WEBVTT - The Romantics of Villa Diodati 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:08.160 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.760 Hi, this is Danish Schwartz. Just a quick message if 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.400 you want to support Noble Blood. We have a Patreon. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.720 It's at patreon dot com slash Noble Blood Tales, where 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.920 I post episode scripts and bonus contents like I'm currently 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.160 watching through the CW series Rain. We also have Noble 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.640 Blood merch at DFTBA dot com, and I have a 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.559 book that's out that is all linked in the episode description. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.080 But of course the best possible support is just listening 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:44.560 to the podcast, and you don't need to do any 0:00:44.600 --> 0:01:00.600 of that. In April eighteen fifteen, the world world bore 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.360 witness to one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:10.520 human history when Mount Tambora, centered on the Indonesian island Sumbawa, erupted. 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:16.120 It sent debris, gas and lava to decimate the surrounding area, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:21.479 cloaking the island's inhabitants. In a two day long darkness. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.520 Tsunamis were triggered across the Java Sea and oceans of 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:32.480 Ash tore through forest and grassland, an estimated ten thousand 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:38.040 people were killed instantly. Tambora's impact was felt far and wide. 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.640 By the next year, a massive dust cloud had formed 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:46.119 in the atmosphere, which climate scientists now believe was partially 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:50.760 responsible for a great chill that swept across the northern Hemisphere. 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.840 It led to crop failure and famine, unrest, and migration. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.840 The period became known as the Year without a Summer, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.440 with Europe covered in fog and frost even through the 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:11.200 typically warmer months. Take a description of the weather in Geneva, Switzerland, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:17.639 on May seventeenth quote. The spring, as the inhabitants informed us, 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.639 was unusually late, and indeed the cold was excessive. As 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.480 we ascended the mountains, the same clouds which rained on 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.560 us in the valleys poured forth large flakes of snow, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:35.920 thick and fast. The sun occasionally shone through these showers 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:41.280 and illuminated the magnificent ravines of the mountains, whose gigantic 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:46.160 pines were some laden with snow, some wreathed round by 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.520 the lines of scattered and lingering vapor. Others darted their 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:55.119 dark spires into the sunny sky, brilliantly clear and azure. 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.440 These are the words of the young Merry Wollstonecraft Godwin 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.640 as she documented her journey to Geneva alongside her soon 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.440 to be husband, the poet Percy Shelley, their four month 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:14.600 old son William, and Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont. Also finding 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.959 his way to Geneva was Claire's former flame, Lord Byron, 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.920 England's most scandalous celebrity of the moment, whose trip to 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.120 the country was less vacation and more of an escape 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:33.120 from the increasingly scornful public eye. Traveling with Byron was 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.640 his personal physician, John Polidori, who had literary aspirations of 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.640 his own. Shelley and Byron were already fans of each 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.520 other's work, so when the two parties crossed paths at 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.440 the hands of a still love sick Claire, who was 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.760 the one who casually suggested Geneva in the first place, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.720 it seemed only natural that they would rent accommodations near 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.840 each other. The Shelley crew, not particularly well off, ran 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.520 into a modest house called the Maisson Chapuis, located just 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:09.119 below a rather lavish mansion rented by Byron Villa Diodati. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.200 For days on end, the unseasonable rain was relentless, and 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.880 the entire group was forced to spend much of their 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:21.720 time together inside the villa. Their nights were spent discussing 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:26.719 literary projects and debating philosophy. One of their favorite topics 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.200 was whether or not human corpses could be re animated. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:36.000 Mary later described herself as a devout but nearly silent 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.120 listener of those debates between the men. At some point, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.520 Byron proposed a competition to pass the time. Everyone was 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.440 to try to come up with their own ghost story. 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.279 From a contest among a reigned in group of romantics, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.320 two new Gothic horror genres were born from the ashes 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:05.279 of Tambora wrote Monsters. I'm Danas Schwartz and this is 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:14.640 noble blood. First things first, let's establish the players at 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:20.239 Villa Diodati that summer. Let's start with George Byron. Where 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.039 we meet George Gordon Byron, the sixth Baron Byron in 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.200 our story, is not a particularly high point in his life. