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III.—The Politics Op the Greater Romantic Poets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Walter Graham
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Extract

Political controversy and partisan feeling were intimately blended with the literature of England during what we call loosely the Romantic Period. The views of individual authors have been treated here and there by their biographers; but little attempt has been made to generalize or draw conclusions from the several political attitudes of the poets, who, tho forming no school in the strict sense of the term, were nevertheless outstanding figures in the same liberal movement in literature. Some simple conclusions, drawn from a study of these men, are presented here; and in the presentation of this material opportunity has been taken to correct a few misunderstandings which exist regarding their political relations. For convenience, the poets may be divided into three groups : the conservative yet individual men, Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge; the Old Tory, Scott; and the more or less radical trio, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. For obvious reasons little need be said of the last-named poet.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 1921 , pp. 60 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1921

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References

1 Hancock, French Revolution and English Poets, N. Y., 1899, p. 172.

2 Complete Works, N. Y., 1853, ii, 203.

3 Essays on His Own Times, London, 1850, i, 12.

4 Prose Works, London, 1880, ii, 296.

5 Essays on His Own Times, i, 22.

6 Studies in Literature, London, 1878, p. 12.

7 Life of Coleridge, London, 1887, p. 226.

8 B. M. Addit. MS. 27901, f. 47. Reprinted in 1896. See Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 97, p. 363.

9 Essays on His Own Times, I, 56.

10 Prose Works, Ed. of Grosart, London, 1876, iii, 268.

11 C. C. Southey, Life of Robert Southey, London, 1850, iii, 22.

12 New Haven, 1823. Reviewed in Quarterly, xxx, 1.

13 Quar. Rev., xvi, 225.

14 Sir Thomas More, London, 1829, i, 234.

15 Quar. Rev., xvi, 511.

16 Essays on His Own Times, i, xxv.

17 Harper, Life of William Wordsworth, London, 1916, ii, 385.

18 See Sonnets on Punishment by Death.

19 Prose Works, Ed. of Grosart, III, 270.

20 Ibid., i, 271 ff.

21 See “Protest against the Ballot,” Poems, Camb. Ed., p. 761.

22 Sir Thomas More, London, 1829, i, 134.

23 Ibid., i, 228.

24 Ibid., i, 285.

25 Ibid., ii, 44.

26 Prose Works, Ed. of Grosart, i, 219.

27 See Religious Musings.

28 Essays on His Own Times, i, 22.

29 Complete Works, N. Y., 1853, ii, 203.

30 See Athenaeum, Sat., May 2, 1918.

31 Omnia, Oxford Ed., 1917, p. 167.

32 See C. C. Southey, Life of Robert Southey, London, 1850, iii, 183, and Warter, Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, London, 1843, ii, 105.

33 C. C. Southey, Life of Robert Southey, iii, 182.

34 Smiles, Life of John Murray, London, 1891, ii, 265.

35 Omnia, 430.

36 Omnia, 472.

37 Essays on His Own Times, iii, 682.

38 Journal of Sir Walter Scott, N. Y., 1891, p. 80.

39 See especially Warter, Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, ii, 107; Cambridge History of English Literature, xii, 165; and Haney, Early Reviews and the English Poets, Phil., 1914, xxvii.

40 Vol. xii, 165.

41 See especially the “Don Cevallos” article, Edin. Rev., xiii, 215.

42 Lockhart's Life, N. Y., 1914, ii, 52.

43 Smiles, Life of John Murray, London, 1891, i, 102.

44 Lockhart's Life, N. Y., 1914, v, 410.

45 Scott was evidently one of the founders of the Beacon, a Tory newspaper started in Edinburgh in 1821, but had little to do with the management. Richard Garnett in the Dictionary of National Biography connected him with Theodore Hook and the founding of John Bull, a paper with a purpose similar to the Beacon—opposing the pretensions and partisans of Queen 'Caroline. But with the exception of a conjecture found in Lockhart's review of Hook (Quar. Rev., lxxii, 75) there is no evidence that he was in any way connected with the London publication, of which Hook was probably the editor. An examination of Hook's unpublished correspondence in the British Museum, as well as the letters which passed between Scott and McVey Napier, Madden, and George Thomson, fails to throw any further light on the matter. The Letters of Lord Kinneder (William Erskine) to Scott, which must have contained much valuable information regarding his political views and activities, were destroyed (Skene, Memoirs, London, 1909, p. 115).

46 Moore's Life of Byron, London, 1830, ii, 75.

47 Quar. Rev., xvi, 191.

48 Quar. Rev., xxvii, 476.

49 Murray's Register.

50 Cf. Ode to Napoleon, xix., Childe Harold, IV, xcvi, Isles of Greece, ii.

51 Dowden's Life, London, 1886, I, 132.

52 Prose Works, London, 1880, n, 296.

53 Ibid., ii, 285.

54 Ibid., ii, 94.

55 As assigned in Murray's Register:

Review of Keats : Quar. Rev., xix, 204—by John Wilson Croker.

Review of Shelley: “ ” xxi, 461—by J. T. Coleridge.

“ ” xxvi, 168—by W. S. Walker.

“ ” XXXIV, 139—by J. G. Loekhart.

Review of Tennyson: “ ” xlix, 81—by J. W. Croker (?).

See my Tory Criticism in the Quarterly Review, N. Y., 1921.

56 Letter of Nov. 9, 1808.

57 Parliamentary Speeches, Works (Murray), ii, 424 ff.