Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The two aspects of William Godwin's thought, his regretful condemnation of the aristocracy and his emphasis on moral reform in advance of practical measures, make the first edition of Caleb Williams ...
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The two aspects of William Godwin's thought, his regretful condemnation of the aristocracy and his emphasis on moral reform in advance of practical measures, make the first edition of Caleb Williams far more than a straightforward commentary on social abuses. No doubt it was this complexity of meaning that led to the distribution of sympathies among early readers noted by Mary Shelley. Before looking at these competing views in the novel, however, one has to consider how Godwin's imaginative strategies relate to his pivotal belief in the unfettered exercise of private judgement. Godwin's development and diversification as an imaginative writer shows him in pursuit of his own ‘better remedy’. In his later experiments in ‘fictitious history’, he presents an increasingly internalized treatment of his political and philosophical concerns. But at the same time he extends the paradigm established in Caleb Williams to include a more comprehensive historical analysis.Less
The two aspects of William Godwin's thought, his regretful condemnation of the aristocracy and his emphasis on moral reform in advance of practical measures, make the first edition of Caleb Williams far more than a straightforward commentary on social abuses. No doubt it was this complexity of meaning that led to the distribution of sympathies among early readers noted by Mary Shelley. Before looking at these competing views in the novel, however, one has to consider how Godwin's imaginative strategies relate to his pivotal belief in the unfettered exercise of private judgement. Godwin's development and diversification as an imaginative writer shows him in pursuit of his own ‘better remedy’. In his later experiments in ‘fictitious history’, he presents an increasingly internalized treatment of his political and philosophical concerns. But at the same time he extends the paradigm established in Caleb Williams to include a more comprehensive historical analysis.
Nicholas Roe
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119692
- eISBN:
- 9780191671197
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119692.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter reconsiders William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's connections with the democratic reform movement, and to John Thelwall and William Godwin in particular. As with ‘Citizen ...
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This chapter reconsiders William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's connections with the democratic reform movement, and to John Thelwall and William Godwin in particular. As with ‘Citizen Wordsworth’, this book cannot claim to have found conclusive evidence that either poet was involved as a paid-up member of the Corresponding Society, but at various times in 1794 and 1795 both poets were so much in company with the Society's leaders and spokesmen that the matter of formal membership becomes a quibble. Furthermore, their near-coincidence in these circles is an important precedent for the poets' eventual meeting at Bristol in August or September 1795. For Coleridge and Thelwall the winter of 1795–1796 was to prove the last moment when a concerted effort for reform seemed practicable. Each maintained his opposition hereafter, but the displacement of political possibility set them on course for Alfoxden in July 1797 when their discussions would turn upon poetry as much as on politics.Less
This chapter reconsiders William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's connections with the democratic reform movement, and to John Thelwall and William Godwin in particular. As with ‘Citizen Wordsworth’, this book cannot claim to have found conclusive evidence that either poet was involved as a paid-up member of the Corresponding Society, but at various times in 1794 and 1795 both poets were so much in company with the Society's leaders and spokesmen that the matter of formal membership becomes a quibble. Furthermore, their near-coincidence in these circles is an important precedent for the poets' eventual meeting at Bristol in August or September 1795. For Coleridge and Thelwall the winter of 1795–1796 was to prove the last moment when a concerted effort for reform seemed practicable. Each maintained his opposition hereafter, but the displacement of political possibility set them on course for Alfoxden in July 1797 when their discussions would turn upon poetry as much as on politics.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
In a more specific account of changes between the first and second editions, William Godwin attributed his recognition of the emotional springs of action to a reading of David Hume's Treatise of ...
