Overly passionate and enthusiastic, imprudent from the Latin ardere, "to burn." Ardency
is an attribute, and a problem, shared by Walton, Victor (I:3:6), and the Creature
(III:WC:28).

Johnson's Dictionary (1755) offers these English cognates from the root:

a. Ardency

• Ardour; eagerness; warmth of affection

b. Ardent

• Hot; burning; fiery
• Fierce; vehement
• Passionate; affectionate: used generally of desire

c. Ardour

• Heat
• Heat of affection, as love, desire, courage
• The person ardent or bright. This is used only by Milton

The associated definitions given by the Oxford English Dictionary are more complexly
related, suggesting an ambiguous, even liminal, moral signification.

ardent ardent, a. Forms: 4-6 ardaunt, 5 hardaunt, ardant, 5- ardent. a. OFr. ardant
:-L. ardentem, pr. pple. of ardere to burn, subseq. assimilated to L.: see -ant.

1. Burning, on fire, red-hot; fiery, hot, parching.

• c. 1440 Morte Arth. 193 Sewes..Ownd of azure alle over and ardant pem semyde.
• 1481 Caxton Myrr. ii. xviii. 107 Fyre so ouer moche ardaunt hote.
• 1514 Barclay Cyt. & Uplandyshm; (1847) Introd. 36 Though thou shouldest perishe for
  very ardent thirst.
• 1601 Holland Pliny II. 160 Ardent feuers.
• 1794 Sullivan View Nat. II. 118 Receptacles of molten ore, and ardent liquids within
  the cavities of mountains.
• 1882 Nature XXVI. 504 The sun was not very ardent.

2. Inflammable, combustible. Obs. exc. in the phr. ardent spirits, in which the meaning
of ardent is now usually referred to their fiery taste: cf. L. ardentis Falerni pocula.

• 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. in Ashm. 1652, 190 Waters corrosyve and waters ardent [i.e.
  acids and spirits].
• 1674 Petty Disc. bef. R. Soc. 93 The Spirituosity of Liquors, or in what proportions
  several Liquors contein more or less of inflameable or ardent parts.
• 1684 T. Burnet Th. Earth II. 63 Inflammable salts, coal and other fossiles that are
  ardent.
• 1833 Brewster Nat. Magic iv. 79 Spirits of wine, or any ardent spirit.

3. That burns like vitriol; corrosive. Obs.

• 1799 G. Smith Laboratory II. 437 An Ardent Water to engrave Steel deeply. . .Take
  a sponge, dipt into ardent water.

4. Glowing or gleaming like fire; flaming, fierce.

• 1603 Holland Plutarch (1657) 117 Fixing his eyes fast upon a fiery and ardent mirror.
• 1718 Pope Iliad iii. 525 From rank to rank she darts her ardent eyes.
• 1827 Hood Mids. Fairies 3 Fish, Quenching their ardent scales in watry gloom.

5. fig. Glowing with passion, animated by keen desire; intensely eager, zealous, fervent,
fervid:

a. of persons and their faculties; transf. of ships.

• c. 1374 Chaucer Boeth. iv. iii. 121 3if he [be] ardaunt in auarice.
• 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 288/2 He was the more ardaunt to martirdome.
• 1538 Starkey England 144 Yf we desyre wyth pure affecte and ardent mynd.
• 1539 Tonstall Serm. Palm Sund. (1823) 51 He was of all the apostels moste ardent in
  fayth.
• 1777 Watson Philip II (1793) II. xiv. 221 Ardent to behold him, after an absence of
  several years.
• 1848 Mariotti Italy II. i. 20 Many an ardent patriot.
• 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-Bk. , Ardent , said of a vessel when she gripes or comes
  to the wind quickly.

b. of emotions and their expression.

• c. 1374 Chaucer Boeth. iii. xii. 106 The most ardaunt loue of hys wiif.
• 1485 Caxton Chas. Gt. 1 Their grete strength and ryght ardaunt courage.
• 1651 Hobbes Leviath. iii. xxxii. 196 He finds an ardent desire to speak.
• 1742 Young Nt. Th. viii. 721 Pray'r ardent opens Heav'n.
• 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 174 His zeal for Episcopacy..was now more ardent than
  ever.

Archangel's commercial centrality as the major northern port of Russia and its long
English associations make it a logical location for Walton's aims. The proximity of
this geographical reference to echoes in the previous paragraph of the language of
the fallen Archangel Satan would seem playfully intentional.

The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad from the Arabian Nights. The episode occurs in the narration
of Scheherazade's "Eighty-Second Night."

This phrase, which is the first written in reflexive thought about the Creature, immediately
establishes a threat to presumptions of scientific facticity, as the presence of this
alien existence casts its shadow over all facile assumptions and assurances, leaving
uncertainty in its wake. Such indeterminacy will increasingly come to dominate the
narrative of events in Frankenstein. The fact that the Creature and Victor are traveling
not over solid land but upon the fragile surface of ice is exactly emblematic of the
problematic nature of reality that Mary Shelley introduces to the novel here.

Justine discounts how much eloquence counts in her world, and in this novel (see,
for instance, I:L4:24and note). But if a plain, unvarnished recital of facts cannot
exonerate one, the novel asks, in what does truth exist? Compare Mary Wollstonecraft's
disavowal of eloquence at multiple points in A Vindication.

There have been veiled if persistent questions raised thus far about Victor's mental
stability. These will slowly increase over the course of the novel, to such an extent,
indeed, that near its end (III:WC:26), Walton has every reason to think he is himself
listening to "the ravings of insanity." Questions of conventional expectations and
of documentary evidence are present on all levels of this novel, in issues ranging
from verisimilitude in writing to justice in society.

Walton is anxious not just because his way is barred but because the icefield, in
expanding, could easily crush the hull of his ship. That process, called "nipping,"
was a major danger to wooden-hulled boats in arctic regions.

Although as a novel Frankenstein is highly ingenious in its interweaving of omens,
it also casts those who believe in them in a sharply reflexive light. In particular,
Victor's account of his life as buffeted by a continual sway of destiny tends to exculpate
him from responsibility for his choices and his actions.

Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" (1798), lines 451-56—with "who" substituted for "that"
in line 451. (In the 1817 revision, the passage occupies lines 445-450.) The second
direct allusion to this poem in the novel: the first occurs in Walton's second letter
to Mrs. Saville (I:L2:6).

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," is frequently also the subject of subtle allusion
(see, for instance, I.2.7 and note, or III.1.8 and note) casts a long shadow over
its conceptions.

There is nothing odd about this, for Coleridge bore an unusual weight in the house
in which Mary Godwin was raised. William Godwin, although separated from Coleridge
on key matters of philosophy and theology, was deeply attached to him, calling him
one of his four "oral instructors." Accordingly, Coleridge was a frequent guest in
the Godwin household. Mary Shelley never forgot the experience of hearing Coleridge
recite his "Rime" as she hid behind the sofa. Given Coleridge's brilliance in conversation,
she may have imbibed more from her youthful encounters with him than a later time
can ever know. Certainly, the implicit tribute accompanying her frequent allusions
to him in the course of Frankenstein suggests a deep and personalized admiration.