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.800 Close friends would say that he was leaving England of 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.280 his own volition. According to the Baron John cam Hobhouse quote, 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.120 there was not the slightest necessity, even in appearance, for 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.640 his going abroad those who weren't close friends would tell 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.000 a very different tale. The eighteen twelve publication of his 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:55.919 poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage made Byron a nearly instant literary celebrity. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.800 He was the darling of London society, of fixture at 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.880 their parties and in the hearts and minds of women. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.560 He was incredibly vain, likely fueled by his insecurities about 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:14.200 his clubbed right foot, and he acted as incredibly vain 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:19.520 men do. Despite his fame and title, Byron was not 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:24.280 born well off. His father, the former British officer nicknamed 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.279 mad Jack. Byron, had only married his mother from her money, 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.560 and he squandered it all away quite quickly. Mad Jack 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.039 then abandoned his wife and young son to fend for themselves. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.839 After his uncle died without an heir, Byron inherited his 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.720 minor title of baron and all that came with it. 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.440 But it was Byron's poetry that truly allowed him to 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:53.159 gain access to society. A reputation came with his status mad, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.800 bad and dangerous to know. In the words of Caroline Lamb, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.680 noble Blood alumnus and one of Byron's most famous ex lovers, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.080 or take the words of writer Amelia Opie, another one 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.520 of the women that Byron charmed, quote such a voice 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.560 as the devil tempted Eve with you feared its fascination 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:20.040 the moment you heard it. At this point, however, the 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:28.200 gossip surrounding Byron went beyond hedonism and womanizing. Byron's January 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:33.400 of eighteen fifteen marriage to Caroline Lamb's cousin Annabella, was 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:38.280 doomed from the start. Feeling trapped in monogamy, he began 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:43.920 to act out as Caroline predicted Byron quote would never 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.560 be able to pull with a woman who went to church, punctually, 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:53.120 understood statistics, and had a bad figure within his circle. 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:58.640 He became less secretive of past homosexual affairs and spoken 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.520 innuendos as to the nature of his relationship with his 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.640 half sister Augusta. Just a year after they were wed, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.920 Annabella took the couple's infant daughter, Ada to her parents' 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.800 home in Leicestershire. A few short weeks later, Annabella's father, 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.960 Sir Ralph Milbank, wrote to Byron to formally request a separation. 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.880 After that, rumors that had been contained within the Inno 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:33.079 literary circle began to spread across the city. The flames 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:37.119 of these wildfires were in some part fueled by Caroline herself, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:45.240 who famously wanted to see her ex lover burn marital violence, adultery, incest, sodomy. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:51.160 Byron's public image was becoming truly dangerous to know. Writing 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:56.319 from London to Leicestershire, Augusta rather awkwardly informed her half 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.640 sister in law of quote reports abroad of a nature 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.480 too horrible to repeat. Every other sinks into nothing besides 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:10.720 this most horrid one. In the same letter, Augusta quotes 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.560 Byron's response to the rumors, or rather one of the rumors, 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.440 quote even to have such a thing said is utter 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.880 destruction and ruin to a man from which he can 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:27.280 never recover. So which rumor was Byron referencing. It's worth 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:31.280 noting at this point that many historians believe the incest 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:36.160 rumors to be true, and that Elizabeth Medora Lee, Augusta's 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.560 third daughter is still likely thought to be Byron's. Despite 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.280 its taboo, incest was not a criminal offense in England 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.560 at this point, so it's actually more likely that it 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:52.800 was the sodomy accusations that ultimately dissuaded Byron from protesting 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.960 his role in the divorce proceedings in court. Whether you 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.520 believe Hobhouse that Byron was simply heading out for a vacation, 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.440 or whether you're more inclined to believe the considerable evidence 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.960 pointing to the contrary, the fact is that in April 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:14.439 Byron left England, never to return. He ordered a carriage 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.360 modeled after Napoleon's, which had been famously captured as the 