The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources Part 9

G.o.dwin thinks that the influence of the emotions and pa.s.sions has been overestimated. It is not true that they can force one to act in opposition to the dictates of one's reason. They maintain their hold on men but by the ornaments with which they are decked out; and these are the things which compel a man to yield. Reduce sensual acts to their true nakedness and they would be despised. Whatever power the pa.s.sions have to incline men to act will, in future, be offset by consideration of justice and self-interest. Many have overcome the influence of pain and pleasure in the past by the energies of intellectual resolution, and what these accomplished can be done by all. Reason and truth, then, are sufficient to change the whole complexion of society. They will ultimately prevail; and then all will be wise and good. The following from Sh.e.l.ley is an echo of this.

And when reason's voice Loud as the voice of nature shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue Is peace and happiness and harmony

XX

How sweet a scene will earth become!

Of purest spirits a pure dwelling-place, Symphonious with the planetary spheres.

G.o.dwin went so far as to say that eventually all sickness would disappear; and even in this Sh.e.l.ley follows his master. Sh.e.l.ley finds this view of evil in the teaching of Christ. "According to Jesus Christ," he writes, "some evil spirit has dominion in this imperfect world. But there will come a time when the human mind shall be visited exclusively by the influence of the benignant power."[165]

All the philosophists who influenced Sh.e.l.ley agreed in this that virtue leads to happiness. The purpose of virtuous conduct, says G.o.dwin, "is the production of happiness." So with Sh.e.l.ley "virtue is peace, and happiness, and harmony." Virtue, says G.o.dwin, is the offspring of the understanding; and vice is always the result of narrow views. "Selfishness," writes Sh.e.l.ley, "is the offspring of ignorance and mistake;... disinterested benevolence is the product of a cultivated imagination, and has an intimate connection with all the arts which add ornament or dignity or power, or stability to the social state of man."[166]

Sh.e.l.ley does not believe in the existence of h.e.l.l. He thinks that this doctrine is incompatible with the goodness of G.o.d. "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, that ye may be the sons of your Heavenly Father, Who makes the sun to shine on the good and the evil, and the rain to fall on the just and unjust." How monstrous a calumny have not impostors dared to advance against the mild and gentle author of this just sentiment, and against the whole tenor of his doctrines and his life overflowing with benevolence and forbearance and compa.s.sion."[167] G.o.d, he says, would only be gratifying his revenge under pretence of satisfying justice were he to inflict pain upon another for no better reason than that he deserved it.

CHAPTER V

RADICALISM IN CONTEMPORARY POETRY

A poet is the product of his time. Sh.e.l.ley observes that there is a resemblance, which does not depend on their own will, between the writers of any particular age. They are all subjected to a common influence "which arises out of a combination of circ.u.mstances belonging to the time in which they live, though each is in a degree the author of the very influence by which his being is thus pervaded." Hence it is that the works of any poet cannot be thoroughly appreciated unless the spirit that pervaded the life of the period be understood. This is particularly true of the poetry of Sh.e.l.ley. It embodies the aspirations and ideals of the philosophers of his time. Its themes are liberty, justice and revolt. On every side are heard protests against conventionality, against government, and against religion. The philosophers of the French Revolution are hailed as the saviors of society and their theories put forth as a panacea for all human ills. Sh.e.l.ley is the high water mark of the waves of revolt which threatened to inundate the country. A brief investigation, then, of the poetical atmosphere of the end of the eighteenth century will help us in our study of the sources of his radicalism.

