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Article: Through the looking glass: Victor Frankenstein and Robert Owen.
- Article from:
- Extrapolation
- Article date:
- September 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Extrapolation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Robert Owen (1771-1858) was a philanthropic mill owner of the era of the Industrial Revolution, who became so immersed in social reform that he abandoned business, and by the end of his life was hailed as the "Father of Socialism." Victor Frankenstein was the fictional maker of the Creature.
It may seem perverse to take a real-life character and a fictional one, and set them alongside one another. But it offers a suggestive way of approaching a larger odd couple: Romanticism and a clutch of movements of rational social reform and governance, including Utilitarianism and Political Economy. This pair, of course, were not always obviously separated at the time. ...