for mary shelley

'Of all the correspondence found posthumously at Castle _______ from the philosopher Georg Willhelm Friedrich Hegel to that ill fated Polar explorer the 3rd Baron perhaps the most perplexing is the anonymously authored 'Letter from X' received by Hegel and forwarded by him to the Baron.

The controversy surrounding the Baron (widely believed at the time to have been the model for Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein), just as with Polidori's account of Byron that accused him of being a vampire, has faded with time, as has the reputation of Mary Shelley's minor novel. She is mainly now remembered, if at all, as the child bride of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley or perhaps as the daughter of radicals William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecroft.

This has however been sufficient to distort understandng of this letter (which predates Mary Shelley's book by a good few years) in that it appears to conform to her story (as told in the 1818 manuscript) and furthermore claims to be from the creature itself. This has unfortunately led to the whole correspondence being referred to as the 'Frankenhegel Letters' and largely discounted by those few academics interested in the brief flourishing of German Idealism.

Hegel had made a few hurried notes on the letter itself (these have been discussed by Hegel scholar Georges Bataille in his 20th century riposte 'Letter to X'). It is of interest to Hegel scholars in that the author of the letter appears to be familiar with Hegel's master-slave dialectic, initially the 'creature' claims only to want recognition from humanity as a thinking subject or failing that the creation of a female of its own kind so that it may achieve recognition that way (and pleads most piteously that Hegel intercedes with his protege the Baron) but all to soon the creature's mood darkens and it begins to rail against Hegel's whole system, criticising it from both within and without, announcing itself as 'unemployed negativity that as negativity will act', it will have none of 'an end to history without me', threatening to 'exterminate all of humanity or drag it down into the pit'.

There is a rage to this letter that far exceeds the moral, schoolgirlish imaginings of Mary Shelley. It is notable that Hegel at first suspects the Baron himself of having written the letter, as some kind of elaborate hoax or as an attempted refutation (this is it's major interest to those who still study Hegel), and the Baron to have written it while sleepwalking.

Then there is a turn, Hegel admits to feeling 'stalked like an animal.' Hegel, who as a youth saw Napoleon 'the world spirit' astride a horse, describes one night waking to to find the creature at his bedside. The creature (in his account) first begs for recognition, which the philosopher withholds,or a mate. Hegel writes a hurried letter calling on the Baron to 'accede to the creature's wishes and then to lead them out of this world', later he changes his mind and writes to the Baron calling on him to 'exterminate the brute'.

Here in this correspondence, we have the last extended piece of thinking by Hegel, who retires from public life thereafer, leaving much work undone, his 'system' incomplete. This is part of that strange malaise that seems to affect philosophers, poets, radicals, even engineers all over europe at this time, so many unexplained deaths, so much madness, so many retirements from public life. The Baron, a keen scientist in his time but now grown old and disappointed, resolves to make his first polar expedition and dies on the ice.'