The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources Part 1

The Radicalism of Sh.e.l.ley and Its Sources.

by Daniel J. MacDonald.

INTRODUCTION

The following study of the development of the religious and political views of Sh.e.l.ley is made with the view to help one in forming a true estimate of his work and character.

That there is a real difficulty in estimating correctly the life and works of Sh.e.l.ley no one acquainted with the varied judgments pa.s.sed upon him will deny. Professor Trent claims that there is not a more perplexing and irritating subject for study than Sh.e.l.ley.[2] By some our poet is regarded as an angel, a model of perfection; by others he is looked upon as "a rare prodigy of crime and pollution whose look even might infect." Mr.

Swinburne calls him "the master singer of our modern poets," but neither Wordsworth nor Keats could appreciate his poetry. W. M. Rossetti, in an article on Sh.e.l.ley in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, writes as follows: "In his own day an alien in the world of mind and invention, and in our day scarcely yet a denizen of it, he appears destined to become in the long vista of years an informing presence in the innermost shrine of human thought." Matthew Arnold, on the other hand, in one of his last essays, writes: "But let no one suppose that a want of humor and a self-delusion such as Sh.e.l.ley's have no effect upon a man's poetry. The man Sh.e.l.ley, in very truth, is not entirely sane, and Sh.e.l.ley's poetry is not entirely sane either." Views so entirely different, coming as they do from such eminent critics are surely perplexing. Nevertheless, there seems to be a light which can illuminate this difficulty, render intelligible his life and works, and help us to form a just estimate of them. This light is a comprehension of the influence which inspired him in all he did and all he wrote--in a word, a comprehension of his radicalism. A great deal of the difficulty connected with the study of Sh.e.l.ley arises from ignorance concerning radicalism itself. I shall therefore begin by giving a short description of its nature and function.

To many, radicalism is suggestive only of revolution and destruction. In their eyes it is the spouse of disorder and the mother of tyranny. Its devotees are wild-eyed fanatics, and in its train are found social outcasts and the sc.u.m of humanity. To others, radicalism presents a totally different aspect. These admit that it has been unfortunate in the quality of many of its adherents, but at the same time they claim that it has proven itself the mainspring of progress in every sphere of human activity. It is depicted as the cause of all the reforms achieved in society. Without it old ideas and principles would always prevail, and stagnation would result. "Conservative politicians," says Leslie Stephen, "owe more than they know to the thinkers (radicals) who keep alive a faith which renders the world tolerable and puts arbitrary rulers under some moral stress of responsibility."[3]

Although radicalism is a disposition found in every period of history, still the word itself is of comparatively recent origin. It first came into vogue about the year 1797, when Fox and Horne Tooke joined forces to bring about a "radical reform." In this epithet one finds the idea of going to the roots of a question, which was characteristic of eighteenth century philosophy. Then the expression seems to have disappeared for a time. In July, 1809, a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ says: "It cannot be doubted that there is at the moment ... a very general desire for a more 'radical' reform than would be effected by a mere change of ministry."[4] It was not until 1817, however, that the adjective "radical"

began to be used substantively. On August 18, 1817, Cartwright wrote to T.

Northmore: "The crisis, in my judgment, is very favorable for effecting an union with the _radicals_, of the better among the Whigs, and I am meditating on means to promote it." In 1820 Bentham wrote a pamphlet ent.i.tled _Radicalism Not Dangerous_, and in this work he uses the word "radicalists" instead of "radicals."

For a long time the word "radical" was a term of reproach. Sir Fowell Buxton, speaking of the Radicals, says he was persuaded that their object was "the subversion of religion and of the const.i.tution."

Since that time a radical has come to mean any root-and-branch reformer; and radicalism itself may be defined as a tendency to abolish existing inst.i.tutions or principles. As soon as either of these seems to have outlived its usefulness, radicalism will clamor for its suppression.

