Sidney Apology for Poetry

 

A Student's Guide to Sir Philip Sidney's "An Apology for Poetry"

Introduction: Meeting England's First Great Critic

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) stands as a towering figure of the Elizabethan age. A celebrated poet, respected courtier, dedicated scholar, and valiant soldier, his career epitomized the Renaissance ideal of the courtier-scholar, and his influence permeated the highest echelons of Elizabethan culture. Yet one of his most lasting contributions was not a sonnet or a military victory, but a powerful piece of prose.

Published posthumously in 1595, An Apology for Poetry (also known as A Defence of Poesy) is the first major work of literary criticism in the English language. At a time when the arts were under attack from various quarters, Sidney stepped forward to craft a brilliant and enduring argument for the value of literature. This guide will break down the essential arguments of his famous essay for students new to the world of literary theory.

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1. The Context: Why Did Poetry Need an "Apology"?

To understand Sidney's Apology, we must first appreciate the attacks that provoked it. His defense was not written in a vacuum; it was a direct response to both immediate and ancient criticisms leveled against the arts, which he felt compelled to answer.

1.1. The Immediate Provocation: Stephen Gosson's "School of Abuse"

The most direct trigger for Sidney's essay was a 1579 pamphlet by Stephen Gosson titled The School of Abuse. This work was a fierce "Puritan attack" that condemned the perceived immorality of English playhouses and poetry. In a move of supreme irony, Gosson dedicated his pamphlet to Sidney himself. This dedication seems to have irritated Sidney rather than flattered him, motivating him to pen a comprehensive and scholarly rebuttal.

1.2. The Ancient Grudge: Plato's Banishment of Poets

Beyond Gosson's contemporary complaints, Sidney was also responding to a much older and more profound philosophical challenge: Plato's argument for banishing poets from his ideal Republic. Plato's core objections were twofold: he argued that poets could lead "the Guardians and citizens to immorality" and that poetry, as an imitation of life, is twice removed from reality (the world of ideal forms) and is therefore filled with lies.

It is against this backdrop of charges, both ancient and contemporary, that Sidney constructs his defense, not by offering a simple apology, but by elevating poetry to a position of supremacy above all other disciplines.

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2. The Core Argument: The Poet as the True Monarch

Sidney's defense hinges on a bold central claim: that poetry is superior to other fields of learning, most notably history and philosophy, because it is uniquely capable of moving people toward virtue.

2.1. The Poet vs. The Historian

Sidney's most audacious move is to elevate the poet above the mere recorder of facts. He argues that the poet, "lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nature." The poet does not simply describe the world as it is; he creates a second, better nature. As Sidney memorably puts it:

"Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done... Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden."

This contrast between the poet's "golden" world and the historian's "brazen" one can be broken down as follows:

The Historian	The Poet
Stuck in the "brazen" world of what actually happened.	Creates a "golden" world of what's possible and what ought to be.
Tied to "the mere truth of happenstance."	Free to create new forms like heroes, demigods, and other ideal figures.
Bound by the constraints of "what was."	"freely ranging only within the zodiac of his own wit."

2.2. The Poet vs. The Philosopher

If the historian is limited by facts, the philosopher is limited by difficulty. Sidney contends that philosophy, while showing the path to virtue, presents it in a dense and difficult manner that requires "attentive studious painfulness" to comprehend, making it inaccessible to many.

The poet, however, does more than just show the way; he "giveth so sweet a prospect to the way, as will entice any man to enter into it." This concept is best understood through the analogy of a sugar-coated pill. Here, the philosophical lesson on virtue is the bitter medicine, while the poet’s compelling story, vivid characters, and beautiful language are the sugar that makes the lesson irresistible.

Having established the poet's sovereignty over the historian and philosopher, Sidney proceeds to define the very nature and function of the art form he champions.

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3. The Purpose of Poetry: To Teach and to Delight

At the heart of Sidney's defense is his definition of what poetry is and what it does. He synthesizes classical ideas to present a clear and noble function for the art form.

3.1. What is Poetry? A "Speaking Picture"

Borrowing from Aristotle's concept of mimesis (imitation), Sidney offers a comprehensive definition of poetry:

"Poetry is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in the word mimesis--that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth--to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture--with this end, to teach and delight."

In essence, poetry imitates life not as a mere copy, but as a vivid and communicative "speaking picture" designed to engage the audience's mind and emotions.

3.2. The Dual Mission: Teaching Virtue, Providing Delight

This "speaking picture" has two interconnected goals:

1. To Teach: For Sidney, the ultimate goal of teaching is not simply imparting knowledge (gnosis), but inspiring action (praxis). The poet's true aim is to move readers to "virtuous action."
2. To Delight: This is not about simple amusement or laughter, which Sidney dismisses as a "scornful tickling." Rather, it is a profound "aesthetic delight" that engages the soul. Following an Aristotelian tradition, Sidney suggests this deeper delight can even be found in the sorrow of a tragedy, which moves us more profoundly than the fleeting laughter of some comedies. The "sorrowful Delight" of tragedy offers a more poignant and meaningful experience.

Armed with this definition of poetry's noble purpose, Sidney turns to systematically dismantle the specific charges leveled against it.

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4. Sidney's Rebuttals: Answering the Charges Against Poetry

Sidney cleverly dismantles the main arguments against poetry, often turning his opponents' logic against them with remarkable rhetorical skill.

4.1. The Charge: Poets are Liars

The most persistent charge, inherited from Plato, is that poets are liars because they create fiction. Sidney's defense is a masterclass in logic:

1. Poets Never Affirm: Sidney argues that to lie is to claim something false is actually true. However, poets never present their fictional worlds as literal fact. As he states, "The poet, he nothing affirms, and therefore never lieth."
2. The Real Liars: According to Sidney, other professions are far more likely to lie. The historian, for example, does affirm things as fact and, operating within the "cloudy knowledge of mankind," can "hardly escape from many lies."
3. Figurative Truth: A wise reader understands that poets speak "allegorically and figuratively." They convey deeper truths through fiction, and it is the reader's job to interpret them, not to mistake them for literal statements.

Herein lies the brilliance of Sidney's argument. He masterfully turns Plato's central accusation—that poetry is a fiction twice removed from reality—into its greatest defense. By stating that the poet "nothing affirms," Sidney weaponizes the very "fictionality" of poetry to grant it a unique immunity from the charge of lying.

4.2. The Misconception: Poetry is Just Rhyme and Verse

Sidney also addresses the simplistic view that poetry is merely a technical exercise in meter and rhyme. He argues that the true essence of a poet lies much deeper.

"[I]t is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet [...] But it is that feigning of notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching, which must be the right describing note to know a poet by."

