3. Erasure 17
4. Clarity 25
5. Elective Affinities 31
6. Self 39
7. Mouth 47
8. Rest 53
9. Identity 59
10. Infant Vows 65
11. Imagination 69
12. Lost 75
13. Unearthly 81
14. Under the Sign 87
15. Catastrophe 93
16. Created 99
17. Mix 107
18. Broken 113
19. Taken 119
20. Will 125
21. Brevity 129
22. Clarity 131