Discontent, then, is a source of radicalism. This, however, is of a dual nature--discontent with conditions and discontent with inst.i.tutions or principles. Many conservatives indulge in the former, only radicals in the latter. Again radicalism is not a mere "tearing up by the roots," as the word is commonly interpreted, but is rather, as Philips Brooks writes, "a getting down to the root of things and planting inst.i.tutions anew on just principles. An enlightened radicalism has regard for righteousness and good government, and will resist all enslavement to old forms and traditions, and will set them aside unless it shall appear that any of these have a radically just and defensible reason for their existence and continuance."

Radicalism thrives where conditions are favorable to a change in ideals.

It aims to establish new inst.i.tutions or to propagate new principles, and this presupposes new ideals. As the habits of a man tend to correspond to his ideals, so too the inst.i.tutions of a nation conform in a broad way to its ideals. In England during the Middle Ages the inst.i.tutions of the country were strongly influenced by the religious ideal; later on, when the nation's ideal became national glory, they a.s.sumed a political character; and now they reflect the dominant influence which the economic ideal has exerted during the past century. The ideals of a people than are bound to undergo changes, and these are sometimes, though not always, for a nation's good. They are developed in the main by an increase in knowledge and by industrial change. Inst.i.tutions, however, do not keep pace with this advance in ideals; and as a consequence discontent results and radicalism is born.

Moreover, inst.i.tutions are never an adequate expression of the ideal. "Men are never as good as the goodness they know. Inst.i.tutions reveal the same truth. The margin between what society knows and what it is" makes radicalism possible. In his introduction to _The Revolt of Islam_, Sh.e.l.ley expresses the same thought: "The French Revolution may be considered as one of those manifestations of a general state of feeling among civilized mankind produced by a defect of correspondence between the knowledge existing in society and the improvement or gradual abolition of political inst.i.tutions." The greater that this defect of correspondence becomes, the more intense will be the radicalism that inevitably ensues.

Radicals want a change. The extent of this change differentiates them fairly well among themselves. Some would completely sweep away every existing inst.i.tution. Thus Sh.e.l.ley thought the great victory would be won if he could exterminate kings and priests at a blow.

Let the axe Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall[5]

Others would be content with changes of a far less radical character.

Burke, in his early life, was the most moderate of these. At a time when the British const.i.tution was sorely in need of reform he said concerning it: "Never will I cut it in pieces and put it in the kettle of any magician in order to boil it with the puddle of their compounds into youth and vigor; on the contrary, I will drive away such pretenders; I will nurse its venerable age and with lenient arts extend a parent's breath."

Between these two extremes many different degrees of radicalism obtain. In his _Ecce, Convertimur ad Gentes_, Arnold writes: "For twenty years I have felt convinced that for the progress of our civilization here in England three things were above all necessary: a reduction of those immense inequalities of condition and property among us of which our land system is the cause, a genuine munic.i.p.al system, and public schools for the middle cla.s.s."

A just appreciation of the radicalism of Sh.e.l.ley's poetry is impossible without a knowledge of the function of radicalism, and so it must be considered a little more in detail.

An attempt to abolish an inst.i.tution is sure to encounter the opposition of those whose interests are bound up with that inst.i.tution. The good that it has accomplished in the past is sufficient warrant for defending it against the onslaught of its a.s.sailants. _Le bien c'est l'ennemi du mieux._ No matter how inadequate the inst.i.tution in question may now be, it will still be championed by the great majority; and were it not for the radicals' enthusiasm and faith in their cause their opposition would be in vain. As a witty exponent of homespun philosophy expresses it: "Most people would rather be comfortable than be right." They may see that a change is needed, but they hold on to the old order of things as long as possible. Long before 1789 the French n.o.bility realized that they should give up their claims to exemption from taxation, yet they retained them all until forced to relinquish them. Had the "privileges" been less conservative, the Revolution would never have occurred. It may be said then that radicalism is born of conservatism. Without it might would be right, and anything like justice would be well-nigh impossible.