There can be no doubt but contemporary literature had some influence on his sensitive nature. "The writings of the future laureate (Southey) as likewise of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and Landor's _Gehir_ were among those for which Sh.e.l.ley in early youth had a particular predilection."[168] Since the influence of Southey soon began to decline on account of his fulsome praise of George III, we shall confine our attention to Wordsworth and Coleridge. "One word in candor," Sh.e.l.ley writes, "on the manner in which the study of contemporary writing may have modified my composition. I am intimately persuaded that the peculiar style of intensive and comprehensive imagery in poetry which distinguishes modern writers has not been as a general power the product of the imitation of any particular one. It is impossible that any one contemporary with such writers (Wordsworth and Coleridge were specified at first) as stand in the front ranks of literature of the present day can conscientiously a.s.sure themselves or others that their _language_ and _tone of thought_ may not have been modified by the study of the productions of these extraordinary intellects."[169]

Radicalism, we said, was the characteristic of this period and this extended both to the form and the matter of poetry. Byron characterizes one eminent poet as "the mild apostate from poetic rule."[170]

During the greater part of the eighteenth century conservatism and cla.s.sicism were in the ascendant. After the Revolution of 1688 everything medieval and Catholic was looked upon with suspicion. Old customs and festivities were allowed to fall into disuse. Compared with the past it was a material age. In the early part of the century agriculture and commerce flourished and with this advance in material prosperity came the decline of romanticism. "Correctness" in form and thought is the guiding light of prince and peasant, of poet and philosopher. Imagination is concerned almost entirely with society and fine manners. Pope's themes are beaux and belles, pomatum, billets-doux, and patches. He preferred the artificial to the natural. Form, imitation of the cla.s.sics, is to him and the men of that period, the all important matter in literature. In his _Essay on Criticism_ he tells us again and again

Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem To copy nature is to copy them.

"To his immediate successors Pope was the grand exemplar of what a poet should be,"[171] but unfortunately he was followed by a horde of imitators whose only claim on the muse of poetry was ability to turn out heroic couplets. As a consequence poetry became a cold, lifeless affair, devoid of imagination and "divorced from living nature and the warm spontaneity of the heart."[172]

A reaction against this pseudo-cla.s.sicism was inevitable. That small but constantly flowing stream of romanticism which is found in the works of Thomson, Blake, Warton and Gray, increased in size until it broke loose in the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. This was the joint work of Coleridge and Wordsworth. The two poets met for the first time in 1796. Coleridge was then 24 years of age and Wordsworth but two years his senior. In July, 1797, Wordsworth and his sister moved to Alfoxden, in Somersetshire, that they might be near Coleridge, who was living with his wife at Nether-Stowey. They were, as Coleridge has said somewhere, three people but one soul. A good description of the relationship between them is given in Dorothy Wordsworth's _Alfoxden Journal_, and in Coleridge's _The Nightingale_; a conversation poem. Their most frequent topic of conversation was "the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination."[173] From these conversations originated the plan of the _Lyrical Ballads_. The work was divided into two parts. Coleridge was to direct his attention to romantic and supernatural characters and to enshroud these with a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to engage our interest and attention. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to produce the same effect by giving the charm of novelty to objects chosen from ordinary life. It seemed to them that the beauty of a landscape often depended on the accidents of light and shade; that moonlight or sunset sometimes transformed an uninviting scene into one of entrancing beauty; and so they believed that they could diffuse the glow of their imagination over any object and make it attractive. As might be expected the publication of the _Ballads_ did not meet with success. The change from the stereotyped verse of the age to these carelessly formed effusions was too much for the critics. Some scoffed at them; others thought they were being hoaxed. The subjects dealt with in these poems were long considered as unfit for poetry; and of course the conservative felt it his bounden duty to protest against the innovation. In the second edition of the _Ballads_, which was entirely Wordsworth's own work, an attempt is made to justify this radical departure from the beaten path. A poet, he explains, is a genius, and should not be hampered by any conventions of art or traditions of society.

