MLLCI Literatures in English 2020/2021

Republicanism vs Socialism
The Republican and Marxist effervescences in Swinburne and
Morris’s poetries

Name: Bruno Rafael Pereira de Sousa Teixeira, pg39442

Degree: Master in English Language, Literature and Culture (1st year)
Academic Year: 2020/2021
Course: Literatures in English
Date: 9th February 2021
MLLCI Literatures in English 2020/2021

- Abstract

This essay approaches the political themes of Republicanism and

Socialism/Marxism and has as analysis’s objects the poems “Ode on the proclamation
of the French Republic”, written by A.C. Swinburne, and “All for the Cause”, written
by William Morris.

There will be an analysis of the lives of Swinburne and Morris, of the political
current/philosophy that each one defends and, at last, an analysis of their poems and the
political effervescences/activisms that are present in those poems.

At last, the reader will find some comments and comparisons between the poets
and the poems that are being analysed.

Introduction

Republicanism and Socialism. These are two old political currents that are
remaining as strong as ever in our century. Since they emerged as simple
philosophical ideologies, they both drive intellectuals and philosophers and artists
through a great and deep passion that even led them to start revolts and riots and
wars that mostly put an end to many monarchic governments.

Poetry (and Literature in general) was not safe from these huge manifestations.
Charles Swinburne and William Morris (like other contemporary writers) were also
known for their political activism inside those two philosophical currents. In this
Literatures in English’s essay, I will analyse these two authors and check their
ideas’ presence in “Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic” (a
Swinburne’s poem) and “All for the Cause” (a Morris’s poem).

After examining both of those poems, I will compare these approached poets
and the arguments that are presented in the poems I chose to write about.
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What is Republicanism?

The Republicanism is a political/philosophical current that became originally

famous in Ancient Greece and was theorized by many Greek philosophers like
Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, etc. This current defends that every country has to be ruled by
a Republic, a regime where the Republic’s President (the highest representative of a
country) is elected by the people through voting (unlike the monarchy). While a king
can ascend through succession and rule for the whole life, the President of a Republic
only can rule for a certain number of years (according to the laws of each country). In
Latin, “Republic” comes from “Res Publica”, which means “Public Thing” (Res =
Thing; Publica = Public).

After remaining “dead” for some centuries, the concept was reborn in the late
Middle Ages and gained force with the French Revolution and, later, with the American
Revolution. We have as the heads of those two main revolutions figures like
Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Thomas Paine, George Washington, etc. Nowadays,
Republics are the most common form of government and it is mostly associated with
democracy, although History shows us many dictatorial republics.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

o About the poet

Algernon Charles Swinburne is Victorian poet, playwright and novelist who was
born in London in 1837. He started writing poems when attending Eton College. In the
time he studied in Oxford, he met artists like Dante Rossetti and William Morris.

He started his writing career when he left college and went to London.
Swinburne’s works are known for their political and social content, as well as for some
fracturing themes like sex. Died in London in the year of 1909.
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o “Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic”

This Swinburne’s ode is divided into four major structural sections: strophes’
section, antistrophes’ section, epode’s section and, in the end, a “dirae”. The strophes’
part is composed by six strophes; the antistrophes’ part is equally composed by 6
antistrophes.

In the first two strophes, the poet introduces the situation represented in the ode.
The first strophe talks of the spreading of the word through the nations and the rise of a
new order over a former empire full of lamentations; the second strophe shows the
speaker’s doubts about what he sees. The speaker seems to wonder this sudden change,
this sudden freedom (“is it by such light that we live to see / Rise, with rent hair and
raiment, Liberty?”). Those wonderings continue in the two following strophes, where
Swinburne questions where is that liberty and how can they get it (“Where is freedom?
Who will bring us in her sight, that have hardly seen her footprint where she stood”). I
can also see in the fourth strophe a representation of Marianne, the famous feminine
symbol of the French Revolution that holds the French flag in the also famous
Delacroix’s painting.

The fifth strophe gives us a glorification of this political event that occurred in
France, the “deathless” and the “many-wounded mother”. However, the sixth and last
strophe seems to induct us in the poet-speaker’s delusion about the reverse result of the
revolution.