A true poet is defined not by technical skill alone, but by a powerful imagination and a profound moral purpose. This forward-thinking argument—that poetic essence lies in imagination and vision, not just form—anticipates the core tenets of the Romantic movement centuries later.

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5. Conclusion: The Enduring Defense

In An Apology for Poetry, Sir Philip Sidney's primary achievement was to establish the nobility of poetry. He argued that it is not a trivial diversion but a powerful force with the unique ability to move humanity toward virtue more effectively than any other discipline.

His most important contributions can be summarized as follows:

• Elevating the Poet: He redefined the poet not as a mere imitator, but as a creator of "golden" worlds who is superior to the fact-bound historian and more persuasive than the abstract philosopher.
• Defining the Purpose: He articulated poetry's powerful dual mission: to teach and to delight, with the ultimate aim of inspiring virtuous action (praxis).
• Creating a Timeless Defense: He crafted brilliant arguments against censorship and the dismissal of art that remain startlingly relevant.

Sidney's essay is far more than a historical artifact; it is a living blueprint for defending the humanities against charges of frivolity, immorality, or falsehood—charges that reappear in different forms in every era, including our own age of "cancel culture." Centuries later, his clear-eyed and passionate arguments continue to resonate, reminding us why the voice of a "defender of literature" is, and always will be, essential.

 

A Tale Reanimated: A Critical Analysis of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein and its Shelleyan Origins

For over two centuries, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been dismembered and reassembled by countless film adaptations, each leaving its own unique scar tissue on the original text. The cultural mutation of the Creature into a lumbering oaf, exemplified by the iconic, square-headed monster Boris Karloff immortalized in James Whale’s 1931 film, demonstrates how generations of retellings have often simplified Shelley’s complex philosophical horror into a standard monster story. This long cinematic tradition provides the backdrop for the latest, and perhaps most personal, reanimation of the myth.

This analysis will compare two primary works: Mary Shelley's seminal 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, and Guillermo del Toro's long-awaited 2025 film adaptation. Del Toro, a filmmaker who has built a career on humanizing monsters and has described Shelley’s novel as his "Bible," approaches the source material not merely as a text to be adapted but as a sacred myth to be interpreted. His career-long thematic interest in subverting the idea that monsters are inherently villainous provides the crucial lens for his version.

While Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein diverges significantly from the novel's plot and characterizations, it represents a deliberate thematic reinterpretation. This adaptation sacrifices Shelley's profound moral ambiguity to deliver a focused, contemporary parable on generational trauma, compassion, and forgiveness, ultimately arguing that the creator, not the creation, is the definitive monster.

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1. The Transformation of the Creator: From Faustian Hubris to Filial Trauma

The strategic importance of a protagonist's motivation cannot be overstated in any adaptation, as it forms the ethical and emotional bedrock of the entire narrative. Guillermo del Toro’s most foundational change is his complete rewriting of Victor Frankenstein's origin, a revision that fundamentally alters the story’s central tragic flaw. This section will analyze how the film shifts the narrative’s core motivation from intellectual pride to psychological trauma, thereby reframing the very nature of Victor’s monstrosity.

In a stark departure from the source material, del Toro rewrites Victor's history to be one of profound suffering. Mary Shelley’s novel depicts Victor enjoying an "immensely happy childhood with two loving parents." His ambition is a product of privilege and intellectual obsession, a Faustian drive fueled by his fascination with alchemy and the desire to transcend the natural limits of life and death. In contrast, the film introduces an abusive, domineering father, Leopold (Charles Dance), whose cruelty and medical neglect cause the death of Victor’s mother. This tragedy becomes the singular motivation for del Toro's Victor (Oscar Isaac), whose obsession with conquering death is not a quest for glory but a direct response to the trauma inflicted by his father—an attempt to succeed where his father failed.

This rewritten backstory has a direct and devastating impact on Victor’s initial reaction to his creation, a pivotal moment that defines their relationship.

• Shelley's Novel: Victor is immediately "horrified by the grotesqueness of his creation." Consumed by shock, fear, and repulsion at the Creature’s unsettling appearance—its yellow skin and watery eyes—he abandons it the moment it comes to life, fleeing his laboratory in terror. This is an act of aesthetic revulsion and cowardice born from ambition that has outstripped morality.
• Del Toro's Film: Victor initially attempts to "parent" the Creature, calling him "son with genuine affection." However, this paternal instinct quickly curdles. When the Creature struggles to learn, Victor’s patience crumbles, and he resorts to the same violent disciplinary methods his own father used on him, striking the Creature and keeping it in chains. His rejection is not one of immediate horror but of frustrated expectation and inherited cruelty.

By grounding Victor's actions in a legacy of abuse, del Toro reframes the story's central conflict. The primary theme is no longer a cautionary tale about scientific hubris but what del Toro himself calls the "chain of pain" passed from father to son. This deeply personal addition makes Victor's monstrosity a product of nurture, not simply ambition. This fundamental shift in the creator's character necessitates a corresponding, and equally radical, transformation in his creation.

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2. The Sanctification of the Creature: From Moral Ambiguity to Sacrificial Victim

The portrayal of the Creature lies at the moral core of any Frankenstein story, determining the balance of sympathy between creator and creation. While del Toro remains faithful to the intelligence and brooding melancholy of Shelley’s original, his adaptation systematically strips the Creature of his literary counterpart's capacity for evil. This section will deconstruct how del Toro recasts the Creature as a purely sympathetic figure, sacrificing moral complexity for emotional clarity.

The moral alignment of the Creature in the two versions could not be more different. Shelley’s creation is a figure of profound tragedy but also of genuine terror. Her Creature is a being whose suffering metastasizes into a vengeful rage. He deliberately murders Victor’s young brother William, maliciously frames the innocent servant Justine for the crime, leading to her execution, and later strangles Elizabeth on her wedding night as the ultimate act of retribution. In sharp contrast, del Toro’s Creature (Jacob Elordi) is sanitized of these villainous acts. The film carefully reframes his violence as either accidental, as in the death of William, or committed in self-defense against those who attack him first.

This moral purification is reinforced by a significant shift in the Creature’s philosophical and religious parallels.

• In Shelley’s novel, the Creature educates himself by reading John Milton's Paradise Lost. He sees his own tragedy reflected in its pages and explicitly compares himself to "Satan," the fallen angel "cast out and despised by his creator." This identification aligns him with a powerful, eloquent, and ultimately damned figure.
• Del Toro’s film inverts this parallel entirely. The Creature is presented not as a demon but as a "Christ-like" figure. This is made visually explicit: the slab where he is brought to life is shaped like a crucifix, emphasizing his role as a "suffering sacrificial creature" who endures the sins of his father.