His imagination is the purifying fire which trans.m.u.tes the rough ore of the commonplace into the choice gold of literature. "Good poetry," he writes, "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." "He (the poet) is a man speaking to men; a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own pa.s.sions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and pa.s.sions as manifested in the goings of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them."[174] This is a good picture of Sh.e.l.ley. "With a spiritual gaze turned first inward, on his own pa.s.sions and volitions, and then turned outward upon the universe, Sh.e.l.ley looked in vain for external objects answering to the forms generated by his dazzling imagination."[175]

Meter and poetic diction, Wordsworth says, are something altogether accidental to poetry, and consequently there is no essential difference between the language of poetry and that of prose. "The distinction,"

Sh.e.l.ley writes, "between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error. Plato was essentially a poet."[176] Wordsworth contends, too, that the proper language of poetry is the ordinary language of the rustic. The excellence of poetry depends not so much on the dignity of the words used as on their capacity to arouse emotions. "The language of poets," Sh.e.l.ley writes, "is vitally metaphorical; that is, it marks the before-unapprehended relations of things and perpetuates their apprehension; until words which represent them, become, through time, signs for portions or cla.s.ses of thought instead of pictures of integral thoughts.... Every original language near to its source is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem."[177]

Not only Sh.e.l.ley's principles as regards "the use of language" but also his "tone of thought" was influenced by Wordsworth. Coleridge and Wordsworth removed the sphere of poetry from social action to philosophical reflection; they exchanged the ancient method, consisting in the ideal imitation of external objects, for an introspective a.n.a.lysis of the impressions of the individual mind.[178] Many of Wordsworth's poems are records of the moods of his own soul, and of phases of his life; so also are Sh.e.l.ley's. A brief examination of some of Wordsworth's works will serve to make this clear.

Wordsworth planned an epic poem, _The Recluse_, of which _The Prelude_, or introduction, and _The Excursion_ are the only parts extant. In these two poems we can trace out the history of his radicalism. _The Prelude_ is his autobiography; and _The Excursion_ supplements what is lacking to a thorough revelation of the workings of his mind. He begins _The Prelude_ by telling about his childhood and schooltime, his residence at Cambridge, vacation and love for books. He then treats of his first trip to the Continent and his residence in London. Book IX is concerned with his second visit to France in 1791. While there he mixed up with all cla.s.ses

... and thus ere long Became a patriot; and my heart was all Given to the people, and my love was theirs.[179]

It was natural for him to do so, because he lived from boyhood among those whose claims on one's respect did not rest on accidents of wealth or blood. He describes his friend General Beaupis, who inoculated him with enthusiasm for the cause of the Revolution. In _The Revolt of Islam_ Sh.e.l.ley describes Dr. Lind, who taught him to curse the king. Hatred of absolute rule, where the will of one is law for all, was becoming stronger in Wordsworth every day. After the September ma.s.sacres and the imprisonment of the king he returned to Paris.

And ranged with ardor heretofore unfelt The s.p.a.cious city.[180]

He was about to cast in his lot with the Revolutionists when he was forced to return to England. The excesses of the Revolution, however, deprived him of some of the hopes that he placed in it. At that time his "day thoughts" were most melancholy. When news came of the fall of Robespierre his hopes began to revive. The earth will now march firmly towards righteousness and peace.

Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, us who were strong in love; Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven.[181]

In Canto V of _The Revolt of Islam_ Sh.e.l.ley describes how oppressors and oppressed are persuaded to forego revenge. Love has conquered and a new era of peace and happiness is about to begin.

To hear, to see, to live, was on that morn Lethean joy.

Although Sh.e.l.ley does not dwell on details as Wordsworth does, still there is a striking similarity between the spirit of parts of _The Excursion_ and that of many of Sh.e.l.ley's poems. An extract from _The Revolt of Islam_ will help to verify this.

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear friend, when first The clouds that wrapt me from this world did pa.s.s.

I do remember well the hour which burst My spirit's sleep. A fresh May-dawn it was, When I walked forth upon the glittering gra.s.s, And wept, I know not why; until there rose From the near schoolroom voices that, alas!