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:22.840 general fled Waterloo just the year before Byron's exile. It's 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:27.720 not hard to imagine why Byron identified with Napoleon's indulgence 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.880 and tragedy. As Byron once told a friend, quote with me, 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.520 there is, as Napoleon said, but one step between the 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:41.200 sublime and the ridiculous. Byron's traveling companion was his newly 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:46.480 certified physician, twenty year old John Polidori. It's unknown why 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:51.839 exactly Byron invited Polodori, despite protests from Hobhouse, but there 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.960 are several good guesses as to why the doctor accepted, 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.760 one being the offer of quote no less than a 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.280 sum of five hundred pounds for an account of Byron's 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:07.880 forthcoming tour from Byron's publisher, John Murray, Also on their 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.520 way to Geneva, of course, were Mary and Percy Shelley. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.920 Mary wasn't technically a Shelley at this point. While the 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.160 couple had eloped nearly two years earlier, they wouldn't wed 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:28.480 until December eighteen sixteen, after Percy's first wife ultimately committed suicide. Yes, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.200 when the famous lovers met, the twenty one year old 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:37.479 Percy was already married to another sixteen year old girl, Harriet, 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.440 with whom he had fathered a child. Percy was a 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.640 great fan of Mary's father, William Godwin, and he would 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.880 join the family for dinner, eventually visiting nearly every day. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:55.480 Percy's anti Christian and pro free love views had drawn 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.800 him to Godwin's famously anarchic works. At this point, young 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.120 Percy had been kicked out of Oxford for his atheism 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.240 and disowned by his wealthy father. He was living up 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.160 to his childhood nickname Mad Shelley, given to him by 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.080 Bullys at Eton College for his head in the cloud's attitude, 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:20.600 his refusal to adhere to hazing traditions, and his sometimes 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:24.839 violent bouts of anger. Shelley even claims his own father 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.600 once tried to have him admitted to a mad house 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:33.560 in Godwin, Percy sought both a mentor and a surrogate parent. 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.080 Though Percy and Mary had actually met once before, uneventfully 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.280 in eighteen twelve. When Percy came around again two years later, 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.480 Mary was immediately smitten with his poems, his politics, and 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:53.480 his quote wild intellectual, unearthly looks, as Percy's friend Thomas 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.800 Jefferson Hogg had described them. Neither Godwin nor Mary's stepmother 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.040 approved of the so Percy and Mary would often sneak 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:08.200 off together, namely to a local churchyard, Saint Pancras Old Church. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.840 The churchyard was Mary's favorite spot, her retreat, where she 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.560 spent an obsessive amount of time seeking peace and a 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:22.480 connection with one woman buried there, her mother, the famous 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.920 writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The Elder. Mary was one of the 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.920 most prominent writers of her time and one of the 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:35.200 most radical. Her seventeen ninety two treatise A Vindication of 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.360 the Rights of Women is often considered the first English 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:45.240 language feminist text. By the time Mary Wollstonecraft met Godwin, 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.720 a fellow radical, she already had a daughter, Fanny, born 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.520 from an affair with an American businessman, When Mary and 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.760 Godwin got together and Mary became pregnant for the second time, 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.360 they agreed that marriage would be best for the children, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:06.440 despite neither of them believing in the practice. Baby Mary 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:11.200 was born healthy, but her mother suffered complications. It was 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:16.720 ultimately the result of unhygienic medical practices that Mary Wollstonecraft 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.320 would not live to raise her daughter. She died of 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:25.600 a bacterial infection just eleven days after giving birth. Though 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.360 Godwin did not resent the baby Mary for the death 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.480 of his wife, she grew up knowing that she was 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:37.040 somehow responsible for her mother's absence. Still, Godwin kept his 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.840 late wife's presence in Mary's life. A portrait of her 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.480 was hung above the stairs, where young Mary saw it 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.680 every day, and her father would frequently take her to 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.960 visit her mother's grave site at the same church where 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.000 the late Mary and Godwin had been married not too 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.960 long before. It said that young Mary learned how to 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.440 write her own name from tracing the engraving on her 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:05.160 