About the Project

This project is a collaborative effort of Mark Lussier and Bruce Matsunaga's ENG 400/494 class. Our goal is to apply various critical approaches to chapters III, IV, and V of Frankenstein. This assignment is the culmination of our class goals of combining traditional literary theory and computer technology. I am responsible for the design, core texts, notes, links, and comments on textual variants. The students are responsible for the individual interpretations and theorist information pages.

Design: I wanted the design of the project to reflect the themes and concerns of the text, so a suitably gothic scheme seemed in order. The logo is broken and fragmented, but comes together when the user hovers the mouse over it, much like the project’s creation. The frame design helps the user view multiple texts without losing their place. The overall design allows the user different pathways through the material. The exploitation of the hypertext medium is given primacy, while a pop-up menu helps those who want quick access to the material. The primary text, the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, keeps a fixed location while interpretations, information on theorists, notes, links, and textual variations are fluidly replaced in the right frame. To provide feedback, a fun quiz is provided.

Texts Used: The 1831 edition was created from the base text available at Project Gutenberg and edited against the fine edition by Johanna M. Smith. The 1818 edition is based on the Macdonald & Scherf edition published by Broadview, and edited against the Norton Anthology version of the 1818 edition. The notes are based on all three print editions and The Annotated Frankenstein by Leonard Wolf (out of print), but I also added additional comparison texts that are relevant to the work. Additional texts found in the notes section were either scanned or copied from Project Gutenberg.

I hope you enjoy your experience.
Bruce Matsunaga, bhm@asu.edu