Zastrozzi

"Zastrozzi: A Romance" is a gothic novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1810 in London by G. Wilkie and J. Robinson. The first of Shelley's two early, gothic novels, it outlines his atheistic worldview through the villain Zastrozzi [ [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/179 Percy Bysshe Shelley] , Academy of American Poets] and touches upon his earliest thoughts on irresponsible self-indulgence and violent revenge.

Shelley wrote "Zastrozzi" at the age of seventeen [ [http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/earlyshelley/keach/keach.html Early Shelley: Vulgarisms, Politics, and Fractals] , Romantic Circles] while attending his last year at Eton College [cite web |url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4050 |title=Percy Bysshe Shelley |accessdate=2007-01-08 |last=Sandy |first=Mark |date=07 July 2001 |work=The Literary Encyclopedia |publisher=The Literary Dictionary Company] , though it was not published until later in 1810 while he was attending Oxford University College [ [http://www.poemofquotes.com/percybyssheshelley/ Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography] , Poem of Quotes.com] . The novel was Shelley's first published prose work.

In 1977, Canadian playwright George F. Walker wrote a successful play called Zastrozzi: Master of Discipline. The play was based on a plot summary of the Shelley novel, but in and of itself was something "rather different from the novel," in the author's words. In 1986, Channel Four Film in Britain produced a four-part mini-series of the Shelley novel Zastrozzi, adapted by David Hopkins.

Plot outline

Zastrozzi is about obsession, revenge, and the agony of unrequited love. Zastrozzi first kidnaps Verezzi and imprisons him in a dungeon. Bernardo and Ugo and Bianca guard him. Zastrozzi seeks revenge against Verezzi to avenge his mother. Matilda, the Contessa di Laurentini, is obsessively in love with Verezzi. Verezzi, however, is in love with Julia. Ferdinand is a servant to Matilda. Zastrozzi manipulates Matilda to destroy Verezzi. He exploits Matilda's obsessive love for Verezzi to destroy them both.

Zastrozzi is a complex psychological thriller. The story is not a simple tale about good versus evil. Zastrozzi goes beyond good and evil. Pietro Zastrozzi is a precursor of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche. Zastrozzi is a precursor of Rodion Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment and Also Sprach Zarathustra. He is a superman who dismisses ordinary morality. He is an atheist for whom all is permitted. Zastrozzi is a demi-god, an assassin, who creates his own values and laws and morality.

The novel is also about forgiveness. Matilda forgives and is able to find serenity. Pietro Zastrozzi is obsessed and consumed by revenge until it destroys both him and Matilda. The novel is about good and evil but ultimately transcends them.

Zastrozzi is a tale of pure horror. Zastrozzi is not satiated to kill merely the body. He seeks to kill the soul. Death is not the worst that can happen. He keeps Verezzi alive to be able to inflict unspeakable tortures on him and to terrorize and to manipulate him. Zastrozzi seeks to punish not only the alleged wrongdoer, but to punish their progeny as well. Ironically, Verezzi and Zastrozzi may have had the same father. Verezzi is his brother. Zastrozzi seeks revenge against his own father, his human Creator. It is a revolt against God. Zastrozzi is angry with God and seeks to create his own reality, his own world. He becomes a god himself. The inquisition has no terrors for him. Death has no terror for him. He creates his own values and morality. He can do whatever he wishes with other human beings. He decides their fate, whether they will live or die. Zastrozzi reaches the limits of human horror and depravity and terror.

Man rejects God and becomes a god himself. God is dead. This theme was later central to the Gothic novel Frankenstein by Shelley's wife Mary Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the preface (although he is uncredited) to that novel in 1818 published anonymously and according to John Lauritsen in The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein (2007), Percy Bysshe Shelley was the real author of Frankenstein. At the very least, Percy contributed major portions to that novel which shows his influence on every page. He made many "corrections" and additions to the original manuscript of Frankenstein, contributing at least 4,000 words to the manuscript.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was a revolutionary visionary and firebrand who pushed the boundaries in literature and in his life. Zastrozzi reflects his artistic vision. The themes and central ideas of Zastrozzi are ones that would reappear. Zastrozzi is an unfairly overlooked and ignored Gothic horror masterpiece by one of the greatest Romantic writers.

In 1811, Shelley wrote a follow-up novel to Zastrozzi called St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance, published by John Joseph Stockdale, 41 Pall Mall, in London, which relied more on the supernatural than did Zastrozzi, which was imbued with Romantic realism. Wolfstein is the main character in St. Irvyne. A chapbook of the novel was published by J. Bailey in London entitled Wolfstein; or The Mysterious Bandit circa 1815. Stockdale republished the novel in 1822 with a new title page. Shelley tackles many of the major themes in Romanticism and the Gothic novel: the conflict between good and evil, revenge, immortality, the Faust legend, alchemy, and the supernatural. The Rosicrucian Order was a medieval secret sect which sought to reform mankind. The Rose Cross sect was associated with alchemy, the elixir of life, and the Philosopher's Stone. The Rosicrucians were scientists who wanted to find the secret of immortality, the elixir vitae, and a way to create gold. Shelley ties this sect to the Faustian legend. Wolfstein is a wanderer who attempts suicide during a violent storm in the Alps near Geneva. He is found by monks carrying a corpse in a torch-light procession. They revive him. Bandits then attack them. Wolfstein, however, decides to join the bandits and goes to their underground cave hideout. The bandits, led by Cavigni, abduct Megalena de Metastasio and kill her father, an Italian Count. Wolfstein eventually escapes with Megalena. Like Faust, Wolfstein faces temptation and inner conflict in his struggle between good and evil, between right and wrong.

The theme of St. Irvyne is man's quest to unveil "the latent mysteries of nature", to find the secret of eternal existence. Ginotti through experimentation is able to find a formula for eternal life, for immortality. He seeks to impart this secret to Wolfstein. When man attempts to uncover the secrets of nature, disaster, tragedy, and death result.

Zastrozzi, St. Irvyne, the chapbook Wolfstein (1815-18), The Coliseum (1817), Una Favola (A Fable), written in Italian, A True Story (attributed to him) from the 1820 Indicator by Leigh Hunt, which is almost identical to the poem The Sunset (1816), The Elysian Fields: A Lucianic Fragment, which presents fictional fantasy with political commentary, and The Assassins (1814), an unfinished novella about a morality-driven sect of zealots determined to kill the tyrants and oppressive dictators in the world, constitute the major fictional prose works of Shelley. Shelley also wrote the preface and contributed to the Gothic novel Frankenstein (1818).

Zastrozzi has remained popular and is available in several paperback editions, was adapted as a play in the 1970s, and made into a TV mini-series in the 1980s. The novel was reprinted in the 1839 Romancist and the 1880 and 1888 Shelley prose collections.

References

* cite book
last = Cameron
first = Kenneth Neill
title = The Young Shelley: Genesis of a Radical
year = 1950
publisher= Macmillan
location = New York
isbn = 0374912556