mother's headstone. In the words of literary critic Sandra M. Gilbert, 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:10.960 Mary's only real mother was a tombstone. As young Mary 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:15.400 grew up, the grave became her place of solace, increasingly 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.440 so after her father remarried. She would carry piles of 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.720 books from her home and spend the day reading with 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.920 her mother. Mary frequently re read her mother's own work, 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:32.280 absorbing her knowledge, searching for it. In herself quote, I 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.360 conceive it to be the duty of every rational creature 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:40.320 to attend to its offspring, Wollstonecraft had written in Thoughts 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.480 on the Education of Daughters in seventeen eighty seven. While 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.920 Wollstonecraft was not able to attend to her own daughter, 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:53.480 Mary would recreate her presence as best she could. Bringing 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.880 Percy to the grave, then, was the ultimate vulnerability, the 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:03.440 ultimate invitation into her prime world. On Sunday, June twenty sixth, 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.239 eighteen fourteen, Mary brought Percy to the grave and declared 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:13.480 her love. He reciprocated, and it's notoriously believed that they 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:18.160 consummated the relationship then and there in the graveyard, an 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:23.920 inspiration to future Goths everywhere. While the story seems almost 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.600 too gothic to be true, we can assume that they 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.160 did in fact sleep together for the first time that 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.880 day in the graveyard or elsewhere, As Percy refers to 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.200 the day in his journal entries as his true birthday. 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.640 The couple eloped later that summer, to the disapproval of Godwin. 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.360 He still opposed marriage despite his own and was concerned 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:54.080 with Percy's increasing debt. Though he didn't outright disown Mary, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:59.040 the relationship between father and daughter became distant and cold 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.160 after Mary left for France with her new quote unquote husband. 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.680 When the couple ran out of money, a then pregnant 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:14.840 Mary asked her father for assistance, he denied her. In 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:20.200 February of eighteen fifteen, Mary gave birth prematurely to a daughter, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.840 who would die within a month. Mary was plunged into 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.639 a deep depression and would consider herself haunted by the 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:32.160 baby for years. Nonetheless, in January of the next year, 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.320 she gave birth to a son and named him William, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:39.280 after her father. That summer, at the urging of her 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:44.040 stepsister Claire, the Shelleys decided to follow Lord Byron on 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.480 a trip to Geneva. Of note is the fact that 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.480 Claire was pregnant with a child rumored at the time 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.840 to actually be Percy's. There's no actual evidence of an 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.679 affair between Claire and Percy, and we now know that 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.120 the wild in fact belonged to another free loving poet, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:08.919 Lord Byron. Lake Geneva was an ideal spot for a 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.040 romantic poet. It was surrounded by vineyards and hugged by 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.600 the silhouette of the Alps snowy peaks in the distance. 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.400 The crescent moon shaped body of water is the largest 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:25.040 and deepest in Central Europe. Mary described it lavishly in 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.960 her travel journal as quote blue as the heavens, which 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:34.159 it reflects. During summers when there hasn't been recent volcanic activity, 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.960 the lake is warm enough to swim in. Situated on 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.520 top of a hill, overlooking those heavenly depths and the 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:48.240 stretching vineyards is the stately salmon pink Villa Diodati. The 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:53.119 villa still stands today, its exterior largely unchanged from the 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.800 time of the group's day, from its teal shuttered windows 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:01.520 to its expansive balcony. Though private owned, it's still a 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.360 habit for literary tourists to try to catch a glimpse 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.159 of the mansion from nearby walking ways. This is a 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:14.359 tradition that began in eighteen sixteen, when hotels started to 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:19.000 charge English tourists to spy on the villa from telescopes 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.679 across the lake. That's how famous Byron and his friends 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.280 were at the time. It said that people would sail 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.960 by in boats hoping to peek at the women's underwear 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.439 on the washing lines, or see anything to confirm that 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.560 the villa was as debaucherous as it was in their imaginations. 