Connotations Vol. 16.1-3 (2006/2007) The Trials and Tribulations of the revenants: Narrative Techniques and the Fragmented Hero in Mary Shelley and Théophile Gautier ELENA ANASTASAKI Reanimation, as a fantastic subject, can be found in myth and litera- ture of all times. But towards the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, as a result of the rapid development in the fields of medicine and science, revival from death and even physical immortality—until then belonging to the realms of magic, myth and the imagination —suddenly appeared plausible. 1 Among the first writers to explore in a literary form the conse- quences of uncommonly prolonged life as a real possibility was William Godwin with his philosophical novel St Leon (1799). His daughter, Mary Shelley, also treated the theme of immortality and the closely related subject of reanimation, but chose to do so in the form of the short story or tale. This genre, restricted in terms of length, seems at first at odds with the subject of relating, not only one life, but two— let alone the limitless time of an immortal hero. In this paper I shall examine the different narrative techniques that Shelley uses to treat this subject in three of her tales, namely: “Valerius: The Reanimated Roman” (1819, first published posthumously in 1976), “Roger Dods- worth: The Reanimated Englishman” (1826, first published posthu- mously in 1863), and “The Mortal Immortal” (1833). Each tale uses a different narrative structure, as if Shelley was experimenting on the appropriate form for such a subject. These are written as a first person narrative embedded in a frame narrative, a chronicle based on information considered as factual, and a diary-testimony; they all share, however, the characteristic of the fragment. Time and space— including the space afforded in the literary annuals Shelley was often writing for—are simultaneously material constraints and literary _______________ For debates inspired by this article, please check the Connotations website at <http://www.connotations.de/debanastasaki01613.htm>.