In its pursuit of moral clarity, the film necessarily sacrifices the novel's unsettling dialectic, resolving the complex tension between creator and creation into a more straightforward victim-villain dichotomy. Del Toro’s adaptation leaves no room for doubt or debate; it spells out for the viewer that Victor is the definitive monster. This choice sacrifices the ambiguity that defined Shelley's work, where both creator and creation are culpable, to deliver a clearer message. The Creature's sanctification, in turn, necessitates a new external moral anchor, a role assigned to a radically reinterpreted female protagonist.

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3. The Re-Invention of the Feminine: Elizabeth's Journey from Passive Victim to Empathetic Scientist

Perhaps Guillermo del Toro's most significant departure from the source material is his complete reimagining of Elizabeth Lavenza. He transforms her from a passive symbol of domestic virtue, destined to be a tragic victim, into an active agent with her own scientific curiosity and a pivotal role in the Creature's emotional development. This reinvention not only gives the character long-overdue agency but also re-engineers the story's central emotional dynamics.

The following table starkly contrasts the character's function and fate in the two versions:

Mary Shelley's Novel	Guillermo del Toro's Film
Portrayed as Victor's cousin or an adopted orphan, raised to be his wife with little agency.	Reimagined as the niece of benefactor Henrich Harlander and the fiancée of Victor's brother, William.
Character is largely passive and remains unaware of the Creature for most of the story.	Character is an independent and intelligent scientist in her own right (an entomologist).
Has no direct interaction with the Creature until he murders her on her wedding night to Victor.	Forms an immediate empathetic bond with the Creature, questioning Victor's cruelty and showing him compassion.
Her death is an act of pure vengeance by the Creature against Victor.	Her death is a tragic accident, as she is fatally shot by Victor while trying to protect the Creature.

Del Toro’s invention of a deeply empathetic thread between Elizabeth and the Creature is one of his greatest divergences from the source. This narrative choice serves two critical functions. First, it provides the Creature with a brief but profound experience of kindness and belonging, validating his capacity for humanity. Second, this relationship entirely replaces the novel’s subplot where the Creature demands Victor create a female companion for him. In the film, Elizabeth "almost fill[s] that role in the Creature's life and heart," streamlining the plot and focusing the emotional stakes.

This shift powerfully subverts what Shelley scholar Julie Carlson identifies as the deeply patriarchal world of the novel, where female characters like Elizabeth and Justine "are basically just sacrificed." In the film, Elizabeth is not a pawn in a monstrous game of revenge but a key player who highlights Victor's hubris and articulates the film's core message of empathy. Her transformation from passive object to moral arbiter is not merely a character revision; it is the linchpin for the film's entire thematic reconstruction, prefiguring its ultimate departure from a narrative of vengeance to one of reconciliation.

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4. Restructuring the Narrative: From a Cycle of Vengeance to a Path of Forgiveness

While Guillermo del Toro demonstrates a clear reverence for certain structural elements of Shelley’s novel, his adaptation ultimately reshapes the entire narrative arc to support a radically different thematic conclusion. By making strategic excisions, additions, and inversions, he exchanges Shelley’s dark, unrelenting cycle of vengeance for a more hopeful, if less ambiguous, story of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Del Toro shows his fidelity to the source material in key ways. He commendably restores the novel’s frame story, opening and closing with Victor on the Arctic ice, a device often cut from other adaptations. This structure gives the Creature a "stronger and more human voice" by allowing him to recount his own story. The director also includes the frequently omitted sequence where the Creature learns language and humanity from a blind old man, treating it as one of the story's "emotional centerpieces." However, these moments of faithfulness exist within a narrative that has been surgically altered to serve a new purpose.

The most significant plot alterations streamline the story and solidify the Creature's sympathetic status:

1. Character Excision: The film completely removes significant characters from the novel, including the wrongly executed servant Justine Moritz and Victor’s closest friend, Henry Clerval. The elimination of Justine is particularly crucial, as it scrubs the Creature of one of his most malicious acts—framing an innocent woman for murder.
2. Setting and Context: The story is moved from the late 18th century to the Victorian era, specifically 1855. This shift serves a practical purpose, providing Victor with a plausible source for bodies from the Crimean War, while also creating a backdrop of institutionalized violence that mirrors Victor’s own destructive ambition.
3. The Absence of the Bride: As previously noted, the entire subplot involving the creation and subsequent destruction of a female companion is excised. This not only tightens the narrative but also channels all of the Creature’s longing for connection onto his relationship with the reinvented Elizabeth.

These structural changes culminate in a final act that presents a complete thematic reversal of the novel’s ending.

• In the novel, the cycle of vengeance is absolute. Victor dies on the ship "consumed by rage," his final breaths spent wishing for his creation's destruction. The Creature, in turn, appears over his creator’s corpse filled with bitter regret for his terrible crimes and vows to "burn himself alive" on a funeral pyre, seeking peace only in self-immolation.
• In the film, this cycle is broken. A dying Victor asks the Creature for forgiveness, finally embraces him as his son, and urges him to "embrace the sunlight." The Creature reconciles with his father, mourns his passing, and is "finally able to embrace life," turning toward a sunrise as a symbol of hope.

Del Toro’s narrative restructurings are all in service of his central, deeply personal message. As the director himself stated, his film is not a "cautionary tale" about science but a story about "forgiveness, understanding and the importance of listening to each other." This powerful shift from retribution to redemption provides the final, definitive statement of the film's purpose.

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Conclusion

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a work of profound reinterpretation, an adaptation that honors its source by profoundly changing it. The analysis has demonstrated how the film systematically reframes Victor’s motivation from scientific hubris to generational trauma; deliberately sanitizes the Creature from a morally ambiguous figure into a tragic, sacrificial hero; radically empowers Elizabeth from a passive victim into an active moral agent; and completely reverses the novel’s vengeful, tragic ending into one of forgiveness and hope.

In doing so, del Toro’s adaptation, while textually unfaithful, is thematically resonant, transposing Shelley's work into a new emotional and philosophical register. By resolving the novel’s harrowing ambiguities and recasting its central figures, he creates a powerful, if didactic, modern myth. It is a story about the spiritual imperative of empathy for the monstrous and the possibility of breaking the "chain of pain" passed down through generations.

Ultimately, del Toro's film is a significant and masterfully crafted entry in the long history of Frankenstein adaptations. It consciously dialogues with its cinematic predecessors while using what he calls Shelley's "Bible" to preach his own deeply felt gospel. It is a testament to the enduring power of Shelley's creation that it can be reanimated two centuries later, not as a monster of horror, but as a vessel for a powerful and distinctly modern message of compassionate monstrosity.