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.040 It was even deemed a quote league of incest at 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:46.159 the time. Those words often attributed to the prominent poet 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:52.400 Robert Southey. There's no actual evidence for the knightly orgies 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.960 that were rumored to be happening there, and there was 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:59.119 even an outright denial from Byron. Quote so much for 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:04.040 scoundrels Southeast story of incest. Neither was there any promiscuous 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.840 intercourse whatever. Both are an invention of the execrable villain Southey, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:14.440 whom I will term so publicly as he deserves end quote. Still, 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:19.280 the group's entangled web of romantic and platonic connections to 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.160 one another, combined with the presence of the eager voyeurs 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.920 across the lake, would soon contribute to an environment of claustrophobia. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.800 Lest we forget, thanks to the weather, they were quite 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.720 literally confined to the house. It proved a wet ungenial 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.119 summer and incessant rain often confined us for days to 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:45.240 the house. Mary would later describe. She recounted that during 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:50.400 these periods, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others, 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.640 the nature of the principle of life and whether there 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.919 was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.360 to ground Byron and Percy's wild imaginations was the medical 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.080 knowledge of Polodori, Who's due for a proper introduction in 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:12.280 our story now. John Polodori had never intended to study medicine, 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.040 but his father forced him to follow the track he 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.960 envisioned for his son, and he had enrolled him in 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.000 the University of Edinburgh to study the science. Though John 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.520 never stood up to his father, He resented his rigidity, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:29.119 which likely played a part in his hatred for both 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:34.360 medicine and school. Over the course of his reluctant education, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:40.240 Polodori discovered a passion for literature. Still, he dutifully finished 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.280 his schooling and became a doctor at age twenty. At 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.560 the time, however, in order to practice in London, a 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:51.320 doctor had to be at least twenty six. It was 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.080 during this waiting period that Polodori took the job of 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.800 Byron's physician, which was offered thanks to a connection of 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:04.000 his father. Their relationship was doomed from the start, each 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.560 man self obsessed in his own way, but only one 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.359 with the prestige to back it up and the current 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:14.280 need for an emotional punching bag. At one of Byron's 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.080 last dinners with friends in England, Polodori had asked his 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.679 new employer if he could read a bit of a 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.560 play he had written. Byron agreed, if only to have 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:28.240 the opportunity to play the role of mean girl and 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:33.040 skewer Polodori's efforts for the laughter of the table. In 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.919 another exchange, the doctor had asked the poet, what is 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.440 there accepting writing poetry that I cannot do better than you? 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:45.040 Byron calmly replied, first, I can hit with a pistol 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.520 the keyhole of that door. Secondly, I can swim across 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.640 that river to yonder point, and thirdly I can give 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.800 you a damned good thrashing. If you're feeling for Polodori 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:58.359 right now, keep in mind that at least all of 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.520 that would probably provide him with good material later on. 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.920 Back to the villa. During one of those indoor stretches, 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.639 the group began to read pieces from Phantasmagoriana, a French 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:15.879 anthology of German ghost stories. It was this collection that 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.919 gave Byron his famous idea, We will each write a 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.439 ghost story, he said, as Mary later recounted. Namely excluded 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:28.879 from each was Claire, who cared less about writing and 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:33.960 more about a certain writer. While the contest was a 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:36.719 fun way to pass the time, it was also a 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.119 desperately needed distraction from the growing tensions mounting in the house. 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.159 Claire was determined to make the trip worthwhile to resume 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:50.600 her affair with Byron. Despite his initial resistance, Claire got 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:54.120 what she came for. I never loved her, nor pretended 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.119 to love her, Byron wrote, But a man is a man, 0:23:57.240 --> 0:23:59.679 and if a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:04.000 at all hours, there is but what way? Classic Byron. 