Contents Index

dejection

The theme of dejection is a significant component of "dark" Romanticism. The most influential exploration of it in the canon of British Romanticism is that found in "Dejection: An Ode" by Coleridge, whose "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" has already figured in the structure of the novel (Letter 2.5). Of the major Romantic poets (besides Percy Bysshe Shelley), Coleridge seems to have had the greatest impact on Mary Shelley's writing in Frankenstein.