Another factor in the development of radicalism is the inertia of mind and will of a great many people. Most persons are not easily induced to undertake anything that requires some exertion. They prefer to sit back and let others bear the burdens of the day and its heat. A good example of this is the indifference shown by the French Catholics towards the oppressive legislation of their rulers. Fortunately, however, in those countries where free scope is given to the individual, and where liberty of speech is firmly established, there will always be found some who are ever ready to take the initiative in demanding a change. Their radicalism tends to counteract the influence of this sleeping sickness. It holds up to men the ideal, and inflames them with a desire of attaining it.

Again, the emotions do not move as fast as the intellect. They will cling to their objects long after the intellect has counselled otherwise.

A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.[6]

Radicalism presents to men an ideal state where everybody is bright and free and happy; and thus helps to detach the affections from beliefs and inst.i.tutions which are no longer helpful. The emotions may not adhere to the radicals' scheme, but they are at least freed from their old bondage and can embrace the reforms of the less conservative. The influence that radicalism exerts in this way is a very powerful one. Everybody knows Carlyle's famous outburst of rhetoric bearing on this point: "There was once a man called Jean Jacques Rousseau. He wrote a book called _The Social Contract_. It was a theory and nothing but a theory. The French n.o.bles laughed at the theory, and their skins went to bind the second edition of the book."

The strength of radicalism lies in the fact that it is poetical and philosophical. Through philosophy it makes its influence felt on a country's leaders, through poetry on the citizens themselves. Andrew Fletcher, of Saltown, has said: "Let me write a country's songs, and I don't care who makes its laws." The poet and the radical are brothers.

Both live on abstractions. As soon as they particularize their mission fails; the one ceases to be a poet and the other a radical. In his admirable essay on Sh.e.l.ley, Francis Thompson tells clergymen that "poetry is the preacher to men of the earthly as you of the Heavenly Fairness."

According to Saint-Beuve "the function of art is to disengage the elements of beauty, to escape from the mere frightful reality." Subst.i.tute radicalism for poetry and art in these quotations and they would still be true. Emerson calls the poets "liberating G.o.ds." The ancient bards had for the t.i.tle of their order: "Those who are free throughout the world." "They are free and they make free." This is exactly what one would write about radicals. Poetry and radicalism then go hand in hand. When radicalism is in the ascendant, poetry will throb with the feverish energy of the people. It will not only be more abundant, but it will show more of real life--the stuff of which literature is made. In conservative times questions concerning life do not agitate men's minds to any great extent.

People take things as they find them. Set men a thinking, however, place new ideals before them, and then you get a Shakespeare and a Milton or a galaxy of sparkling gems such as scintillated in the dawn of the nineteenth century.

We find then two tendencies which always exist in any progressive society--radicalism and conservatism. Both have appeared in connection with every phase of thought and human activity. Either, as Emerson has said, is a good half but an impossible whole. One is too impetuous, the other is too wary. The one rushes blindly into the future, the other clings too much to the past. There is constant warfare between the two for the mastery. In a progressive community neither of them is in the ascendant for any length of time. A period of radicalism is inevitably followed by one of conservatism and _vice versa_. The pendulum swings to one extreme and then back again to the other. As long as human nature will be what it is, our inst.i.tutions will be defective, and change will be the order of the day. This no doubt results in progress, which Goethe has compared to a movement in a spiral direction.

