For this first project of ours, I picked two texts that we read this semester: Frankenstein and On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic. I then smashed them together, attempting to blend stylistic elements and themes from them both in the same form factor as On Being Cautioned (I’ll be shortening that poems title from now on for the sake of saving space). I was initially going to write this as two poems, but instead decided to devote more of my energy towards analyzing the one piece on its own. So, here’s the poem that I’ve written:
On Being Alienated by a Lunatic for Simply Looking Like an Affront to God by Matt Travers
I am a solitary wretch who hies
O’er mountains high and arctic sea
Reflecting with hollowed yellow eyes,
Upon my miserable deformity
In a transparent pool I wretch and wry,
Convinced of the monster that I surely am
Wondering about my creation and why,
That it’s this life to which I’m damned
In this despondent haze upon the brink,
I hatch a plan which my creator will soon fear
A plan in which our fates again will interlink
I am his giant horror wildly wandering here
And I shall make him reap what he has sowed:
He’ll feel the depth and duration of my woe.
So let’s break it down. This poem follows the same sonnet form and rhyme scheme as On Being Cautioned, but departs from that sonnet heavily in the theme and narrative department. Although the theme and perspective are different, I do co-opt a few phrases and lines from the poem. In doing so I think I that completely recontextualize them, which is pretty fun. More on that later though.
So let’s start from the beginning. The title, On Being Alienated by a Lunatic for Simply Looking Like an Affront to God, is an obvious allusion to On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic. Aside from being a bit fun, this also serves a few purposes for the poem. First, It helps allude to the voice of this poem, which is Frankenstein’s monster. Second, it tees up the theme. Alienation is a major theme in Frankenstein (and even to a lesser extent in On Being Cautioned), and although it may be a bit blunt to just use one of the main themes in the title, it sounds like something that the monster could’ve said, so I think it works.
As we move into the actual poem, we should probably cover the narrative. So here it goes as I see it at least: monster looks into reflecting pool, monster realizes that he’s a horrible monster, monster decides to exempt revenge on his creator. This sequence of monologuing while reflecting actually happens in the book, on page 74 (of my copy at least) at the end of volume 2 chapter 4. That was my primary inspiration for this piece. Here is the direct quote which I’m referencing:
“I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers – their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.”
I directly reference this passage by noting the transparent pool and lifting a few terms which the monster uses to refer to himself, like “the monster that I am,” “sensations of despondence,” and “miserable deformity.” Some of these were modified slightly in my poem, but they’re all essentially the same. I did this to in part reference the text directly, and to also make the piece truer to the monsters actual voice.
To reference On Being Cautioned, I co-opt large chunks of the 1st, 12th, and 14th lines. I borrow the first line almost wholesale but vary it slightly, from “Is there a solitary wretch who hies” to “I am a solitary wretch that hies.” This projects that description onto the narrator instead of some unknown crazy person, and also helps to ease the readers into the poem. I wrote this for this class, so I think it’s safe to assume that y’all have read the poem that I’m referencing. As such, this should give the reader a bit of deja vu while also introducing the idea that this poem is going to be similar but different. As for the 12th and 14th lines, I thought it was a fun way to tie up the poem while referencing what it’s based on. Instead of a narrator that is jealous of a subjects inability to understand how awful the world is, our narrator is describing themselves as a monster which shall seek to make its creator experience just how horrible its world is. It’s a fun twist in my opinion, and can hopefully offer an “oh man” moment to someone familiar with the original poem.
On towards the actual meaning. This poem shares the somewhat existential tones of Frankenstein and On Being Cautioned. A lot of the monsters underlying frustrations are him feeling like he was created with no purpose and that his life was unnatural and whatnot, which he then takes out on his creator. I really think that the narrative of Frankenstein (if told from the monsters perspective) really does boil down to the main points that I outlined in this poem. Monster is created, monster realizes that he’s a monster, monster decides to exempt revenge on his creator, monster exempts revenge. This poem is just a distillation of that in my view. Like, if this were an epic poem or something, this could totally have been part of the monsters monologue when he was talking to the captain after Victors death. Although it isn’t as wordy as he tends to be. Such are the limitations of sonnets.
Anyway, this was pretty fun. Any excuse I can get to sharpen my sonnet sculpting skills. I was very conscious about how cringey or blunt a poem from the monsters POV could be, and I really tried to be subtle and artful about it. Hopefully that’s come across here. I think I packed a lot more double meaning into the project than I’d initially planned on, so I hope that it reads as an okay poem first, and is a bridge between the two works second. Thanks for taking the time to read it!
Wow, this is such a cool project idea! I love how you were able to combine both the poem’s original tone and the creature’s perspective so seamlessly, like they were meant to be one. The title alone is so brillant and immediately caught my attention. I also appreciate that you broke down the lines and how you put this together, it was so insightful and interesting. Great job!
It is awesome that you were able to find a way to tie poetry into this essay/unessay. I wanted to do something like that, as I really love poetry, but I just couldn’t figure out a good plan. It is cool that you found a poem to relative to our readings of the novel. This whole thing reminds me of those close reading and analysis projects I used to do in Professor Goode’s classes. Great work!
I think “smashing” them together worked out well actually (and im not just talking about the clever title.) As for the poem, you made something that is stylistically familiar while at the same time creating a new narrative, great job! Also, the amount of detail you put into writing this is really something to be admired for. It really felt like I was reading a poem straight from the past! Also, thank you for explaining what exactly you were covering in the poem citing textual evidence as why the monster says what he says in the poem. The poem along with the explanation and thorough walk through were executed wonderfully! I love this project! And for goodness sake, please keep writing poetry because you clearly have a talent for it!