In the antistrophes’ part, we have six antistrophes. An antistrophe, in ancient

poetry, corresponds to the second part of an ode, coming after the strophe and before the
epode. The first antistrophe proves that disappointment that Swinburne introduced in
the last strophe. Swinburne is angry and seems to be scolding France for the
revolution’s failure. That rebuke goes through the second antistrophe. The speaker
questions in the third one who will be able to guide him and cure him from that
“disease” (“Who shall take me by the hand? / Who shall teach mine eyes to see… / …
Who shall heal me?”). In the fourth antistrophe, he also advises France to look at “the
light that stars grow dim in”, in the case of not knowing the answer to that question.

In the last two antistrophes, Swinburne, by enhancing her qualities, exhorts this
nation to take an action against the failure and to give freedom back to French people.
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At last, we have an epode where the speaker continues to motivate the land of
French Revolution to stand up and recover from this fall. He tells France that there are
better days coming and that everyone in the world will surely praise France for her own
greatness. After ending the epode, the English poet quotes Dante Alighieri (“Woe unto
you, ye souls depraved” (from “The Divine Comedy”)) and Victor Hugo (“Be damned,
first to be what you are / and then be cursed to obsess the poets” (from the poem
“Floreál”)).

What is Marxism/Socialism?

Marxism/Socialism is a political/philosophical current that emerged from the

theories of the Prussian/German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The
Marxists/Socialists defend the creation of free society without classes, without rich and
poor people. They also defend that the State has to take control of all the means of
production.

These ideas derived from people’s frustration before the capitalist exploitation of
the workers with all the technological development triggered by the Industrial
Revolution. The main derivation of these ideologies is the Communism, that originally
emerged in Russia and triggered the murder of the Czar and the creation of the Soviet
Union.

Despite the fall of the Union Soviet, the Marxist doctrine is still present in many
nations’ governments and it is one the most “popular” political/philosophical ideologies
in our days.

There are also many books and manifests that are the bibles of Marxist philosophy
and every person that is interested in Socialism’s topic should read. It is the case of the
work “The Capital” (written by Karl Marx) or the case of “The Manifest of the
Communist Party” (written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a historical manifest
that marked the beginning of Communism’s history).
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William Morris
o About the poet

William Morris was an English poet, novelist and translator who was born in
Walthamstow, in the year of 1834. Because of being born in a rich family, he got the
chance to study Classical Studies in Oxford.

During his time in Oxford, he suffered influences from Ruskin and met artists like
Ford Madox Brown and Dante Rossetti. He got engaged with Jane Burden, a pretty
working-class woman. Many years later, Morris and May (his daughter) belonged to the
group of the first England’s socialists and were directly linked with Eleanor Marx (Karl
Marx’s daughter) and Friedrich Engels.

Morris adhered to the Social Democratic Federation in 1883 and was also the
organizer of the Socialist League in 1884. Perished in Hammersmith, in the year of
1896.

o “All for the Cause”

This poem written by William Morris is a long poem (despite not being as long as
Swinburne’s Ode) that is composed only by quartets. Those stanzas of four verses have
a regular scheme where the first and the third verses of each stanza are blank verses and
only the second and the fourth ones do rhyme.

The poet-speaker seems to be talking to someone that we cannot identify and the
poem sounds a war-time motivational speech. In the first two quartets, this speaker asks
for that someone’s attention, because he has a word to say. He talks about a day that “is
drawing nigh” and that will be the day when people will be called by the “Cause”
(“When the Cause shall call upon us / Some to live, and some to die!”). He also
motivates that person by saying that nobody dies alone and that the ones that do not die
will not live with a clear conscience (“He that lives shall bear no burden / heavier than
the life they bore”).

In the third, fourth and fifth stanza, Morris invokes the comrades that died in their
defence of the Cause, by stating that “In the grave where tyrants thrust them, / lies their
labour and their pain”. However, for our speaker, all the hardships they went through
in their fight does give us hope to keep pursuing that mission. He extends this
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motivation in the five quartets that come after this stanza. He uses these five stanzas to
tell the person to not get into despair, by talking about how those comrades were brave
and wise and how they freed themselves from the oppression and how their deeds hang
among us.