Were but one echo from a world of woes, The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

And then I clasped my hands and looked around-- But none was near to mock my streaming eyes, Which poured their drops upon the sunny ground-- So without shame I spoke: "I will be wise, And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power, for I grow weary to behold The selfish and the strong still tyrannize Without reproach or check.

Wordsworth's joy, however, was short-lived. In 1796 Napoleon started on a campaign of conquest and this completely shattered Wordsworth's faith in the Revolution. When he saw that the French were changing a war of self-defense into one of subjugation, losing sight of all which they themselves had struggled for, he became "vexed with anger and sore with disappointment." About the year 1793 he fell under the influence of G.o.dwin, and it is to his doctrines that he now turned for solace. G.o.dwin, as we have seen, makes reason the sole guide and rule of conduct. Custom, law, and every kind of authority are inimical to the well-being of humanity. Wordsworth then at this time began dragging all precepts, creeds, etc., "like culprits to the bar of reason, now believing, now disbelieving,"

till, demanding formal proof And seeking it in everything, I lost All feeling of conviction, and, in fine, Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, Yielded up all moral questions in despair.[182]

He had sounded radicalism to its lowest depths and found it wanting.

I drooped Deeming our blessed reason of the least use Where wanted most.

In _The Prelude_ Wordsworth records how he had in youth moments of supreme inspiration, and had taken vows binding himself to the service of the spirit he felt in nature.

To the brim My heart was full, I made no vows but vows Were made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly A dedicated spirit.

So with Sh.e.l.ley in _Alastor_:

Mother of this unfathomable world!

Favor my solemn song! for I have loved Thee ever and thee only.

The sense of life and the sense of mystery are seen in _Alastor_ and these are due to the influence of Wordsworth.

During all this time Wordsworth wrote very little poetry embodying his radical sentiments. The only important work of this kind which appeared is his drama, _The Borderers_. Even this cannot be called a radical word as it marks his rejection of G.o.dwinism. Marmaduke loves Idonea, Herbert's daughter, and is told that she is about to be sacrificed by her father to the l.u.s.t of a neighboring n.o.ble. Oswald, the G.o.dwinian, persuades Marmaduke, by dint of reasoning, to disregard the musty command of tyrants, to obey the only law "that sense submits to recognize," and kill blind Herbert. This Marmaduke does, but later on finds out his mistake and tells Idonea towards the end that

Proof after proof was pressed upon me; guilt Made evident, as seemed, by blacker guilt, Whose impious folds enwrapped even thee.[183]

He realizes that he has committed a crime; that it is the height of folly to ignore instinct and tradition, and so he wanders over waste and wild

till anger is appeased In heaven, and mercy gives me leave to die.

Although the radicalism of his early years does not reveal itself to any great extent in his poetry of that time, still it is responsible for his largest work, _The Excursion_. This poem is an attempt to reconstruct a new theory of life out of the ruins of the French Revolution. According to Wordsworth, the poet is a teacher. "I wish," he says, "to be considered as a teacher or as nothing." Sh.e.l.ley says that "poets are the unacknowleged legislators of the world."[184] His _Revolt of Islam_ and other poems attempt to inculcate "a liberal and comprehensive morality." What particularly distinguishes Wordsworth and Sh.e.l.ley from preceding poets is that they moralize and draw lessons from their own experiences. The two princ.i.p.al characters in _The Excursion_--the Solitary and the Wanderer--represent Wordsworth the radical and Wordsworth the conservative. The Wanderer, who has had a long experience of men and things, derives from nature moral reflections of various kinds. In his walks he meets the Solitary, a gloomy, morose sceptic. This man tells about his desire to find peace and contentment; his delight in nature; and the happiness of his wedded life. The death of his wife and children filled him with despair. He then begins to question the ways of G.o.d to men and exclaims

Then my soul Turned inward--to examine of what stuff Times fetters are composed; and life was put To inquisition, long and profitless![185]