47. The Year Without a Summer
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2016
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Today: a tale of darkness, gathering storms, and a terrifying creature that resembles a human man…
No, nothing topical: it’s The Year Without A Summer, the story of how Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. This piece first appeared on Eric Molinsky’s excellent podcast Imaginary Worlds. Hear all the episodes at http://imaginaryworldspodcast.org.
For more information, visit http://theallusionist.org/frankenstein.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, build a fort out of language and |
| 0:08.9 | hold up on it for the next four years, possibly forever. |
| 0:11.8 | There's room for you too. |
| 0:13.7 | Coming up in today's show, a tale of darkness, gathering storms, and a terrifying creature |
| 0:19.4 | that resembles a human man. |
| 0:21.3 | It's the story behind Frankenstein, a piece that first appeared on Imaginary Worlds, a |
| 0:26.4 | fantastic podcast by Eric Milinski. |
| 0:29.1 | If you're into science fiction, fantasy, comic books, you'll love his show. |
| 0:32.9 | I'm not particularly into them, and I love Imaginary Worlds, so I'm thrilled to play you |
| 0:36.6 | this story and have a bit of literature on the show. |
| 0:41.8 | And in honour of the story of Frankenstein, here's the etymology of the word horror. |
| 0:46.6 | Entity English by the 14th century via Old French from Latin, in which it had the sense |
| 0:51.6 | of religious awe. |
| 0:53.5 | Because in so many interpretations of deities at different points in time, they are not |
| 0:57.7 | benevolent or protective, but fearsome. |
| 1:00.6 | And a devotee would tremble in the sight of God. |
| 1:03.4 | This physical manifestation of fear is where the word comes from. |
| 1:07.0 | The Latin orere meant to bristle with fear, like how your hair stands on end or an animal's |
| 1:12.2 | hackles rise in anticipation of a threat. |
| 1:14.9 | Orere evolved from the proto-Inde European root of chaos, which also gave us spiky things |
| 1:19.7 | like gorse and iris, the Latin for hedgehog, and rocket or a ruggler whatever you want to |
| 1:25.4 | call it, same salad leaf, same origin. |
... |
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