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Volta's Battery, Animal Electricity, and Frankenstein

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10509585.2012.639182

1740-4657

Richard C. Sha,

Neurology and Historical Studies

Abstract Although Frankenstein critics generally agree that the battery gives life to the monster, they have missed the significance of Volta's invention to the novel. This essay situates Frankenstein within the Volta/Galvani debate about the existence of animal electricity. Since Volta invented the battery precisely to refute the existence of animal electricity, Mary Shelley harnesses the battery to undercut vitalism. In thinking about the battery and the curious material status of electricity, she wonders how experiments might distinguish between life and the mere appearance of life. Acknowledgements For advice, I thank Roswitha Burwick, Stuart Curran, Tilottama Rajan, Marilyn Gaull, the members of George Washington University's Nineteenth-Century Study Group, and Russell Wyland. Thanks also to Aaron Long, my research assistant. Notes On vitality as the "distinguishing feature of Romantic aesthetics," see Gigante 1–48. Peer argues that Romanticism "is the first movement in Western Culture to question the ontological primacy of the sensible object" (2). He considers how the raising of the imagination came at the expense of objects. Noting that the torpedo can use electricity to stun its prey, Galvani argues that these fish have "a greater abundance of electricity" but that such electricity was not of a dissimilar nature to that of other animals (78). In the 1800s, the main boundary was between life and not life. In today's science, the boundary has shifted to between unicellular and multi-cellular organisms (Morange 54). Veeder defends Frankenstein's father and points to the ways in which Victor tries to blame his father for helping to cause his downfall (375). Ketterer suggests that Mary and Percy revised this passage on the blasted tree to signal Frankenstein's conversion from alchemy to modern science ("Frankenstein's 'Conversion'" 63). See also Thame. Shelley had good reason to be more skeptical in 1831. The famous neurologist Charles Bell in 1829 "insisted that the theatrical use of electricity to make hanged felons move again … fooled nobody – it held out no promise of the key to life" (Desmond 227). Fred Burwick (in a personal communication) reminds me that 1800 is also the year that the University of Ingolstadt closed, and thus Victor's training there must have occurred by this date. Volta's essay was translated in Alexander Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine for 1800 (Knight 130). Shelley originally wrote, "they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera" (Robinson, Original 72). Levere begins his history of chemistry by thinking about why the seventeenth-century scientific revolution allowed alchemical traditions to continue (1–13). Shelley recognized that alchemy played an important role in the history of chemistry, despite any Lavoisierian claims to the modernity of chemical science. "Outlines" was originally published in the Journal of the Royal Institution. In his 1802 "Essay on the Progress of Galvanism," Davy reviews Aldini's experiments, and supposes that "the animal organs are capable, in certain cases, of exerting an action similar to the metals" (2: 222). I am indebted to my physicist colleague, Nathan Harshman, for this point. Daston traces how theories of electricity "cheerfully recycled the subtle spirits of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century preternatural philosophy" (34–35). On the history of electricity, see I. Cohen, Whittaker, Meyer, Piccolino ("Galvani's Path"), Morus, Newton, Pancaldi (both works in the References), Dibner (both works in the References), and Heilbron especially. David Ketterer credits Peter Haining for having shown that Mary Shelley attended Andrew Crosse's lecture on electricity on 28 December 1814 at Garnerin's lecture hall ("Alchemy" 396). On Crosse's theatrical and enthusiastic electrical experiments, see Morus, Frankenstein's Children 132. On medicine and electricity, see Rowbottom and Susskind. Heilbron corrects the common error that Franklin had invented this concept (330). Madhavi Menon unpacks the implications of metalepsis in Wanton Words (73–78). Rhetoricians prefer not to speak of metalepsis, and this results in the fact that metalepsis has no clearly defined ontology (73). Holmes explicitly calls the battery "Voltaic" (327). Natural and man-made electricity facilitate this traffic between the living and the dead. Piccolino defends Galvani's status as scientist because he attends to experimental conditions, and he learns from his mistakes ("Galvani's Path" 306–7). The Institute of Science