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:09.960 Some sources report that Paulodori became infatuated with Mary, who 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.919 remained devoted to Percy and rejected his advances. As the 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:20.560 doctor would recount, Mary instead saw Polidori as a brother. Percy, meanwhile, 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:24.639 was described as falling into a depression. He struggled with 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:28.320 mental illness from a young age, and the claustrophobic environment 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:32.280 was beginning to weigh on his psyche. For example, one 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:36.560 dark and stormy evening, Byron read verses from Samuel Taylor 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:42.360 Coleridge's poem christabel in which a supernatural creature is disguising 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.520 itself as a woman named Geraldine in order to trick 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:51.679 the titular character. One particularly relevant section reads, behold her 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:56.200 bosom and half her side, hideous, deformed, and pale of Hugh, 0:24:56.800 --> 0:24:59.720 A site to dream of, not to tell, and she 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:04.680 is to sleep by Christabelle. Percy fled from the room, 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:09.400 screaming in a fit of fantasy. As Byron described it, 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:12.720 it was only when Polodori threw water in Percy's face 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:16.000 and gave him ether, the anesthetic of the time, that 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:20.280 he calmed down. They say Percy had been haunted by 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:24.640 visions of a monstrous woman whom some accounts describe as 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:30.720 Mary with eyes instead of nipples on her breasts. Clearly 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:35.280 inspired enough, the guests began to write and share their 0:25:35.320 --> 0:25:40.520 ghost stories. Byron and Percy went first, both presenting the 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:44.560 beginnings of works that they would never finish. Percy's story, 0:25:44.640 --> 0:25:48.000 which Mary remembered to have been inspired by his childhood, 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:53.720 is now completely lost Byron's story. The fragment of a novel, however, 0:25:54.160 --> 0:25:57.320 can still be read in full. His story centered on 0:25:57.400 --> 0:26:00.879 a young man traveling in Turkey with an old companion, 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:07.440 the wealthy aristocratic Augustus Darville. The elder's health declines rapidly, 0:26:07.880 --> 0:26:11.360 and while the two rest in a Turkish cemetery, Darvill 0:26:11.520 --> 0:26:15.320 asks his companion to tell no one of his impending death. 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:19.080 The old man gives the younger a ring and asks 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:23.119 him to perform a ceremony with it, before turning black 0:26:23.320 --> 0:26:29.080 and instantly disintegrating. The end, the doctor hadn't managed to 0:26:29.119 --> 0:26:35.600 come up with anything worthwhile, yet, Mary, later recalled poor Polidori, 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:39.440 had some terrible idea about a skull headed lady who 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:45.679 was so punished for peeping through a keyhole. Mary, for 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:48.960 her part, early on, was struck with a serious case 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:53.560 of writer's block. I was asked each morning and each evening, 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:57.520 I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative, She wrote. 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:02.160 Her devout but nearly silent listening to the scientific debates 0:27:02.240 --> 0:27:05.200 of the men would soon pay off, though, having made 0:27:05.240 --> 0:27:10.200 its way into her subconscious. One conversation in particular, had 0:27:10.240 --> 0:27:15.080 the greatest impact. They talked of the experiments of doctor Darwin, 0:27:15.560 --> 0:27:18.960 who preserved a piece of Vermicelli in a glass case 0:27:19.280 --> 0:27:22.560 till by some extraordinary means, it began to move with 0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:28.240 voluntary motion. Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated. Galvanism had 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:32.040 given token of such things. Perhaps the component parts of 0:27:32.080 --> 0:27:36.280 a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endowed with 0:27:36.440 --> 0:27:41.680 vital warmth. These images and ideas embedded themselves in her 0:27:41.720 --> 0:27:46.879 mind and birthed perhaps the most famous dream of all time. 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:52.080 As Mary wrote, Knight waned upon this talk. When I 0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:55.520 placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, 0:27:56.040 --> 0:27:59.320 nor could I be said to think. I saw, with 0:27:59.440 --> 0:28:03.840 shut eyes, but acute mental vision. I saw the pale 0:28:03.960 --> 0:28:08.000 student of unhallowed arts, kneeling beside the thing he had 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:11.440 put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:16.119 stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, 0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:21.359 showed signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half 0:28:21.560 --> 0:28:25.919 vital motion. By her account, it was right then and 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:29.920 there after, opening her eyes in terror, that Mary Shelley 0:28:30.119 --> 0:28:35.119 began to draft Frankenstein. She recounts, I returned to my 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:39.640 ghost story, my tiresome, unlucky ghost story. I have found it. 0:28:40.040 --> 0:28:43.960 What terrified me will terrify others. And I need only 0:28:44.080 --> 0:28:47.880 describe the specter which has haunted my midnight pillow on 0:28:47.960 --> 0:28:50.600 the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. 0:28:50.880 --> 0:28:54.760 I began that day with the words. That night, Mary 0:28:54.800 --> 0:28:58.240 Shelley read a passage to the group that began. It 0:28:58.400 --> 0:29:05.719 was on a dreary night of November. As Frankenstein developed 0:29:05.760 --> 0:29:09.840 from ghost story to novel, Villa Diodatti remained in its 0:29:09.960 --> 0:29:15.400 DNA even beyond Victor Frankenstein's Geneva family origins and the 0:29:15.520 --> 0:29:18.560 number of scenes that take place at Lake Geneva itself. 0:29:19.040 --> 0:29:22.840 The year without a Summer feels present in her descriptions 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:26.360 of the natural world that Victor and his creature experience. 0:29:27.280 --> 0:29:30.600 One of the very first sentences of the novel reads, 0:29:31.240 --> 0:29:34.720 this breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which 0:29:34.720 --> 0:29:38.440 I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. 0:29:38.960 --> 0:29:42.720 Inspired by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more 0:29:42.800 --> 0:29:46.080 fervent and vivid. I try, in vain to be persuaded 0:29:46.080 --> 0:29:48.800 that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation. 0:29:49.360 --> 0:29:52.719