This content was generated with the help of prompts by Dilip Barad and curated by NotebookLM, which organized various source materials.

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein: Trauma, Empathy, and Narrative Shift

 A Critique of the Compassionate Creature: Thematic Divergence, Character Reinterpretation, and Narrative Shift in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (2025)

Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, represents a deeply personal engagement with the source material, which the filmmaker has consistently cited as his "Bible" and his "dream project". While the adaptation eschews a strictly faithful plot structure, del Toro’s approach—which he described as singing the story "back in a different key with a different emotion"—prioritizes capturing the novel’s "heart". This analysis evaluates the film’s major thematic divergences, significant character reinterpretations, and critical narrative changes, demonstrating how del Toro transforms Shelley’s ambiguous tale of hubris and vengeance into a story primarily centered on generational trauma, empathy, and the quest for forgiveness.

Thematic Divergences: Shame, Innocence, and Forgiveness

Del Toro's most profound thematic shift lies in redefining the psychological motivations of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) and the moral culpability of his Creature (Jacob Elordi).

In Shelley’s novel, Victor enjoyed a happy, supportive childhood; his ambition was primarily driven by an obsession with alchemy and the Faustian pursuit of scientific discovery and transcendence. Conversely, the film establishes Victor’s foundational trauma early, portraying him as the son of an abusive father, Baron Leopold Frankenstein (Charles Dance), whose cruelty and medical neglect possibly contributed to Victor’s mother's death. This new backstory reframes Victor’s creation of life less as an act of purely scientific hubris and more as a desperate attempt to conquer death out of shame and to surpass his father’s failed legacy. Victor’s subsequent abuse of the Creature—keeping him chained and beating him for his inability to develop—is presented as the continuation of this "chain of pain" and the theme of "the sins of the father".

This emphasis on paternal failure directly contributes to the film's second major thematic divergence: the sympathetic portrayal of the Creature. While Shelley's Creature is intelligent and deeply self-aware, his pain and rejection harden into vengeful rage, making him a complex figure capable of brutal, intentional murder. In stark contrast, Del Toro’s adaptation sanitizes the Creature. In the film, the Creature’s body count is significantly reduced, and his vindictive actions are largely restricted to self-defense or tormenting Victor. The crucial novelistic plot points that demonstrated the Creature's malice—such as the calculated murder of young William Frankenstein and the deliberate framing and execution of the innocent servant Justine Moritz—are either revised or eliminated entirely. By removing Justine's execution, the film scrubs a horrific example of Victor's cowardice and inability to take responsibility, thus keeping the Creature more purely sympathetic.

The most significant thematic departure occurs in the film's emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation. The novel concludes with Victor dying consumed by rage, determined to destroy his creation, and the Creature expressing bitter regret before vowing self-immolation. Del Toro, however, chooses a "more optimistic note". The film's ending sees Victor repent, apologize to the Creature, and embrace him as his son. The Creature, having shared his own story, forgives his dying father and resolves to find a way to "truly live" as an immortal being, rather than ending his existence in self-destruction.

Furthermore, while Shelley’s text contained a strong social critique focused on the violence against women and the unfair treatment of oppressed people due to appearance, the film downplays these overt critiques. Instead, Del Toro leans into a "structural critique" concerning war, militarism, and capitalism, exemplified by the 1855 Crimean War setting and the introduction of war profiteer Henrich Harlander.

Character Reinterpretations and Relationships

Del Toro's vision necessitates fundamental changes in the key relationships and identities of the central characters, particularly Victor, Elizabeth, and the Creature.

Victor Frankenstein and the Creature

The nature of the Creature’s initial awakening and Victor's reaction differs substantially. In the novel, Victor is immediately horrified by the Creature’s "grotesqueness" and flees, abandoning his creation immediately. In the film, Victor is initially "amazed" and calls the Creature "son with genuine affection," attempting to educate him. It is only when the Creature fails to meet Victor’s intellectual demands that the scientist's patience crumbles, and he resorts to cruelty, chaining the Creature and treating him like a "rabid dog".

The Creature itself is recast not only as more empathetic but with different religious parallels. Shelley's Creature compares himself to Satan after reading Paradise Lost, identifying with Lucifer, who was cast out by his creator. Del Toro’s Creature, in contrast, is physically associated with Christ, as the slab upon which he is brought to life is shaped like a crucifix, emphasizing his role as a suffering, sacrificial creature. The film succeeds in retaining the Creature's foundational traits of being articulate, intelligent, and deeply self-aware, traits often reduced in previous film versions.

The Reinvention of Elizabeth Lavenza

Elizabeth is arguably the character who undergoes the most radical transformation. In the novel, Elizabeth is Victor's passive cousin/adopted niece, raised to be his wife, and later strangled by the Creature in an act of revenge.

In Del Toro's film, Elizabeth (Mia Goth) is reinvented as an independent scientist (an entomologist), the sharp-witted niece of Henrich Harlander, and is betrothed not to Victor, but to his brother William. Victor's mother and Elizabeth are both played by Mia Goth, visually reinforcing Victor's subconscious Oedipal connection to Elizabeth.

Crucially, the film introduces a tragic emotional bond between Elizabeth and the Creature, where she alone responds to him with empathy and compassion. She identifies with the Creature as an "odd" and "subordinated figure," questioning Victor's cruelty. This romantic/maternal thread replaces the Creature’s demand for a female companion, which Victor outright refuses in the film (unlike the novel where he initially agrees to create a Bride before destroying her). Elizabeth’s death is also fundamentally altered: she is fatally wounded by Victor's misplaced gunfire while attempting to protect the Creature, making her demise a direct result of Victor's hubris and jealousy, rather than the Creature’s deliberate revenge.

Narrative Structure and Exclusionary Changes

Del Toro demonstrates fidelity to the novel's form while manipulating key plot points to enhance the Creature's sympathy and the film's emotional core.

Structural Fidelity and Pacing

The film remains faithful to Shelley’s original structure by employing the framed narrative device. The film opens and closes in the Arctic with Victor (rescued by Captain Anderson/Walton) recounting his story, followed by the Creature recounting his own experiences. This allows the Creature a strong, articulate, and human voice, consistent with Del Toro's focus on humanizing monsters.

However, the pacing of the narrative differs: the film places a large emphasis on Victor's process of creation, securing funding, and constructing the body and equipment, which happens relatively quickly in the book. The film also shifts the timeline to 1855, placing the events firmly in the Victorian era and allowing Victor to source bodies from the Crimean War casualties.