at Bologna "followed the scientific concepts of Malpighi who wrote about 'rational medicine' based on scientific study using new instruments and new methodologies" (Cajavilca 160). In "Outlines of a View of Galvanism," Davy asserts, by contrast, that "Galvanism was at first limited in its application to organized bodies; … it has gradually become connected with chemistry and general physics" (2: 189). Faraday sought to prove that electricity from various sources produced the same effects, and thereby might be considered identical (I. Cohen 77). Piccolino examines Galvani's journals and traces how Galvani initially compares the muscles to tourmaline because they produced signs of double electricity upon heating. He abandoned this analogy for the Leyden jar ("Galvani's Path" 313). Galvani writes "An observation that a kind of circuit of a delicate nerve fluid is made from the nerves to the muscles when the phenomenon of the contractions is produced, similar to the electric circuit which is completed in a Leyden jar" (Commentary 60). The Leyden jar analogy allowed Galvani to understand "the passive conduction of the electrical signal in nerves," but not the more prevalent active conduction (Piccolino, "Galvani's Path" 315). Dibner (1952) credits Volta and Galvani with a joint discovery, and suggests whether it is called "Galvanism or Voltaic electricity," enough honor should accrue to them both (Galvani – Volta 40). According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1771), entry on electricity, "We are entirely ignorant of the nature of this fluid …" Given how frequently scientists referred to electricity as fire, "Modern Prometheus" should be seen as a code for Electrical Scientist (Goodall 119). Galvani elaborates: "we believe therefore, that the electric fluid is produced by the activity of the cerebrum; the nerves … are carriers for a very fine … subtle fluid which is secreted from the cortical substance of the brain, as many believe. If this be the case, perhaps at last the nature of animal spirits, which has been hidden and vainly sought after for so long, will be brought to light with clarity" (79). On electricity as "spiritualist science," see Kirkby. Heilbron cautions that the boundaries between physiology and physics were indefinite and frequently crossed (29–30). On shame, see Sedgwick (61–65). Latour credits Ian Hacking with the nifty distinction between objects of nature and objects of society ("When Things Strike Back" 115). Heidegger claims that the greatness of science during the Scientific Revolution was due to the fact that scientists were philosophers: "they understood that there are no mere facts, but that a fact is only what it is in the light of a fundamental conception" (67). See Chapter One of Klein and Lefevre. Heidegger explores the ways in which thingness has an intelligibility that seems natural. Piccolino notes that this formulation of the nerves was "a basic assumption of the Leyden jar hypothesis of neuromuscular physiology" ("Galvani's Path" 309). Morus demonstrates how electricity became practical in the nineteenth century as it was harnessed by the telegraph and factory machines (Physics 54–86). Morus's "Radicals, romantics and electrical showmen" highlights the connections Tories made between experiment and French radicalism. Romantic skepticism about experiment is informed both by French Radicalism, and by the vulgarity of mechanic labor. See Cunningham. Heilbron presents Franklin as more of a bungler in electrical science (336–40). Chai warns against reading what happens in the novel primarily as a comment on the Natural Sciences (184). However, because this novel takes place in the period immediately before the rise of objectivity as the major criterion of science, his analysis has unintended resonance for thinking about science and the novel. In 1796, Volta announced his success in making "metallic electricity" instrument detectable (Pancaldi, Volta 182). Vernon mentions Volta in passing – "it is presumably a Voltaic battery which is the 'powerful engine' mentioned" (279). James and Field also lend a surface overview of electricity and the novel. Jackson overviews electricity as a science of spectacle, arguing that this kind of showmanship led to a defensiveness about electricity as science (15–16). Against the optimism of these electricians, Jackson finds Shelley to be deeply pessimistic (164). My phrasing here is very much indebted to Žižek (88). Morange (37). Hull notes how scientists rely upon "weasel words" to finesse differences. On the manifold ways in which materiality functions as an Other to consciousness, see Oerlemans. I am indebted here to Mellor (Mary Shelley 139–40). Ontological liminality is one of Jeffrey Cohen's seven theses on monsters. I thank Corie Schweitzer for pointing me to him.