What is the body and why is it important to be aware of its existence even in Romanticism, where it was oftentimes appreciated not at its face value, but for what it could be or could have been, so much so that it became loci communes to think of it in immaterial terms as shape, idea, wandering soul, or other indefinite substitutes for reality? This paper is especially concerned with a thought raised by new readings of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, namely that well into the second decade of the 1800s, Romanticism seemed to have encouraged such elaborated views of the body that it became either a vacated, subhuman form or, on the contrary, an idealized, ethereal individual beyond belief. In truth, however, what this literature created was a disproportionate being, a monster whose main failing - apart from his lack of harmony - was that his very existence circumvented all frames of reference. Since the new being was a human creation achieved at the expense of reason, albeit with the aid of science, the outcome seen as a posthuman artifact would be discussed over against the elevated tone of this epistolary novel and the much calmer attitude of its author, who had the chance to take a closer look at the book fifteen years into its publication. The accent here falls on the elusive body and its affiliated metamorphosis, a concept that forms the red line of our present argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]