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M o n d ay, D e c e m b e r 2 7 , 2 0 1 0

The Inuence of the French Revolution on English Literature

Introduction:
It would be peremptory to treat the French Revolution as just another historical
incident having political signicance alone. The French Revolution exerted a profound
inuence not only on the political destiny of a European nation but also impinged forcefully
on the intellectual, literary, and political elds throughout Europe. It signalised the arrival of
a new era of fresh thinking and introspection.
The conditions prevailing in England at that time made her particularly receptive to the new
ideas generated by the Revolution. In literature the French Revolution was instrumental in
the creation of anew interest in nature and the elemental simplicities of life. It accelerated
the approach of the romantic era and the close of the Augustan school of poetry which was
already moribund in the age of Wordsworth.
Poetry and Politics:
The age of Wordsworth was an age of revolution in the eld of poetry as well as of
politics. In both these elds the age had started expressing its impatience of set formulas
and traditions, the tyranny of rules and the bondage of convention. From the French
Revolution the age imbibed a spirit of revolt asserting the dignity of the individual spirit and
hollowness of the time-honoured conventions which kept it in check. Thus both in the
political and the poetic elds the age learnt from the Revolution the necessity of
emancipation-in the political eld, from tyranny and social oppression; and in the poetic,
from the bondage of rules and authority. The French Revolution, in a word, exerted a
democratising inuence,both on politics and poetry. Inspired by the French Revolution,
poets and politicians alike were poised for an onslaught on old, time-rusted values. It was
only here and there that some conservative critics stuck to their guns and eyed all zeal for
change and liberation with suspicion and distrust. (Thus, for instance, Lord Jeffrey wrote in
the Edinburgh Review that poetry had something common with religion in that its standards
had been xed long ago by certain inspired writers whose authority it would be ever
unlawful to question.) But such views did not represent the spirit of the age which had come
under the liberating inuence of the French Revolution.
It is perhaps quite relevant to point out here the folly of the belief that the new
literary and political tendencies, which had a common origin and were almost
contemporaneous with each other, always inuenced a given person equally strongly, that a
person could not be a revolutionary in politics without being a revolutionary in literature,
and vice versa. Scott, for example, was a romantic, but a Tory. Hazlitt, on the contrary, was a
chartist in politics but was pleased to call himself an "aristocrat" in literature. Keats did not
bother about the French Revolution, or even politics, at all. Wordsworth and Coleridge, the
two real pioneers of the Romantic Movement in England, started as radicals and ended as
tenacious Tories.
The Three Phases of the French Revolution:
 It is wrong to think of the French Revolution as a sudden coup unrelated to what had
gone before it. In fact, the seeds of the Revolution had been sown long before they sprouted
in 1789. We can distinguish three clear phases of the French Revolution, which according to
Compton-Rickett, are as follows:
"(1) The Doctrinaire phase-the age of Rousseau;
(2) the Political phase-the age of Robespierre and Danton;
(3) the Military phase-the age of Napoleon."
All these three phases considerably inuenced the Romantic Movement in England.
The Inuence of the Doctrinaire Phase:
The doctrinaire phase of the French Revolution was dominated by the each thinker
Rousseau. His teachings and philosophic doctrines were the germs that brought about an
intellectual and literary revolution all over England. He was, fundamentally considered, a
naturalist who gave the slogan "Return to Nature." He expressed his faith in the elemental
simplicities of life and his distrust of the sophistication of civilisation which, according to
him, had been curbing the natural (and good) man. He revived the cult of the "noble savage"
untainted by the so-called culture. Social institutions were all condemned by him as so many
chains. He raised his powerful voice against social and political tyranny and exhorted the
downtrodden people to rise for emancipation from virtual slavery and almost hereditary
poverty imposed upon them by an unnatural political system which benetted only a few.
Rousseau's primitivism, sentimentalism, and individualism had their inuence on English
