"Geografia e immaginazione. Mondi possibili e d'invenzione in 'Frankenstein' di Mary Shelley".

The Aristotelian mimetic principle – especially in its imitative function of «terrible and com- passionate facts», or because of the «marvellous» aspect of some narrated episodes, inevitably determined by the fortunate design of the τύχη – could offer an interesting reading hypothesis for the thematic articulation and narrative structure of the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). To the same extent – and again drawing from the treatise of Aristotle – to the μίμησις in Mary Shelley’s novel should be combined the principle of εἰκὸς: the «verosimile», as a guarantor of the mimetic version offered in the literary work and through the representability of the reality to the what that same work is inspired by. The theoretical binary links of μίμησις and εἰκῶς in Frankenstein must, therefore, be traced back to the narrative genre option (Gary Kelly): the frame is that of the black or gothic novel – an atypical epistolary novel that collects only the letters of the sender adding some diaristic inserts – not free from «metaphysical anguish» and «scientific advances» in the manner of the «possible utopias» of HG Wells (Mario Praz). In parallel, according to the parameters of the imitation and the Aristotelian verisimilar, the setting seems to be drawn – empathic landscapes that extend from the Mediterranean heat of Naples to the desolate and icy wastes of Northern Europe – and the characterization of the monster-protagonist.