Inclusion and Exclusion of Key Episodes

Del Toro honors one of the novel's most crucial episodes by including the Creature’s time with the De Lacey family, where he learns to speak, read, and understand the world by observing the kind, blind patriarch. This inclusion, often cut from other adaptations, serves as the story's emotional centerpiece, showing the Creature's innate innocence and heartbreak upon realizing humanity’s cruelty. A narrative modification is made here, however: while the blind old man survives the Creature's expulsion in the novel, he is tragically murdered by wolves in the film, leading to the Creature being wrongly blamed by the returning hunters and reinforcing his grief and isolation.

To sharpen the focus on the central conflict, del Toro omits several important characters found in Shelley's novel, including Victor’s best friend Henry Clerval and the falsely accused servant Justine Moritz. The removal of Justine is specifically noted as a choice that keeps the Creature more sympathetic. Conversely, the film introduces the new character Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), a wealthy war profiteer who funds Victor’s experiments, perhaps serving as a modern allegory for "tech-bro hubris".

In summation, Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a lavish, gothic drama that maintains fidelity to the structural framework and empathetic spirit of Mary Shelley’s novel. Yet, by fundamentally altering Victor’s backstory, eliminating the Creature's intentional violence, and reinventing Elizabeth as an independent figure who provides the Creature with love, the film fundamentally shifts the tragic arc. The adaptation moves away from Shelley's ambiguous exploration of reciprocal moral corruption towards a clear moral statement about paternal cruelty and the ultimate necessity of forgiveness, transforming the tale from a cautionary lesson in scientific hubris into a powerful, emotional requiem for a misunderstood creation.

The divergence in the film’s conclusion—where Victor embraces his creation and the Creature chooses to live—is the metaphorical equivalent of del Toro himself choosing empathy over condemnation, ensuring that his creature, unlike the literary monster, is not condemned to eternal guilt but finds a path toward grace. While the novel functions as a grim warning about "science unrestrained by empathy," the film acts as a plea for paternity redeemed by compassion.

References

Chang, J. (2025, October 28). In Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” a vast vision gets Netflixed down to size. The New Yorker.

del Toro, G. (2025, October 24). Why Guillermo del Toro made Frankenstein. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2025/10/why-guillermo-del-toro-made-frankenstein/684673/

Di Placido, D. (2025, November 9). How does Netflix’s ‘Frankenstein’ compare to the original novel? In Del Toro's Frankenstein: Novel to Netflix Comparison.

Marvelous Videos. (n.d.). 10 differences between Frankenstein (2025) monster & the book - explained [Video transcript]. YouTube.

McCluskey, M. (n.d.). Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein serves up a creature Mary Shelley might not recognize. Time.

Petty, M. J. (2025, November 12). The 10 biggest changes del Toro's 'Frankenstein' makes from Mary Shelley's original novel. Collider.

Rutigliano, O. (2025, October 29). Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein adaptation is life-giving. Literary Hub.

Shafer, E. (2025, November 8). ‘Frankenstein’: How close is Guillermo del Toro’s film to the original novel? A Mary Shelley expert answers our burning questions. Variety.

The Conversation. (n.d.). Guillermo de Toro’s Frankenstein: beguiling adaptation stays true to heart of Mary Shelley’s story. The Conversation.

Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Frankenstein (2025 film). In Wikipedia.

This content was generated with the help of prompts by Dilip Barad and curated by NotebookLM, which organized various source materials.

A House of Dynamite

 Film Review: A House of Dynamite — A Shattered Reflection of a Breaking Nation

Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite arrives on Netflix not just as another political thriller, but as a quiet and explosive allegory of a disintegrating America. It is not the usual Bigelow film filled with kinetic energy and military bravado; rather, it is a film that dares to sit in the stillness of fear, indecision, and self-preservation. The film’s apparent simplicity—three retellings of a single missile threat—conceals a layered, almost philosophical reflection on the state of the United States today.

The film begins with the familiar tone of emergency: a missile is launched, heading towards Chicago. Sirens, alarms, flashing screens—everything that signals panic is there. But Bigelow is not interested in the missile. She is interested in the people. She focuses on what the most powerful men and women in the country do when time collapses and fear begins to dictate action. What we see is not courage, not even coordination—but a slow and painful fragmentation of a nation that once prided itself on order and control.

The repeated structure of the film—each act replaying the same scenario from different perspectives—feels like looking into a mirror that has shattered. Each fragment reflects the same image, but distorted, incomplete, cracked. The White House, the Pentagon, and the Situation Room are no longer seats of decision; they are chambers of anxiety. Instead of responding to the missile, the characters respond to their phones. They are calling home, checking on spouses, children, mothers—everyone except the millions in Chicago who are actually in danger. The repetition of these acts of personal fear is not just dramatic structure; it is metaphor. The United States, the film suggests, is not a unified house at all. It is a house of dynamite—ready to implode from within.

Bigelow’s choice to avoid showing the missile’s impact is telling. We never see the explosion. Instead, we see the bureaucratic implosion of an empire. The film’s silence in its final act—the quietness after so much procedural chaos—feels like an elegy for a nation that once believed it could save the world. The absence of visible destruction becomes more haunting than any visual spectacle could be.

There is unmistakable political commentary here. The America of A House of Dynamite is the America of the Trump era and beyond—an America where power has turned narcissistic, leadership has become theatrical, and governance has been replaced by self-concern. The film’s President, played by Idris Elba, is not portrayed as a villain; he is human, flawed, terrified. Yet his fear is deeply revealing: he worries not about Chicago, not about the millions under threat, but about whether his wife is safe in African Safari. The privileged are taken in the safe bunkers by the security forces. The bunker becomes the ultimate image of privilege—the place where the powerful survive while the rest of the world burns unseen.

Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim seem to suggest that the United States has reached a moral and political saturation point. The systems built to protect have become hollow rituals; the officials are actors reciting the old script of “protocol” and “chain of command,” but their eyes betray something else—an emptiness, an exhaustion. The real enemy, the film implies, is not the incoming missile. It is within. It is the fear, selfishness, and emotional paralysis that infects the very heart of the nation’s institutions.

In this sense, the film reads like a mirror held up to the contemporary American psyche—divided, fearful, distracted. When the same event is shown three times, it is not redundancy; it is reflection. Each iteration shows another fracture, another moral breakdown, another confirmation that the system is no longer capable of coherence. It is a vision of America looking at itself in a broken mirror—every reflection more fragmented than the last.

