When Art Inspires Literature

There is a story which has been handed down through literary history, which may be an urban myth, and might well be fact. It is that of a nightmare sparked by a famous (or rather, infamous) painting by Henri Fuseli upon the opium addled mind of Mary Shelley which led her to create the story of Frankenstein.

Years ago, I saw a rather bad film called “Haunted Summer” which was based loosely upon the relationship between Shelley, her husband and Byron. The painting by Fuseli looms throughout the film and eventually causes the nightmare which spawns Frankenstein. This was my first encounter with the famous painting and my first with the incubus, which I have since often mixed-up with the other soul sucking demon, the female of the type; the succubus. So remember boys and girls- incubus is a boy, succubus is a girl. Both are nasty little buggers who suck your soul out and rape you in the night.

So-other than a nasty nightmare, how do the two intersect? Interestingly enough, the artist is said to have had a very odd affair with one Mary Wollstonecraft- Shelly’s mother. Seems that Wollstonecraft fell utterly in love with the married Fuseli, and she poured her platonic love over him like the waves of a turbulent storm. So enamored with him was she, that she approached
Fuseli’s wife with a proposal. Since her love for him was so utterly platonic, wouldn’t it be lovely if the three of them lived together? With that, Fuseli had to end their odd unconsummated affair. Heartbroken, Mary Wollstonecraft went on to marry someone else. Then she died giving birth to the girl who would become Mary Shelley.

Nineteen years later, back in Fuseli's homeland of Switzerland, Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein as an exercise in Gothic style. The day of Gothic novels was past by then, but Frankenstein became the most famous Gothic novel of them all.

There are two versions of this painting-once much more sinister than the other. In the first, the incubus seems almost munchkin-like, and there is less terror in the scene overall. In the second, it seems that Fuseli delves deep into horror for inspiration. The eyes of the horse are stricken with fear, and the face of the incubus is much more sinister.

As a final tasty little note; Sigmund Freud was known to have an engraving of this work in his Vienna apartment in the 1920s.
Interesting, eh?