Conclusion

Abstract

In The Fortunes of Per kin Warberbeck (1830), at the moment when a bell tolls to mark the hour of an execution, Mary Shelley interrupts the narrative to formulate a theory about the ears in relation to other sense organs: “The ear is sometimes the parent of a livelier sense than any other of the soul’s apprehensive portals.” Thus, in Italy, when the bells toll forth in unison on Easter Sunday, following a three-day suspension of the sounding of all bells and clocks, “Every Catholic kneels in prayer, and even the unimaginative Protestant feels the influence of a religion, which speaks so audibly.” In England as well, visible funeral pageantry, like “the plumed hearse,” is less effective than “the sad bell that tolls for death” in conveying melancholy to the heart (Mary Shelley, Perkin Wtzrbeck 192). For Mary Shelley, as for other Romantic writers, sound is more intimately connected than sight with the capacity of sympathy and an appeal to the imagination. And the crowd often manifests itself in the realm of sound.