Mary W. Shelley's novel Frankenstein is in part a parable on the arrogance of human beings in thinking they can supplant God. In this regard, the novel contrasts Rationalism and Romanticism and finds Rationalism wanting. Romantic notions of the time can be illustrated by reference to William Blake's poem "Milton" and to the Shelley novel.
In the nineteenth century, the prevailing artistic style for the first part of the century was romanticism, an art based on a form of "disorder," but a disorder seen as the emblem of the unfettered processes of the imagination. Fully developed Romanticism followed the cults of nature and of feeling which developed in the course of the eighteenth century and involved certain contradictions, embracing free thought on the one hand and religious mysticism on the other. Romanticism was the heir to the spirit of the French Revolution, a spirit of freedom and self-determination manifested artistically as freedom of expression. It contrasts sharply with the controlled and ordered world of classicism in the Renaissance period, but it bears a relation to the mode of thought that created humanism and an emphasis on individual thought. The Romantic spirit can be seen in much of the poetry of William Blake, poetry marked by mystic visions and a continuous connection to the infinite.
In his poem "Milton," Blake sets up a deliberate contrast between mind and spirit, between rationalism and emotionalism. He refers to the "Reasoning Power in Man" as "a false Body: an Incrustation (scab) over my Immortal spirit." Blake says that rationalism is something that "must be put off and annihilated always" because it is harmful to the true nature of the self, which is rather emotional, romantic, and spontaneous. Blake says that he will "cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Savior." He elevates Inspiration, a Romantic notion, over Memory, associated with reason. He casts off the Rationalism of B...