I learned . . . thoughts
The Creature turns from Goethe's novel
of isolated sensibility, where he sees his own reflection (and we to some
extent see Victor's) to contemplate the public and civic models of Plutarch's biographical accounts,
engaging a world of social interaction and nation-building of which he has
no experience whatsoever. Thus the accounts draw him forth from his own
isolation to imagine a larger cultural sphere of action in which he might
participate.
