Cynthia Sugars

Monstrous Origins

Introduction

Monstrous origins. Analyze Margaret Atwood's "Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein" and its 2012 re-release, examining how it portrays Canadian literature as a Gothic monster at its origins.

Abstract

In 1966, Margaret Atwood and her long-time artist friend Charles Pachter produced a handmade collaborative text entitled Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein. The book is a series of poems by Atwood, spoken through the imagined voice of Doctor Frankenstein about the perils of creation, and was illustrated with Pachter’s evocative woodcuts. Only 15 copies of the work were produced. In 2012, Anansi Press issued an eBook version to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Atwood’s well-known guidebook to Canadian literature, Survival. The eBook of Speeches was promoted by Anansi, not only as an act of Frankensteinian creation (the physical book was literally hand-sewn and put together from bits and pieces, including human hair), but also as a work that distilled the “Gothic origins” of Canadian literature. The marketing of the eBook turned Canadian literature into a Gothic monster, taking readers back to the moment when, according to their promotional video, “a piece of Canadian cultural history is created,” here packaged for resale as a virtual and elusive cultural artifact. By launching the two works in tandem – Survival and Speeches – Anansi led readers to consider the ways that Canadian literature in 2012 was itself a monster looking back to the (textual) origins of its birth and survival.

Review

"Monstrous Origins" offers a compelling analysis of the 2012 eBook re-release of Margaret Atwood and Charles Pachter's 1966 collaborative text, *Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein*. The article promises to explore how this digital reincarnation, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Atwood’s *Survival*, was framed and marketed by Anansi Press. The central argument appears to be a focused examination of how the promotional strategies leveraged the "Frankensteinian" nature of the original physical book—its handmade, "bits and pieces" construction—to cast Canadian literature as a "Gothic monster" reflecting on its own "origins" and "survival." The paper's strength lies in its nuanced attention to the *marketing* and *promotion* surrounding the eBook. By analyzing Anansi's rhetoric, which explicitly connected the physical book's artisanal creation (complete with human hair) to a broader narrative of Canadian literature's "Gothic origins," the author provides a fresh perspective on how literary history is constructed and commodified. The analysis of the promotional video and the concept of Canadian literature as a "virtual and elusive cultural artifact" effectively demonstrates the strategic re-packaging of cultural heritage for contemporary consumption, offering a unique lens through which to view the interplay between authorship, publishing, and national identity. Ultimately, "Monstrous Origins" makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Atwood's early oeuvre, the evolving landscape of digital publishing, and the ongoing negotiation of Canadian literary identity. By dissecting how a single marketing campaign reshaped perceptions of both a specific text and an entire national literature, the paper prompts readers to critically examine the narratives we construct around "origins" and "creation." It underscores how these narratives are not merely historical accounts, but actively created and perpetuated, turning literary history into an intriguing, and perhaps monstrous, artifact itself.

Full Text

Comments

You need to be logged in to post a comment.