Michael Tomko uses this book to argue that the ‘Catholic question’ which plagued British politics at the end of the eighteenth century has been largely elided from our understanding of romantic-era culture, a mistake which he hopes to rectify here. Tomko provides a reading of the romantic writers which shows that the Catholic question fundamentally permeated romantic-era literature, challenging writers to engage with ideas of British national and religious identity. This book claims that the perceived dangers of Catholicism to “Britishness” (even by pro-emancipation writers such as Byron and Shelley), led to attempts to articulate a via media between religious enthusiasm and superstition.
The first chapter establishes a dialogue between poetic sources and political speeches and pamphlets. In doing so, this chapter also provides a brief but clear overview of the politics of the Catholic question from the Catholic Relief Act of 1778 to emancipation in 1829. This is a convenient reminder of the history for the non-specialized reader, making the book accessible to a fairly broad readership, and Tomko has a real skill in painting a picture of the era. The following chapters are divided by author and explore the work of Elizabeth Inchbald, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott. By using the filter of literature, Tomko draws out cultural anxieties that were often more complex than the political history would suggest. These anxieties, Tomko claims, reveal ambivalence towards the Catholic question that was felt by liberal supporters of the cause and conservatives alike. However, the ubiquitous use of this term is perhaps one of the drawbacks of Tomko's thesis. There is not a single author included in the volume to whomTomko does not at some stage apply the term ‘ambivalent’. Indeed, in the first chapter, Tomko introduces Byron over two pages as a strong and outspoken supporter of Catholic emancipation, who saw British anti-Catholic propaganda as that of a ‘despotic modern empire’. No sooner has Tomko established Byron's stance, however, than he claims that Byron carried a deep-grained ambivalence over nation, history and Catholicism. The result is a survey of Byron's poetry which is not short of examples of both pro and anti-Catholic ideas, but which ultimately provides no clearer picture of Byron's thought, other than demonstrating Byron could sometimes be critical of Roman Catholic history.
The chapter on Inchbald brings a necessary balance to the survey, by focusing on a Catholic author, although occasionally Tomko's attempt to read the characters of A Simple Story as representative of national sectarian factions can seem a little forced. There is a danger at times that Tomko will over-do the allegory of Inchbald's characters as members of an unhappy ‘national marriage’, but he eventually concludes with an intriguing reading that Inchbald is instead calling for a social model based on a community of neighbouring sects. Wordsworth is examined next, followed by Shelley. The strong stances that both these writers claimed in regards the Catholic question (Shelley for, Wordsworth against), would suggest that there would not be much more to add, but Tomko rather skilfully dissects the work of the two authors to demonstrate the ever present ambivalence. The chapter on Wordsworth is of particular interest, as Tomko describes how Wordsworth attempted to recuperate superstition in such a way that religious extremes were kept in balance, creating an aesthetic via media. Tomko seems ultimately loath to decide whether this aesthetic balance is successful, but the chapter nonetheless adds an important dimension to Wordsworth's writings, which would be of interest to any scholar of romantic poetry.
After a chapter in which the works of Sir Walter Scott are seen to envisage the solving of sectarian problems through an ahistorical cultural transformation, Tomko concludes that despite the broad range of views represented by the writers in the book, each one was prey to the inevitable ‘ambivalence’. By bringing a political rather than a purely aesthetic reading to romantic writing, Tomko reveals a complexity in which far from an ahistorical transcendent aesthetic, the romantics were deeply involved in a crisis of British national and religious identity. Such a reading adds an important dimension to any modern study of romantic poetry.