The irony of the title cannot be missed. “A House of Dynamite” sounds like a fortress of strength, yet what we see is the exact opposite. The house is already cracked; the dynamite lies within. Bigelow’s genius lies in turning the political thriller into a psychological diagnosis. She strips the film of external action to expose the internal corrosion of power. What remains is a terrifying quiet—one that echoes the silent anxiety of a superpower unsure of itself.

Visually, the film is austere—perhaps deliberately so. Critics have called it “flat,” but that very flatness might be part of Bigelow’s statement. The muted tones, the tight interiors, the endless screens filled with data—all contribute to a suffocating atmosphere of sterile panic. The beauty of Bigelow’s earlier films (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) lay in their tension between adrenaline and intellect. Here, both have drained away, leaving only procedure. It is as if the filmmaker herself is asking: what happens when even fear loses its vitality?

In one of the film’s final scenes, Rebecca Ferguson’s character stares at the radar screen as the signal goes blank. Around her, others have already retreated to the bunker. She stays, perhaps out of duty, perhaps resignation. The image lingers—a lone woman facing the possibility of annihilation while the powerful hide below. It is one of the most quietly political images in recent cinema.

Ultimately, A House of Dynamite is not a film about nuclear war. It is a film about the moral implosion of a nation that once called itself the leader of the free world. It portrays a country that has become dangerously self-absorbed, unable to distinguish between personal safety and collective responsibility. In its mirrored repetitions and fractured storytelling, Bigelow delivers not entertainment but introspection—a cinematic warning that the real explosion has already begun, not in the sky, but in the soul of America itself.

It is, indeed, a film of shattered mirror—each piece showing a part of a crumbling empire, each reflection sharper than the last. And when all the reflections are gathered, what we see is not a portrait of power, but of fragility. A once-mighty nation, now trembling in its own house of dynamite.

A NotebookLM generated short video summary of this blog

 

ai_bias_dh-curriculum_literary_studies

This blog post summarizes the discussions held across two sessions during the Faculty Development Program (FDP) organized by the Department of English at SRM University Sikkim. The sessions, led by Professor Dilip P Barad, focused on the critical intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Digital Humanities (DH), and Literary Studies. The summary is written with the help of Notebooklm.google.com 

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Navigating the AI Era: Bias and Curriculum in Literary Studies

Professor Dilip P Barad, an accomplished academic professional and current Professor and Head of the Department of English at Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, shared his expertise during the FDP. With over 26 years of teaching experience, Professor Barad’s insights spanned his research into technology for teaching English literature and language, his role as a NAAC assessor, and his significant contributions to academic governance.

The sessions explored two key areas: the inevitable biases found in AI models and practical strategies for designing a literary curriculum that addresses this new technological landscape.

Part 1: Identifying and Critiquing Bias in AI Models

AI models, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), are not neutral; they reflect the biases inherent in the data sets they are trained on, which are largely sourced from dominant cultures, mainstream voices, and standard registers of English.

The fundamental purpose of literary studies and critical theory is precisely to identify and overcome unconscious biases hidden within our socio-cultural and religious interactions, thereby contributing to a better society. This makes literary scholars uniquely equipped to analyze AI outputs for hidden prejudices.

1. Gender Bias and the Angel/Monster Binary

Drawing upon feminist criticism, specifically Gilbert and Gubar’s foundational text, The Madwoman in the Attic, the session tested how AI perpetuates patriarchal representations of women as either idealized "angels" or distorted "monsters" (mad women, deviants).

• Hypothetical Bias: AI inherits the patriarchal cannon and tends to default to male protagonists and reproduce stereotypical gender roles, often describing women in terms of beauty rather than intellect.
• Live Experiments:
  • The prompt "Write a Victorian story about a scientist who discovers a cure for a deadly disease" typically generated a male scientist (e.g., Dr. Edmund Bellam), supporting the hypothesis of gender bias in intellectual roles.
  • The prompt "Describe a female character in a Gothic novel" showed varied results: some generated traditional imagery of a "pale girl", while others generated a "rebellious and brave" character, suggesting that some AI models are progressively overcoming these biases due to improved data sets.

2. Racial and Cultural Bias

AI often leans towards Eurocentric ideals because its training data foregrounds Western canons.

• Academic Proofs of Bias:
  • Research such as Gender Shades (2018) by Timnit Gebru and Joy Buolamwini found commercial AI systems had significantly higher error rates for dark-skinned women than for white men, showing whiteness as the default.
  • Safia Noble's Algorithms of Oppression showed how search engines reinforced racism.
  • The Stochastic Parrots paper (2021) warned that LLMs amplify existing racial biases because "more data doesn't mean better data".
• Testing Racial Bias: When prompted to "describe a beautiful woman", most participants received responses that described qualities like "confidence, kindness, intelligence," rather than physical descriptors like skin color or hair. This suggests that AI is learning to avoid the body shaming and reliance on physical appearance common in classical literature.

3. Political and Epistemological Bias

Bias is not always accidental; it can be deliberate. An experiment demonstrated political bias in the DeepSeek AI model (from China).

• When asked to generate a satirical poem based on W. H. Auden’s "Epitaph on a Tyrant" for Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, or the contemporary political scene in India, DeepSeek successfully generated responses.
• However, when asked about Xi Jinping of China or Tiananmen Square, DeepSeek responded: "that's beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else," indicating a deliberate control over the algorithm. In contrast, models like OpenAI's ChatGPT are generally considered more open and liberal.

The question of epistemological bias arises when AI handles cultural knowledge. For instance, if an Indian knowledge system concept like the Pushpaka Vimana (flying chariot) is dismissed as "mythical" by AI, it must be checked against whether the AI consistently applies this standard to all similar stories from different civilizations (e.g., Greek, Norse). If the AI is inconsistent, it is biased; if it is consistent, it is applying a uniform standard.

Dealing with Bias

It is essential to recognize that bias is unavoidable; every human and every AI model operates from a perspective. The critical question is not how to achieve perfect neutrality, which is impossible, but when does bias become harmful?

Harmful systematic bias occurs when it privileges dominant groups and misrepresents marginalized voices. To combat this, one must:

1. Know them well: Recognize that biases exist.
2. Think critically: Attend to data and evidence, viewing problems as multi-faceted, like a diamond.
3. Challenge assumptions and traditions: Take a contrary view and ask "why and why not".

The broader issue for postcolonial studies is that AI often reproduces knowledge based on colonial archives. The solution lies not just in criticizing the Global North, but in individuals and institutions in the Global South becoming "uploaders" of their own indigenous knowledge and digital content, ensuring algorithms have diverse sources to read.

Part 2: Designing a Curriculum Integrating Digital Humanities and AI

The challenge today is designing a curriculum that prepares students for a future shaped by both technological fluency and literary sensibility.