thought and literature. In France they prepared the climate for the Revolution.
Rousseau's sentimental belief in the essential goodness of natural man and the
excellence of simplicity and even ignorance found a ready echo in Blake and, later,
Wordsworth and Coleridge. The love of nature and the simplicities of village life and
unsophisticated folk found ample expression in their poetic works. Wordsworth's love of
nature was partly due to Rousseau's inuence. Rousseau's intellectual inuence touched
rst Godwin and, through him, Shelley. Godwin in Political Justice embodied a considerable
part of Rousseauistic thought. Like him he raised his voice for justice and equality and
expressed his belief in the essential goodness of man. Referring reverently to Political Justice
Shelley wrote that he had learnt "all that was valuable in knowledge and virtue from that
book."
The Inuence of the Political Phase and the Military Phase:
The political phase of the Revolution, which started with the fall of the Bastille, sent a
wave of thrill to every young heart in Europe. Wordsworth became crazy for joy, and along
with him, Southey and Coleridge caught the general contagion. All of them expressed
themselves in pulsating words. But such enthusiasm and rapture were not destined to
continue for long. The Reign of Terror and the emergence of Napoleon as an undisputed
tyrant dashed the enthusiasm of romantic poets to pieces. The beginning of the war between
France and England completed their disillusionment, and Wordsworth, Coleridge, and
Southey, who had started as wild radicals, ended as well-domesticated Tories. The latter
romantics dubbed them as renegades who had let down the cause of the Revolution.
Wordsworth, in particular, had to suffer much criticism down to the days of Robert
Browning who wrote a pejorative poem on him describing him as "the lost leader."
Let us now consider briey the inuence of the French Revolution on the important
romantic poets one by one.
Wordsworth:
As we have already said, Wordsworth's theory and work as a poet were much
inuenced by the teachings of Rousseau. It was under this powerful inuence that he came
out with his epoch-making work (in collaboration with Coleridge), the Lyrical Ballads (1978),
which, in the words of Palgrave, "was a trumpet that heralded the dawn of a new era by
making the prophecy that poetry, an unlimited and unlimitable art of expressing man's
inner and deep-seated joys and sorrows, would not be fettered by the narrow and rigid
bonds of articial conventions and make-believe formalism." The Lyrical Ballads led a revolt
against the articial sentiment and equally articial and mechanical poetic style of the
eighteenth century, as also established he truth that poetry, if at all it is to remain poetry,
must express the feelings and joys and fears of common men and women close to the soil,
and interpret their day-to-day activities of life. Thus the sense of mystery which led many
persons to a remote past was believed by Wordsworth to be capable of satisfaction closer at
hand. Wordsworth found it-instead of the Middle Ages and Greek art-in the simplicities of
everyday life-an ordinary sunset, the eecy clouds, a morning walk over the hills, a cottage
girl, the song of the nightingale and so forth. He turned for the subjects of his poetry to the
life of the unsophisticated village folk who lived away from the recognised centres of
culture.
At the time of the Revolution (1789) Wordsworth was a young man of only nineteen. In The
Prelude he describes how thrilled he was by the occasion. He felt that Europe itself
was thrilled with joy, France standing at the top of golden hours,
And human nature seeming born again.
And further:
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven.
He believed that in front of the Frenchmen
shone a glorious world,
Fresh as a banner bright unfurled
To music suddenly.
He visited the land of his dreams twice-in 1790 and 1791. But his youthful rapture
came to an end with the Reign of Terror and the emergence of Napoleon. This rude blow
sent him reeling into the arms of his rst love-Nature. Thus Wordsworth passed through a
mental and spiritual crisis, and though he recovered himself nally yet the inuence of the
Revolution remained as vital impression on his mind. Though he ultimately became a Tory
yet he continues believing in the dignity of man, and consequently, applying his poetic
faculty to the commonest objects and the lowest people. It is a noteworthy point that the best
poetic work of Wordsworth was done during the period of his revolutionary fervour.
Coleridge and Southey:
The impact of the French Revolution on Coleridge and Southey was of the same
pattern as in the case of Wordsworth-youthful exuberance at the rising of the masses ending
