{"id":2695,"date":"2011-09-13T08:25:55","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T08:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/13\/modern_promethe\/"},"modified":"2024-11-30T04:25:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T09:25:02","slug":"modern_promethe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/13\/modern_promethe\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Prometheus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>For lack of a paperback<\/strong> to read during a long bus ride, I turned to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\">Project Gutenberg<\/a> on my phone and started re-reading Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley\u2019s <i>Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus<\/i>. I had forgotten the set-up of the story, in which a third-party narrator \u2014 Robert Walton \u2014 encounters the doctor while on a polar expedition. But before that happens, Walton is yearning for companionship and writes this tender passage in a letter to his sister:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Shelley had her own intentions for that sentiment that had nothing to do with why those words are such a kick in the gut to me, but still: sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For lack of a paperback to read during a long bus ride, I turned to Project Gutenberg on my phone and started re-reading Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I had forgotten the set-up of the story, in which a third-party narrator \u2014 Robert Walton \u2014 encounters the doctor while on a polar &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/13\/modern_promethe\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Modern Prometheus&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural","category-ultrapersonal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77129,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions\/77129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}