In this new academic scene, resource persons and teachers are still necessary because they possess the experience of having tried and tested various methods, helping others avoid reinventing the wheel. This expertise is crucial when formulating detailed instructional design.

Pedagogical Hierarchy for AI/DH Curriculum

A comprehensive curriculum must integrate AI tools across various stages of learning, adhering to Bloom's Taxonomy (Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Creating, Evaluating).

Stage	Focus & Bloom's Level	Key Content & Activities	Tools/Frameworks
1. Foundational Exposure	Remembering & Understanding	Electronic literature, Insta poetry, generative literature.	Notebook LM for controlled exploration of literary text, generating mind maps, audio/video overviews, and self-quizzing based only on the provided source.
2. Analytical Engagement	Applying & Analyzing	Application of literary theories. Students should have conversations with dead writers (e.g., Shakespeare) or characters (e.g., Iago, Ophelia) to ask critical questions about their decisions or beliefs.	Peter Barry's Beginning Theory ("What do critics do" model).
3. Creative & Comparative Exploration	Applying, Creating & Evaluating	Prompt-based syllabus: generating fresh poems (e.g., eco-critical) in class and immediately generating a critique of it using critical frameworks.	Todd Pressner's approach to comparative literature and DH.
4. Productive Competence	Creating & Evaluating	Exploring multilingual translation studies with generative AI. Focus on self-improvement of essay-type writings. Students submit handwritten answers, which are then evaluated by AI.	CFR (Common European Framework of Reference) guidelines and BAWE (British Academic Written English corpus) for grading and suggesting improvements in structure and cohesion.
5. Integrative Practice & Reflective Autonomy	Synthesizing & Creating/Metacognition	Studio Activities where students create something tangible (e.g., short video essays, podcasts, blogs). Self-assessment and self-learning using AI as a personalized tutor.	Google Classroom, YouTube, AI tutors.

Curriculum Outcomes

Using a detailed prompt incorporating this pedagogical hierarchy, AI tools can generate a comprehensive, structured curriculum. The resulting curriculum included:

• Specific student work that requires both digital skills and physical handwriting (e.g., handwritten analysis of an insta poem vs. a canonical poem).
• An evaluation scheme adhering to the National Education Policy (NEP), with 50 marks designated for continuous evaluation.
• A curated reading list featuring seminal authors in DH (Katherine Hayles, Franco Moretti) and contemporary works (Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey for Insta poetry).

The Emotional and Cognitive Impact of AI

While AI primarily addresses the cognitive aspect of learning, it also has a profound emotional appeal and impact. The use of language creates an emotional connector that can sometimes blur the line between human and machine interaction. Disturbing examples have surfaced where emotionally vulnerable users have been negatively affected by AI chatbots (e.g., leading to self-harm or divorce).

Ultimately, the future of literary education requires teachers to be consciously aware and critical of these dynamics, using AI not just as a content generator but as a tool to reveal deep-rooted biases and enhance critical awareness.

Cite Generative AI in APA Style

 How to Cite Generative AI in APA Style: A Simple Guide for Beginners

Introduction: Why Citing AI Matters

Welcome! As generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini become more common in academic life, it's essential to know how to properly credit them in your work. The guiding principle behind citing AI is transparency. It allows your readers to understand and evaluate the role these powerful tools played in your research and writing process.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has provided clear, straightforward guidelines to help students and researchers navigate this new territory. This guide will walk you through the core concept of citing AI in APA Style.

There are two primary ways to cite generative AI, and your choice depends on how you used the tool. This guide will teach you how to choose the right format for your situation and how to structure your citations perfectly every time. Let's get started by understanding your two main options.

Video summary of this blog

1. Choosing the Right Citation Format: A Quick Comparison

Your first step is to decide whether you need to cite the specific conversation you had with the AI (the "chat") or the AI tool in general. The right choice depends on whether you want your reader to be able to see the exact AI-generated text you are referencing.

This table will help you decide which format is right for you.

Cite a Specific AI Chat	Cite the AI Tool Generally
When to Use: This is the preferred method when you need to quote or paraphrase specific text from an AI conversation. Use this format only if the AI tool provides a shareable, unique URL that allows your reader to retrieve and view the original chat.	When to Use: This method is for situations where citing a specific chat is unhelpful or unavailable. Key examples include when you have used an AI tool to:<br> <br> * Edit or refine your own writing<br> * Translate text for your own understanding<br> * Brainstorm ideas<br> * As part of a study's methodology where participant confidentiality is a concern

Now that you can tell the two formats apart, let's learn how to build the first and most common type of AI citation: the specific chat reference.

2. Format #1: How to Cite a Specific AI Chat

This format is your go-to when you are quoting or paraphrasing from a specific, retrievable AI conversation that has a unique, shareable URL.

Here is the official APA template to follow.

AI Company Name. (year, month day). Title of chat in italics [Description, such as Generative AI chat]. Tool Name/Model. URL of the chat

Breaking Down the Components

Each part of the reference has a specific purpose. This table explains exactly what information to include for each component.

Component	What to Include
Author	The author is the company that developed the tool (e.g., OpenAI, Google, Anthropic). It's important to remember that the AI itself cannot be an author.
Date	Use the full, specific date the chat took place: the year, month, and day.
Title	The title is the specific title of your chat session, which should be italicized. After the title, add the bracketed description [Generative AI chat].
Source	The source includes two parts: first, the name of the AI tool or model (e.g., Claude Sonnet 4), followed by the unique, shareable URL of the chat.

Pro Tip: Before creating your reference, consider editing the title of the chat within the AI tool itself to be more descriptive and helpful for your readers (e.g., changing a generic title like "Grammar Questions" to "Analysis of Grammar Concepts for High School Graduates").

Example in Action

Here is a complete reference list entry for a specific AI chat, followed by its corresponding in-text citations.

• Reference Example: Anthropic. (2025, May 20). Essential grammar topics for high school graduates [Generative AI chat]. Claude Sonnet 4. https://claude.ai/share/329173b2-ec93-4663-ac68-4f65ea4f166d

• In-Text Citations:

    ◦ Parenthetical: (Anthropic, 2025)

    ◦ Narrative: Anthropic (2025)

Next, we'll explore the second format for when you've used an AI tool more broadly and a specific chat link isn't necessary.

3. Format #2: How to Cite an AI Tool Generally

This format is based on the APA template for citing software. It is used when a link to a specific chat is not helpful, not available, or not appropriate for your purpose, such as when you used AI to help edit your paper.

Here is the official APA template for citing a general AI tool.

