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William Godwin as a Sentimentalist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

B. Sprague Allen
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Extract

Virtually all the current discussions of William Godwin devote the bulk of their attention to the elucidation of the anarchic social philosophy of his Political Justice (1793), and, as a rule, they give serious consideration to his first subsequent novel, Caleb Williams (1794). They deal perfunctorily and apologetically with St. Leon (1799), and generally refuse to extend their discussion beyond it so as to include Fleetwood (1805), Mandeville (1815), Cloudesley (1830), and Deloraine (1833). There is, indeed, much to be said for this lapsing of the spirit of inquiry, as any reader of the uninspired minor fiction of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century knows. But the neglect of Godwin's novels and, more particularly, the failure to examine their relationship to Political Justice result, I think, in a misconception of their tendencies and the diverse nature of their appeal to his generation. Preoccupation with Political Justice, and, in a less degree, with Caleb Williams, has thrown into bold relief the frigid rationalistic elements in Godwin's thought. This is, of course, the place where the emphasis belongs in a discussion of Godwinism, but at the same time this point of view overlooks some important qualities of his later work. The fact is that a reader coming to Godwin's novels would, unless he were very observant and analytic, have difficulty in distinguishing between Godwin's fiction and the sentimental literature with which he was already familiar. He would find that whatever might be his theory, in practice, at any rate, Godwin reveals a constant inclination for the rhapsodic and lachrymose situations of contemporary literature. Certainly the reader would discover little emotional restraint in Deloraine's description of Emilia as “a being just descended from celestial spheres, new lighted on the earth” or in the account of Julian, who, haunting Cloudesley's grave, “threw himself on his knees on the earth, kissed the turf that covered the dead body of his protector.” These are the usual excesses of Rousseauistic children, a Saint Preux, a Werther, or a René, but they create an unexpected impression in the work of a recognized rationalist. In this paper the object is to take full account of Godwin's sentimental tendencies and to attempt to show their relationship to his rationalism. If we can explain this paradoxical union of reason and feeling, we shall, perhaps, understand even better than before why he had such a profound influence upon his contemporaries.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , 1918 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1918

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References

1 De l'Esprit (1758), Discours ii, ch. v.

2 Emile, Livre iv, p. 257 (Œuvres Complètes, Paris, 1905).

3 Political Justice (London, 1798), vol. i, book iv, chapter v, Appendix.

4 Political Justice, vol. i, book iv, chapter x. In a letter to his friend, Thomas Wedgwood, Godwin bases his judgment of Dr. Johnson on grounds that are significant in this connection: “Allow me to recommend to you a very cautious admission of the moral apothegms of Doctor Johnson. He had an unprecedented tendency to dwell on the dark and unamiable side of our nature. I love him less than most other men of equal talents and intentions, because I cannot reasonably doubt that when he drew so odious a picture of man be found some of the traits in his own bosom.” Kegan Paul, William Godwin, vol. i, p. 312.

5 Political Justice, vol. i, book iv, chapter xi.

6 Cloudesley—A Tale (3 vols., London, 1830), iii, p. 84.

7 Cloudesley, iii, p. 109.

8 In her tragedy, Rayner, Joanna Baillie represents the hero as associated temporarily with a robber-band, but her treatment of the situation is in no sense anti-social. In The Borderers Wordsworth employs the convention of the noble robber to expose Godwinian fallacies.

9 Mandeville—A Tale of the Seventeenth Century in England (3 vols., New York, 1818), vol. iii, pp. 124 seq.

10 Cloudesley, i, p. 231.

11 La Nouvelle Héloïse, Première Partie, Lettre xii.

12 The Mysteries of Udolpho (3 vols., Exeter, 1834), vol. i, ch. vi, p. 55.

13 Act I, Scene ii. In Sense and Sensibility (chapter iii) Marianne objects to Edward Ferrara as a lover because he read Cowper “with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference.”

