Rainstorms and English Masterpieces: An Exceptionally Creative Swiss Summer

It was the «Year Without a Summer» . 1816 saw climate abnormalities mainly caused by massive volcanic eruptions in Indonesia - with consequences around the globe. It led to failed crops and famine for many. It also led to boredom for some privileged tourists in a villa at Lake Geneva. And it ultimately led to one of the most productive holidays in literary history. Geneva was a popular destination for English tourists because of its lake and proximity to the Alps. It was on the shores of Lake Geneva that the young Romantics Byron and Shelley first met. Byron had his physician in tow, John Polidori; Shelley arrived with his teenage mistress Mary Godwin and her free-thinking step-sister Claire, who embarked on an affair with Byron. During that «haunted» , wet, gloomy Swiss summer holiday, with violent storms and no less violent passions, the artsy group regularly met at the Villa Diodati in Cologny. Byron proposed a ghost story contest - and set in motion fireworks of dark imagination. The contributions that were to have the greatest impact on popular culture didn't come from the two Romantic giants, but from teenager Mary and from Polidori - «Frankenstein» and «The Vampyre» . We shall, however, also have a closer look at the literary output of Shelley and especially Byron during that creative Swiss summer. Level C1