Frankenstein vs the Zeitgeist
The boxing match between Frankenstein (the book) and the Zeitgeist rages, and the Zeitgeist wins by a landslide. Because while Frankenstein was putting on gloves, the Zeitgeist used a time machine and killed him in his sleep. The point is with the Zeitgeist you’ve lost before you’ve even started for one simple reason. The Zeitgeist is created after we are long dead and gone.
Zeitgeist, German for spirit of time is defined:
The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.
In a psychology dictionary they define it as: “that pervades the ideas, attitudes, and feelings of a particular society in a specific historical period.”
The Zeitgeist doesn’t care about you at all, it’s always determined after the fact, that’s what history is about. It happens, then it gets ironed into what you consider the sacred timeline. It’s a give and take, some things get left, some things get hammered. It is sad but there is nothing we can do to change the “spirit of time.” So don’t enter the creative space thinking that way, the Zeitgeist is not your enemy, your stories will have an impact on people, leave time to the wind.
Frankenstein still reads fantastically at the height of English romantic literature (the literary movement was between 1790–1850). So…
