Literature of the Romantic Period

LECTURE 2
‘The Revolution Controversy’

John Whale

William Wordsworth, The Prelude Book X
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
lines 692 ff. They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times ,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress—to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,—who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;—they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;—
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,—the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!
William Blake
‘Glad Day’/
‘Albion Rose’
(1795)
Thomas Paine Rights of Man (1792)

It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn into the country,
the trees would present a leafless winterly appearance. As people are apt to
pluck twigs as they walk along, I perhaps might do the same, and by chance
might observe, that a single bud on that twig had begun to swell. I should
reason very unnaturally, or rather not reason at all, to suppose this was the only
bud in England which had this appearance. Instead of deciding thus, I should
instantly conclude, that the same appearance was beginning, or about to begin,
every where; and though the vegetable sleep will continue longer on some trees
and plants than on others, and though some of them may not blossom for two
or three years, all will be in leaf in the summer, except those which are rotten.
What pace the political summer may keep with the natural, no human foresight
can determine. It is, however, not difficult to perceive that the spring is begun.---
Thus wishing, as I sincerely do, freedom and happiness to all nations, I close the
SECOND PART.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

All circumstances taken together, the French revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto
happened in the world. The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means
the most absurd and ridiculous; in the most ridiculous modes; and apparently, by the most
contemptible instruments. Every thing seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and
ferocity, and all sorts of crimes jumbles together with all sorts of follies. In viewing this monstrous
tragi-comic scene, the most opposite passions succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in the
mind; alternate contempt and indignation; alternate laughter and tears, alternate scorn and horror.
[Norton pp.197-98]
James Gillray

Un Petit Souper
a La Parisienne or
A Family of Sans Culottes
Refreshing after the
Fatigues of the Day
(1792)
Burke, Reflections [Norton, pp.201-02.]

But the age of chivalry is gone.– That of sophisters, oeconomists, and calculators, has
succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we
behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience,
that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an
exalted freedom. … It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt
stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled
whatever it touched, and under which vide itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and
obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland
assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private
society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent
drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of
a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to
cover our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be
exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.
Richard Price from A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789)
I have lived to see a diffusion of knowledge, which has undermined supers tition and
error – I have lived to see the rights of men better understood than ever; and nations
panting for liberty, which seemed to have lost the idea of it. – […] And now methinks, I
see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in
human affairs; the domination of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the
dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.
Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom, and writers in defence! […] Behold kingdoms,
admonished by you, starting from sleep, breaking their fetters, and claiming justice form
their oppressors! Behold, the light you have struck out, after setting America free,
reflected to France, and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes, and
warms and illuminates Europe!
[Norton pp. 196-97.]
Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
Norton p. 206.

The civilization which has taken place in Europe has been very partial, and, like
every custom that an arbitrary point of honour has established, refines the
manners at the expense of morals, by making sentiments and opinions current in
conversation that have no root in the heart, or weight in the cooler resolves of the
mind […] The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in
which he was born, and the consequent homage which benumbed his faculties […]
Terms of Revolution Controversy
Nature/Culture/Origins/Transformation/Rebirth
Forms of representation universal/individual/ equality/hierarchy

Ideology

Psychology Constitution of the Self

Contest of Faculties of Mind Reason/Feeling/Sensibility/

Civilization/Barbarism
Aesthetics/ Beautiful/Sublime
Play or Mix of Genres

Implications of Revolution Controversy

Godwin’s Caleb Williams
Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
Persuasion
Austen’s Persuasion