in despair and disillusionment with the Reign of Terror. But after this disillusionment
Wordsworth and Coleridge followed different paths in search of an anodyne. Whereas
Wordsworth found consolation in Nature, Coleridge sought to burke his discontent with
abstract philosophy and intellectual idealism. Coleridge failed to receive from Nature the joy
which he was wont to. Metaphysics interested him and claimed his almost full attention. His
poetic spirit also declined with the decline of his revolutionary fervour. By 1811 he had
become not only an "anti-revolution" Tory but also an incorrigible "antiGallican."
Byron:
On Byron the French Revolution exerted no direct inuence. But he was a
revolutionary in his own right. He was against almost all social conventions and institutions,
and felt an almost morbid pleasure in violating and condemning them with the greatest
abandon. In his poetry he most vigorously championed the cause of social and political
liberty and died almost as a martyr in the cause of Greek independence. A critic observes:
"Byron excelled most other poets of England in his being one of the supreme poets f
Revolution and Liberty. His poetry voices the many moods of the spirit of Revolution which
captured the imagination of Europe in the early years of the last century. A rebel against
society but also against the very conditions of human life, Byron is our one supreme
exponent of some distinctive forces of the Revolution. Of its constructive energy, its social
ardour, its utopianism, there is no trace in his work.'' Byron was excited by the imposing
personality of Napoleon who appealed to him as a "Byronic" hero.
Shelley:
When Shelley started writing, the French Revolution had already become, as a
historical incident, a thing of the past However, the spirit of the Revolution breaths
vigorously in his poetry. After his characteristic way he overlooked physical realities, and
was attracted by abstractions only. Says Compton-Rickert: "Ideas inspired him, not episodes;
so he drank in the doctrines of Godwin, and ignored the tragic perplexities of the actual
situation." To Shelley the Revolution, to quote the same critic, appealed "as an idea, not as a
concrete historical fact." In all his important poems, such as The Revolt of Islam, Queen Mab,
Prometheus Unbound, and the incomparable Ode to the West Wind, breathes a revolutionary
spirit impatient of all curbs and keenly desirous of the emancipation of man from all kinds
of shackles-political, social, and even moral. Love and liberty are the two ruling deities in
Shelley's hierarchy of values, and in his exaltation of them both he comes very near the
Rousseauistic creed. The French Revolution had failed miserably in the implementation of
its three slogans "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." But Shelley always envisioned ahead a
real Revolution which would rectify all wrongs once and for all. This hope for the millenium
is the central theme of much\df his poetry.
Keats:
Keats was almost entirely untouched by the French Revolution, as by everything
earthly. A critic observes : "In the judgment of Keats, philosophy, politics and ethics were not
suitable subjects for verse. While, therefore, Wordsworth and Coleridge were reecting
upon the moral law of the universe, while Byron was voicing the political ideas of Europe in
the poetry of revolt, and Shelley was writing of an enfranchised humanity, the music of
Keats luxuriated in classical myths and medieval legends, and was inspired by an insatiable
love of Beauty." From a study of Keats's poetry it is hard to believe that such an incident as
the French Revolution ever took/place at all!
Conclusion:
From what has gone before it is clear how powerful an inuence the French
Revolution exerted on English literature. The ideas that awoke the youthful passion of
Wordsworth and Coleridge, that stirred the wrath of Scott, that worked like leaven on Byron
and brought forth new matter, that Shelley reclothed and made into a prophecy of the
future, the excitement, the turmoil, and the life-and-death struggle which gathered round
the Revolution were ignored by few poets of England. Henceforth their poetry spoke of man,
of his destiny, and his wrongs, his rights, duties, and hopes, and particularly, the gyved and
fettered humanity. One is tempted to endorse G. K. Chesterton's paradoxical remark that the
greatest event of English history occurred outside England!

Muhammad Naeem at 11:46 AM

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3 comments:

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Anonymous May 12, 2017 at 10:14 AM

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