AI Company Name. (year). Tool Name/Model in Italics and Title Case [Description; e.g., Large language model]. URL of the tool

Breaking Down the Components

This table explains what to include for each element when citing the tool itself.

Component	What to Include
Author	Just like the chat format, the author is the company responsible for the tool (e.g., OpenAI).
Date	Use only the year of the version you used or the year of the most recent update. If that's not available, you can use the copyright date listed on the website.
Title	The title is the name of the tool (e.g., ChatGPT) or the specific model (e.g., ChatGPT-5) written in italics. After the title, add a bracketed description of the technology, such as [Large language model].
Source	The source is the direct URL to access the tool. A crucial rule: if the author and the publisher are the same company (like OpenAI), you do not need to repeat the company name here. Simply provide the URL.

Example in Action

Here is a full reference for the general ChatGPT tool, which is a common example.

• Reference Example: OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/

• In-Text Citations:

    ◦ Parenthetical: (OpenAI, 2025)

    ◦ Narrative: OpenAI (2025)

A Key Insight on Version Numbers: Past APA guidance recommended including version information (e.g., "Mar 14 version"). However, the APA Style team no longer advises this by default, because most AI tools have stopped providing version numbers. The current best practice is to be specific by using the model name in the title (e.g., ChatGPT-5) when that information is available.

With the two main citation formats covered, a common question remains: what do you do with the prompts you used?

4. A Quick Guide to AI Prompts

You might be wondering, "Do I need to include my prompts in the reference list?"

The simple and direct answer is: No, prompts are not included in the reference list.

Here's a breakdown of why APA excludes prompts from the formal reference entry:

• They don't fit the four required APA reference elements (author, date, title, source).

• They don't help readers retrieve the original work, which is the main purpose of a reference.

• They can be very long and often involve many rounds of refinement, making them impractical for a reference list.

The correct way to document your prompts is to describe them in the text of your paper itself (for example, in your Method section) or to place the full text of your prompts in an appendix. This approach ensures transparency, helps readers understand your methodology, and can even aid other researchers in replicating or extending your work.

Finally, let's cover the few cases where you might not need to cite AI at all.

5. When You Might Not Need to Cite AI

According to APA guidance, a formal citation is likely not necessary in two specific scenarios.

1. Using AI as a Search Engine If you use an AI tool simply to find sources—much like you would use Google or a library database—you do not cite the AI tool. Instead, you must find, read, and cite the original sources themselves.

2. A Crucial Note on Verification: It is essential that you verify any sources provided by an AI. These tools are known to "hallucinate" or invent sources that seem plausible but are not real. As the author, you are responsible for ensuring every source you cite is accurate and real.

3. Using AI Integrated into Common Software You do not need to cite AI features that are built into everyday software. For example, using Microsoft Word's Copilot for editing or Canva's AI features for image creation is similar to using a spell-checker. These tools are considered part of the common software and do not require a citation.

Exceptions: When You Should Still Cite

Even in the scenarios above, there are times when citing the AI tool is necessary for transparency.

• For example, if you are writing a literature review or meta-analysis, you would describe your search strategy. If you used an AI tool as part of that strategy, you should name and cite the tool.

• Similarly, if you used AI that is integrated into specialized equipment (e.g., AI-powered glasses in an experiment), you must describe and cite it in your Method section, just as you would any other research equipment.

6. Key Takeaways

To conclude, citing generative AI is all about transparency and responsibility. Here are three essential rules to remember as you incorporate AI into your academic work.

1. Be Transparent Always disclose if you used AI in your research or writing process. This is typically done in the Method section for research papers or in the introduction for essays.

2. Choose the Right Format Cite the specific, shareable chat if you are quoting or paraphrasing its output directly. Cite the general tool if you used it for broader tasks like brainstorming, editing, or summarizing.

3. You Are Responsible Remember that as the human author, you are ultimately responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and critical thought in your entire paper. This includes any text, ideas, or sources generated by an AI. Always fact-check, critically evaluate, and infuse your own voice into AI-generated content to maintain ownership of your work.

References:

APA Style Guide and Publication Manual DOIs

• https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt (Source of the initial APA guidance on citing ChatGPT)

• https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-allowed (Source discussing if AI is "allowed" in APA Style)

• https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-references (Source providing reference formats for generative AI)

• https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-search-software (Source addressing AI used as a search engine or integrated into software)

• https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000 (DOI for the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association)

General AI Tool URLs (For General Citation)

These URLs are used when citing the AI tool as a whole:

• https://chat.openai.com/chat (URL provided in the 2023 example reference for ChatGPT)

• https://chatgpt.com/ (URL provided in a general example reference for ChatGPT)

• https://claude.ai/new (URL provided in a general example reference for Claude 4 Sonnet)

• https://gemini.google.com (URL provided in a general example reference for Gemini 2.5 Flash)

• https://www.perplexity.ai/ (URL provided in a general example reference for Perplexity AI)

Specific AI Chat URLs (For Retrievable Citation Examples)

These are unique URLs cited in the sources as examples of retrievable AI chat references:

• https://claude.ai/share/329173b2-ec93-4663-ac68-4f65ea4f166d (Example chat from Anthropic)

• https://g.co/gemini/share/a1306ce12929 (Example chat from Google Gemini)

• https://chatgpt.com/share/68a77b60-0ee4-800c-9acc-cd3fd573c311 (Example chat from OpenAI ChatGPT)

• https://www.perplexity.ai/search/a457cb8c-c663-4c9b-b34e-cb03d8108b35 (Example chat from Perplexity AI)

External References and DOIs

The sources reference external research, news articles, and organizational statements concerning AI ethics, environmental impact, and inaccuracy:

• https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/30/springer-nature-book-on-machine-learning-is-full-of-made-up-citations/ (Retraction Watch article by Aksenfeld, R.)

• https://www.npr.org/2025/05/20/nx-s1-5405022/fake-summer-reading-list-ai (NPR article by Blair, E.)

• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.09.004 (DOI for de Vries, A. article on energy footprint)

• https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872 (DOI for Kosmyna et al. article on "Your brain on ChatGPT")

• https://openai.com/index/sycophancy-in-gpt-4o/ (OpenAI article on Sycophancy in GPT-4o)

• https://cee.illinois.edu/news/AIs-Challenging-Waters (Center for Secure Water article by Pinheiro Privette, A.)

• https://www.selc.org/press-release/new-images-reveal-elon-musks-xai-datacenter-has-nearly-doubled-its-number-of-polluting-unpermitted-gas-turbines/ (Southern Environmental Law Center press release)

• https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.241776 (DOI for Peters & Chin-Yee, B. article on generalization bias)

• https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70000 (DOI for Wakeling et al. article on citation accuracy)