This action and reaction is reflected in the literature of a nation. No matter what definition of literature we may accept, whether it be Newman's personal use of language, Swinburne's imagination and harmony, or Matthew Arnold's criticism of life, it will always be found that literature is a crystallization of the ideals of the age. This is true both of poetry and of prose. The poet is not an isolated individual. On the contrary, he is peculiarly sensitive to the influences which surround him. He is the revealer and the awakener of these influences. "And the poet listens and he hears; and he looks and he sees; and he bends lower and lower and he weeps; and then growing with a strange growth, drawing from all the darkness about him his own transfiguration, he stands erect, terrible and tender, above all those wretched ones--those of high place as well as those of low, with flaming eyes."[7]

CHAPTER I

EARLY INFLUENCES

The intensity of one's radicalism depends on the extent to which the inst.i.tutions of a country cause one suffering and disappointment. Sh.e.l.ley says in Julian and Maddalo:

Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong, They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

A description of Sh.e.l.ley's radicalism then must take account of all the circ.u.mstances that tended to make him dissatisfied with existing inst.i.tutions. Some of these circ.u.mstances may seem trifling, but then it must be remembered that events which appear insignificant sometimes have far-reaching effects. Pascal remarked once that the whole aspect of the world would be different if Cleopatra's nose had been a little shorter.

The history of Sh.e.l.ley's life is a series of incidents which tended to make him radical. He never had a chance to be anything else. No sooner would he be brought in contact with conservative influences than something would happen to push him again on the high road of revolt. Even were he temperamentally conservative (and Hogg says that "his feelings and behavior were in many respects highly aristocratical"), the experiences that he underwent were of such a nature as to inevitably lead him into radicalism.

Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley was born at Field Place, in the county of Suss.e.x, on Sat.u.r.day, the 4th of August, 1792. His family was an ancient and honorable one whose history extends back to the days of the Crusades. His grandfather, Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley, born in America, acc.u.mulated a large fortune, married two heiresses, and in 1806 received a baronetcy. In his old age he became whimsical, greedy, and sullen. He was a skeptic hoping for nothing better than annihilation at the end of life.[8] With regard to the poet's father, it is very difficult to form a just estimate. There is no doubt that Sh.e.l.ley enthusiasts decried the father too much in their efforts to canonize the son. It would indeed be strange to find any father at that time who would be capable of giving our poet that guidance and training which his nature demanded. It was a time when might was right, when the rod held a large place in the formation of a boy's character. We must not be too severe then on the father if he was unacquainted with the proper way of dealing with his erratic son. No one who has read Jeafferson's life of the poet will say that Bysshe treated his son too harshly. It was his judgment rather than his heart that was at fault. Medwin remarks that all he brought back from Europe was a smattering of French and a bad picture of an eruption of Vesuvius.

It is to his mother that Sh.e.l.ley owes his beauty and his good nature. He said that she was mild and tolerant, but narrow-minded. Very few references to the home of his boyhood are made in his poetry; and this leads us to believe that neither his father nor his mother had much influence over him.

In his childhood he seems to have had the day dreams and reveries that Wordsworth had. "Let us recollect our sensations as children," Sh.e.l.ley writes, in the _Essay on Life_, "What a distinct and intense apprehension had we of the world and of ourselves!... We less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt from ourselves. They seemed, as it were, to const.i.tute one ma.s.s. There are some persons who in this respect are always children. Those who are subject to the state called reverie feel as if their nature were dissolved into the surrounding universe or as if the surrounding universe were absorbed into their being." In Book II of the _Prelude_ Wordsworth gives expression to a similar experience:

Oft in these moments such a holy calm Would overspread my soul that bodily eyes Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw Appeared like something in myself--a dream A prospect in the mind.

Sh.e.l.ley from the very beginning delighted in giving free scope to his imagination. In the garret of the house at Field Place he imagined there was an alchemist old and grey pondering over magic tomes. The "Great Old Snake" and the "Great Tortoise" were other wondrous creatures of his imagination that lived out of doors. He used to entertain his sisters with weird stories about hobgoblins and ghosts; and even got them to dress themselves so as to represent fiends and spirits. In the _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_ he writes:

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts and sped Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing, Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.

He was attached to the occult sciences and sometimes watched whole nights for ghosts. Once he described minutely a visit which he said he had paid to some neighbors, and it was discovered soon afterwards that the whole story was a fabrication.

