THE RADICALISM OF SHELLEY AND ITS SOURCES[1]
By Daniel J. McDonald, Ph.D.
INTRODUCTION
The following study of the development of the religious and political views of Shelley is made with the view to help one in forming a true estimate of his work and character.
That there is a real difficulty in estimating correctly the life and works of Shelley no one acquainted with the varied judgments passed upon him will deny. Professor Trent claims that there is not a more perplexing and irritating subject for study than Shelley.[2] By some our poet is regarded as an angel, a model of perfection; by others he is looked upon as “a rare prodigy of crime and pollution whose look even might infect.” Mr. Swinburne calls him “the master singer of our modern poets,” but neither Wordsworth nor Keats could appreciate his poetry. W. M. Rossetti, in an article on Shelley in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, writes as follows: “In his own day an alien in the world of mind and invention, and in our day scarcely yet a denizen of it, he appears destined to become in the long vista of years an informing presence in the innermost shrine of human thought.” Matthew Arnold, on the other hand, in one of his last essays, writes: “But let no one suppose that a want of humor and a self-delusion such as Shelley’s have no effect upon a man’s poetry. The man Shelley, in very truth, is not entirely sane, and Shelley’s poetry is not entirely sane either.” Views so entirely different, coming as they do from such eminent critics are surely perplexing. Nevertheless, there seems to be a light which can illuminate this difficulty, render intelligible his life and works, and help us to form a just estimate of them. This light is a comprehension of the influence which inspired him in all he did and all he wrote—in a word, a comprehension of his radicalism. A great deal of the difficulty connected with the study of Shelley arises from ignorance concerning radicalism itself. I shall therefore begin by giving a short description of its nature and function.
To many, radicalism is suggestive only of revolution and destruction. In their eyes it is the spouse of disorder and the mother of tyranny. Its devotees are wild-eyed fanatics, and in its train are found social outcasts and the scum of humanity. To others, radicalism presents a totally different aspect. These admit that it has been unfortunate in the quality of many of its adherents, but at the same time they claim that it has proven itself the mainspring of progress in every sphere of human activity. It is depicted as the cause of all the reforms achieved in society. Without it old ideas and principles would always prevail, and stagnation would result. “Conservative politicians,” says Leslie Stephen, “owe more than they know to the thinkers (radicals) who keep alive a faith which renders the world tolerable and puts arbitrary rulers under some moral stress of responsibility.”[3]
Although radicalism is a disposition found in every period of history, still the word itself is of comparatively recent origin. It first came into vogue about the year 1797, when Fox and Horne Tooke joined forces to bring about a “radical reform.” In this epithet one finds the idea of going to the roots of a question, which was characteristic of eighteenth century philosophy. Then the expression seems to have disappeared for a time. In July, 1809, a writer in the Edinburgh Review says: “It cannot be doubted that there is at the moment ... a very general desire for a more ‘radical’ reform than would be effected by a mere change of ministry.”[4] It was not until 1817, however, that the adjective “radical” began to be used substantively. On August 18, 1817, Cartwright wrote to T. Northmore: “The crisis, in my judgment, is very favorable for effecting an union with the radicals, of the better among the Whigs, and I am meditating on means to promote it.” In 1820 Bentham wrote a pamphlet entitled Radicalism Not Dangerous, and in this work he uses the word “radicalists” instead of “radicals.”
For a long time the word “radical” was a term of reproach. Sir Fowell Buxton, speaking of the Radicals, says he was persuaded that their object was “the subversion of religion and of the constitution.”
Since that time a radical has come to mean any root-and-branch reformer; and radicalism itself may be defined as a tendency to abolish existing institutions or principles. As soon as either of these seems to have outlived its usefulness, radicalism will clamor for its suppression. Discontent, then, is a source of radicalism. This, however, is of a dual nature—discontent with conditions and discontent with institutions or principles. Many conservatives indulge in the former, only radicals in the latter. Again radicalism is not a mere “tearing up by the roots,” as the word is commonly interpreted, but is rather, as Philips Brooks writes, “a getting down to the root of things and planting institutions anew on just principles. An enlightened radicalism has regard for righteousness and good government, and will resist all enslavement to old forms and traditions, and will set them aside unless it shall appear that any of these have a radically just and defensible reason for their existence and continuance.”