Rainstorms and English Masterpieces: An Exceptionally Creative Swiss Summer

Global climate anomalies in 1816, triggered by a massive Indonesian volcanic eruption, caused severe widespread famine. Yet, this bleak weather also sparked an incredibly productive moment in literary history. While sheltering from the storms by Lake Geneva, the young Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley met and initiated a legendary ghost story contest. Surprisingly, the two works that achieved the greatest enduring cultural impact — «Frankenstein» and «The Vampyre» — were written not by them, but by Mary Shelley and Byron’s friend, John William Polidori. This course offers a closer reading of both landmark texts, alongside an overview of Byron and Shelley's own literary work during this pivotal era. Level C1.