单项选择题
Mary Shelley herself was the first to point to
her fortuitous immersion in the literary and scien-
tific revolutions of her day as the source of her
Line novel Frankenstein. Her extreme youth, as well as
(5) her sex, have contributed to the generally held
opinion that she was not so much an author in her
own right as a transparent medium through which
passed the ideas of those around her. "All Mrs.
Shelley did," writes Mario Praz, "was to provide
(10) a passive reflection of some of the wild fantasies
which were living in the air about her."
Passive reflections, however, do not produce
original works of literature, and Frankenstein, if
not a great novel, was unquestionably an original
(15) one. The major Romantic and minor Gothic tradi-
tion to which it should have belonged was to the
literature of the overreacher: the superman who
breaks through normal human limitations to defy
the rules of society and infringe upon the realm of
(20) God. In the Faust story, hypertrophy of the indi-
vidual will is symbolized by a pact with the devil.
Byron’s and Balzac’s heroes; the Wandering Jew;
the chained and unchained Prometheus: all are
overreachers, all are punished by their own
(25) excesses—by a surfeit of sensation, of experi-
ence, of knowledge and, most typically, by the
doom of eternal life.
But Mary Shelley’s overreacher is different.
Frankenstein’s exploration of the forbidden
(30) boundaries of human science does not cause the
prolongation and extension of his own life, but
the creation of a new one. He defies mortality not
by living forever, but by giving birth.
A．She was unaware of the literary and mythological traditions of the overreacher.
B．She intentionally parodied the scientific and literary discoveries of her time.
C．She was exposed to radical artistic and scientific concepts that influenced her work.
D．She lacked the maturity to create a literary work of absolute originality.
E． She was not so much an author in her own right as an imitator of the literary works of others.