At ten years of age he was sent to Sion House Academy, Isleworth, where he met his cousin and future biographer, Thomas Medwin. The other boys, Medwin tells us, considered him strange and unsocial. It was at this school that Sh.e.l.ley first became acquainted with the romantic novels of Anne Radcliffe and the other novelists of the School of Terror. Here too he became greatly interested in chemistry and astronomy. The idea of a plurality of worlds, through which we "should make the grand tour,"

enchanted him. Thus we see that he began very early to live in the unreal and the wonderful.

In 1804 he went to Eton, and there he was known as "Mad Sh.e.l.ley" and "Sh.e.l.ley the Atheist." The word "atheist" here does not mean one who denies the existence of G.o.d. According to Hogg, it was a term given to those who distinguished themselves for their opposition to the authorities of the school. The t.i.tle must have fallen into disuse shortly after Sh.e.l.ley's time, as Professor Dowdon failed to find at Eton any trace of this peculiar usage of the word. Here he became interested in physical experiments and carried them on at unseasonable hours. For this he was frequently reprimanded by his superiors, but he proved to be very untractable.

At Eton Sh.e.l.ley became acquainted with Dr. Lind, whom he immortalized as a hermit in _The Revolt of Islam_ and as Zonoras in _Prince Athanase_. It was Dr. Lind, according to Hogg, who gave Sh.e.l.ley his first lessons in French philosophism. Jeafferson says that he taught Sh.e.l.ley to curse his superiors and to write letters to unsuspecting persons to trip them up with catch questions and then laugh at them.[9]

An event occurred in the summer of 1810 which had considerable influence in developing the radicalism of Sh.e.l.ley. He had known and loved his cousin. Harriet Grove, from childhood, and during the vacation of this year asked her to be his wife. Harriet's family, however, became alarmed at his atheistical tendencies and made her give up all communications with him. This angered him very much, and made him declaim against what he considered to be bigotry and intolerance. In a letter to Hogg, December 20, 1810, he writes: "O! I burn with impatience for the moment of the dissolution of intolerance; it has injured me. I swear on the altar of perjured love to revenge myself, on the hated cause of the effect; which even now I can scarcely help deploring.... Adieu! Down with bigotry! Down with intolerance! In this endeavour your most sincere friend will join his every power, his every feeble resource. Adieu!" And in a letter of January 3, 1811: "She is no longer mine! She abhors me as a skeptic as what she was before! Oh, bigotry! When I pardon this last, this severest of thy persecutions, may Heaven (if there be wrath in Heaven) blast me!" These ravings show Sh.e.l.ley to have been nervous, hysterical, and supersensitive.

The breaking of this engagement with Harriet made such an impression on him as to convince him that he should combat all those influences which caused the rupture. The story of Sh.e.l.ley's life might have been an entirely different one had he been allowed to marry Harriet Grove. Man is a stubborn animal. Once he takes up a certain side, opposition merely serves to strengthen his convictions and make him fight all the harder. If Sh.e.l.ley's willfulness had been ignored instead of opposed, I have no doubt that he would have seen things in their proper light and would never have been the rabid radical that he became. An Etonian called once on Sh.e.l.ley in Oxford and asked him if he meant to be an atheist there too. "No!" he answered, "certainly not. There is no motive for it; they are very civil to us here; it is not like Eton."[10] It is Medwin's conviction that Sh.e.l.ley never completely overcame his love for Harriet. Hogg notes that as late as 1813 Sh.e.l.ley loved to play a simple air that Harriet taught him.

In the _Epipsychidion_ he refers to her thus: "And one was true--Oh! why not true to me?" Love was to Sh.e.l.ley what religion is to the ascetic. He could not understand why one should put obstacles in the way of anyone in love, and so he thinks himself in duty bound to fight everything that supports this hated intolerance. This led him to wage war against religion itself.