In Sainclair Mme. de Genlis thus describes the sensibility of the young widow Clotilde: “Tout la portoit à l'attendrissement; l'amitié, les arts, le spectacle de la nature; la lecture d'un drame lui causoit des suffocations; on fut obligé de l'emporter de sa loge à l'une des représentations de Misanthropie et Repentir.”—Œuvres de Madame de Genlis (Paris, 1825), liv, p. 207.

14 Rousseau, of course,—and in this respect especially Mme. de Staël is his disciple—gives an important place to emotion in criticism. Referring to Lord Bomston, Saint-Preux writes to Julie: “Il me parla cependant des beaux-arts avec beaucoup de discernement, mais modérément et sans prétention. J'estimai qu'il en jugeait avec plus de sentiment que de science, et par les effets plus que par les règles, ce qui me confirma qu'il avait l'âme sensible” (Première Partie, Lettre xlv).

15 St. Leon, 4 vols., London, 1816; for whole episode, vol. iii, pp. 17 seq.

16 St. Godwin—A Tale of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Century, by Count Reginald de St. Leon, London, 1800, p. 31.

17 The whole passage deserves transcription as a significant criticism of prevailing taste and as a proof of the writer's extraordinary common-sense. She is speaking in particular of Dr. Fordyce's language. “Florid appeals are made to heaven, and to the beauteous innocents, the fairest images of heaven here below, whilst sober sense is left far behind …. I particularly object to the lover-like phrases of pumped-up passion, which are everywhere interspersed… . . Speak to them (women) the language of truth and soberness, and away with the lullaby strains of condescending endearment! Let themselves be taught to respect themselves as rational creatures, and not led to have a passion for their own insipid persons. It moves my gall to hear a preacher descanting on dress and needlework: and still more, to hear him address the British fair, and the fairest of the fair, as if they had only feelings” (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, New York, 1890, p. 150).

18 E.g., Amédée Pichot compares Godwin not unfavorably to Byron (Essai sur la vie, le caractère et le génie de lord Byron, Paris, 1830, p. 79).

19 Letters of Anna Seward (6 vols., Edinburgh, 1811), vol. v, Letter li.

20 St. Leon, i, p. 248.

21 St. Leon, iv, p. 8.

22 St. Leon, iv, p. 61.

23 St. Leon, iv, p. 129.

24 St. Godwin, p. 31.

25 Fleetwood (2 vols., New York, 1805), ii, p. 29.

26 Ibid., ii, p. 47.

27 Contrast Fleetwood with Constant de Rebecque's novel, Le Mari Sentimental (1785), in which a man of feeling marries a woman of the world and, deeply wounded by the lack of sympathy between his wife and himself, puts an end to his own life.

28 E. g., Mme. de Staël's Corinne. The Hortense of Mme. de Genlis effectively burlesques the literary affectations of Corinne.

29 Compare: Lothario's conviction that “here or nowhere is America” (Wilhelm Meister, Bk. vii, Ch. iii).

30 St. Leon, iii, p. 131. Deloraine (2 vols., London, 1833), i, p. 279; ii, p. 198.

31 Compare Godwin's letter to a despondent friend (Kegan Paul, William Godwin, i, p. 142).

32 It is unnecessary to discuss Mandeville in detail. It is sufficient to quote the most significant arguments by which Henrietta strives to reclaim her brother from misanthropy. “By the very constitution of our being we are compelled to delight in society. … If man could meet man in an uninhabited island how would he rejoice in his good fortune! …. Oh, then, how should beings of this wonderful structure, hail each other's presence, love each other's good, and strain their utmost nerve, to defend each other from injury. He [i. e., man] is just what his nature and circumstances have made him. … If he is corrupt, it is because he has been corrupted… . Give him a different education, place him under other circumstances, … and he would be altogether a different creature. He is to be pitied therefore, not regarded with hatred; to be considered with indulgence, not made an object of revenge; to be reclaimed with mildness, to be gradually inspired with confidence, to be enlightened and better informed as to the mistakes into which he has fallen, not made the butt and object of our ferocity” (vol. i, pp. 190 seq).

33 Fleetwood, ii, p. 31.