In the last four quartets of the poem, the English Marxist poet prophesies the
future, asserting that they will win this “war” against the tyrants and that their actions
will prevail, although it is possible that their names may be forgotten with the passing of
History (“There amidst the world new-builded / shall our earthly deeds abide, / though
our names be all forgotten, / and the tale of how we died”). The poem ends with the
same stanza that appeared at the beginning. The speaker does not use this stanza to get
the other person’s attention. This time, this quartet is used to make that person retain the
message that was transmitted all along the poem and think about that message.

Comments and comparisons

We have two English poets that are well known poets. Algernon Charles
Swinburne is a poet that had a passion for the republican ideas and we can see that
passion in many poems, such as “A Song of Italy” and “Erechtheus”.

Swinburne dedicates the “Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic” to

Victor Hugo, a French romantic writer who wrote notorious works like “Les
Misérables” and “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”. This ode is a way the poet used to
exalt the French Revolution, a revolution that brought the despotic king to the guillotine
and, by establishing a Republic, ended the monarchy.

However, Swinburne also criticizes in the poem the revolution’s excesses and the
horror that bruised the French nation. Both exaltation and criticism are used to try to
recover this country that was initially liberated from an autocracy.

William Morris, as we know, was involved in the Socialist fight and “All for the
Cause” reflects his own enchantment for this political doctrine. This poem comes
originally from “Chants for Socialists”, an anthology of hymns that were made to
encourage the Marxist fighters. Through the speaker’s voice, Morris, as I pointed
before, creates an inspirational poem where he invokes the heroes that died for “the
MLLCI Literatures in English 2020/2021

Cause”. When reading the poem, it is also possible to imagine a person making a
speech from the pulpit or even a general speaking in front of a squad.

These two English poets are similar. They both present a “cause” (Swinburne’s
cause is republican and Morris’s cause is Marxist) and they try to enhance the cause that
is pictured in the poems and the question of motivation is also present in both works.
Their poems also present a musical side, due to a regular metric applied by the poets.

Despite their similarities, they have different approaches. In “Ode on the

Proclamation”, Swinburne, as I previously said, reprehends France for what happened
with the revolutionary cause; in “All for the Cause”, we do not see Morris reprehending
the Socialist “army” in any of the points he approaches in his hymn. Furthermore, the
“cause” that Morris shows us is “countryless”: it is all about fighting for a world
without hierarchies and with more justice for the poor, whereas Swinburne’s “cause” is
about giving freedom to French people.

Conclusion

Algernon Charles Swinburne and William Morris are very interesting poets and the
reason why I chose to approach these poets and these themes is that fact that I started to
get interested in politics when I was a kid, thanks to my mother (who used to take me to
political rallies) and to my father’s family (that has members who were involved in
politics and syndicalism). The fact that I identify myself as republican and socialist was
fundamental to approach Swinburne and Morris.

Consequently, I enjoyed writing this essay, because I had the opportunity to read
more about these poets and to get more knowledge about the political currents they
defended in their lives. This essay also made me get even more observant about the
details that poets can give us in poetry.

Sometimes, I can see that, nowadays, people do not care much about politics,
namely young people (who are “living” on the internet and social networks). As
consequence, there are autocratic/fascist/racist/homophobic movements who are
progressively gaining more strength and expression and that is worrisome, we
progressively more people who are misinformed about all of these questions. I think
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that, in our century, is very important for people to have political opinions and to get
more information, because politics is an important part of our world and rules our lives
(a fact we do not think about).

Bibliography

Books:

- Marx, Karl. Friedrich, Engels. (1997). Manifesto do Partido Comunista (1ª ed.).
Lisboa: Editorial “Avante!”

Poems:

- “All for the Cause” (William Morris):

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-for-the-cause/
- “Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic” (A.C. Swinburne):
https://internetpoem.com/algernon-charles-swinburne/ode-on-the-proclamation-of-
the-french-poem/

Appendix

Images:

Algernon Charles Swinburne

MLLCI Literatures in English 2020/2021

William Morris