Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley citations

Mary Shelley [ˈmɛəɹɪ ˈʃɛli], née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin le 30 août 1797 à Somers Town, un faubourg de Londres , et morte le 1er février 1851 à Belgravia , est une femme de lettres anglaise, romancière, dramaturge, essayiste, biographe et auteur de récits de voyage. Elle est surtout connue pour son roman Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne.

Fille de la philosophe féministe Mary Wollstonecraft et de l'écrivain politique William Godwin, elle perd sa mère alors qu'elle-même n'est âgée que de dix jours. Son père se remarie quatre ans plus tard. Il offre à sa fille une éducation riche et l'encourage à adhérer à ses théories politiques libérales. En 1814, Mary Godwin entame une liaison avec un homme marié, partisan de son père, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Accompagné de Claire Clairmont, la fille de la belle-mère de Mary, le couple voyage à travers l'Europe. Au cours des deux années qui suivent, Mary et Percy affrontent un endettement permanent et la mort de leur fille. Ils se marient en 1816, après le suicide de la première épouse de Percy.

En 1816, lors d'un séjour près de Genève, Mary écrit son premier roman, Frankenstein. En 1818, les Shelley quittent le Royaume-Uni pour l'Italie, où meurent leur deuxième et leur troisième enfant, avant que Mary Shelley ne donne naissance à son fils, Percy Florence Shelley, qui seul survivra. En 1822, son mari se noie dans le golfe de la Spezia, au cours d'une tempête. Un an plus tard, Mary Shelley retourne en Angleterre et, dès lors, se consacre entièrement à l'éducation de son fils et à sa carrière d'auteure. Les dix dernières années de sa vie sont marquées par la maladie.

Elle décède d'une tumeur du cerveau le 1er février 1851.

Jusqu'aux années 1970, Mary Shelley, outre son Frankenstein, est surtout connue pour les efforts qu'elle fit en vue de faire publier les œuvres de son mari. Les études récentes ont permis une vision plus complète de son œuvre et montré que Mary Shelley est restée toute sa vie une radicale sur le plan politique, soutenant l'idée que la coopération et la solidarité, pratiquées tout naturellement par les femmes au sein de leur famille, sont la voie qui permet de réformer la société civile. Wikipedia  

✵ 30. août 1797 – 1. février 1851   •   Autres noms ਮੇਰੀ ਸ਼ੈਲੀ
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo

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Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: 98   citations 0   J'aime

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley citations célèbres

“Il était déjà une heure du matin; une pluie funèbre martelait les vitres et ma bougie était presque consumée, lorsque à la lueur de cette lumière à demi éteinte, je vis s’ouvrir l’œil jaune et terne de cet être; sa respiration pénible commença, et un mouvement convulsif agita ses membres.”

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
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Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne (1818)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Citations en anglais

“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”

Variante: No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Source: Frankenstein

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Source: Frankenstein

“Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

The monster to Robert Walton
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Source: Frankenstein

“What was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

The monster in Ch. 13
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: What was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?
I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!

“No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Victor Frankenstein in Ch. 4
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.

“I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

The monster to Robert Walton
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?

“My greatest pleasure was the enjoyment of a serene sky amidst these verdant woods: yet I loved all the changes of Nature; and rain, and storm, and the beautiful clouds of heaven brought their delights with them.”

Matilda (1819)
Contexte: My greatest pleasure was the enjoyment of a serene sky amidst these verdant woods: yet I loved all the changes of Nature; and rain, and storm, and the beautiful clouds of heaven brought their delights with them. When rocked by the waves of the lake my spirits rose in triumph as a horseman feels with pride the motions of his high fed steed.
But my pleasures arose from the contemplation of nature alone, I had no companion: my warm affections finding no return from any other human heart were forced to run waste on inanimate objects.

“I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Source: Frankenstein

“Live, and be happy, and make others so.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Justine Moritz in Ch. 8
Frankenstein (1818)

“Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul can focus its intellectual eye”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Robert Walton in "Letter 1"
Source: Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

“I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy?”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

The monster to Robert Walton
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

The monster to the blind man in Ch. 15
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.

“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

The monster to Robert Walton
Frankenstein (1818)
Contexte: You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein ou le Prométhée moderne

Source: Frankenstein

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