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In a more specific account of changes between the first and second editions, William Godwin attributed his recognition of the emotional springs of action to a reading of David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature in 1795. However, in fact his debt to Hume remains ambiguous and difficult to separate from his general assimilation of the ideas of the other British moralists that led him to declare in 1797: ‘Not only the passions of men, but their very judgements, are to a great degree the creatures of sympathy’. Godwin continues to reject Hume's notion of the operation of sympathy through an endless flow of passions and sentiments in which reason is virtually powerless. Instead, crucially for his theory of fiction, he retains his primary commitment to private judgement. The scepticism of Godwin's later studies of character in history both extends and undercuts his early conviction of the intrusion of government into private life.Less
In a more specific account of changes between the first and second editions, William Godwin attributed his recognition of the emotional springs of action to a reading of David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature in 1795. However, in fact his debt to Hume remains ambiguous and difficult to separate from his general assimilation of the ideas of the other British moralists that led him to declare in 1797: ‘Not only the passions of men, but their very judgements, are to a great degree the creatures of sympathy’. Godwin continues to reject Hume's notion of the operation of sympathy through an endless flow of passions and sentiments in which reason is virtually powerless. Instead, crucially for his theory of fiction, he retains his primary commitment to private judgement. The scepticism of Godwin's later studies of character in history both extends and undercuts his early conviction of the intrusion of government into private life.
Jonathan Sachs
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195376128
- eISBN:
- 9780199871643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376128.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter evaluates the contours of republican poetics in the English Jacobin novels of Godwin, Holcroft, Hays, and Inchbald. Focusing on the invocation of classical texts and Roman historical ...
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This chapter evaluates the contours of republican poetics in the English Jacobin novels of Godwin, Holcroft, Hays, and Inchbald. Focusing on the invocation of classical texts and Roman historical models, it reveals how Jacobin fiction attempts to replace the pedagogical lessons drawn from the exemplary heroes of classical history while reproducing a “Plutarchian” mode of exemplarity, one which suggests that novels, in a manner similar to a traditional understanding of classical history, enable a better understanding of society through knowledge of the individual and that novels can therefore supplement or replace classical history as a means of promoting virtue. One of the ways Jacobin novels underscore this potential of the novel form is through their self‐reflexive representation of discursive processes like writing, revision, and, especially, reading, which then becomes an index of how these novels imagine their impact upon a reader.Less
This chapter evaluates the contours of republican poetics in the English Jacobin novels of Godwin, Holcroft, Hays, and Inchbald. Focusing on the invocation of classical texts and Roman historical models, it reveals how Jacobin fiction attempts to replace the pedagogical lessons drawn from the exemplary heroes of classical history while reproducing a “Plutarchian” mode of exemplarity, one which suggests that novels, in a manner similar to a traditional understanding of classical history, enable a better understanding of society through knowledge of the individual and that novels can therefore supplement or replace classical history as a means of promoting virtue. One of the ways Jacobin novels underscore this potential of the novel form is through their self‐reflexive representation of discursive processes like writing, revision, and, especially, reading, which then becomes an index of how these novels imagine their impact upon a reader.
Nicholas Roe
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119692
- eISBN:
- 9780191671197
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119692.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This study is a reappraisal of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's radical careers before their emergence as major poets. The book presents a detailed examination of both writers' ...
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This study is a reappraisal of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's radical careers before their emergence as major poets. The book presents a detailed examination of both writers' debts to radical dissent in the years before 1789. Wordsworth's first-hand experience of revolution in France is treated in depth, and both Wordsworth's and Coleridge's relations with William Godwin and John Thelwall are clarified. In each case, the poets are shown to have been vividly alive to radical issues in Britain and France, and much more closely involved with the popular reform movement represented by the London Corresponding Society than has hitherto been suspected. The book argues against any generalized pattern of withdrawal from politics into retirement after 1795. He offers instead a reading of Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude, and The Recluse that emphasizes the integration of imaginative life and radical experience. For Coleridge, the loss of revolutionary idealism prefigured the collapse of his creative and personal life after 1798. For Wordsworth, on the other hand, revolutionary failure was the key to his emergence as poet of Tintern Abbey and The Prelude.Less
This study is a reappraisal of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's radical careers before their emergence as major poets. The book presents a detailed examination of both writers' debts to radical dissent in the years before 1789. Wordsworth's first-hand experience of revolution in France is treated in depth, and both Wordsworth's and Coleridge's relations with William Godwin and John Thelwall are clarified. In each case, the poets are shown to have been vividly alive to radical issues in Britain and France, and much more closely involved with the popular reform movement represented by the London Corresponding Society than has hitherto been suspected. The book argues against any generalized pattern of withdrawal from politics into retirement after 1795. He offers instead a reading of Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude, and The Recluse that emphasizes the integration of imaginative life and radical experience. For Coleridge, the loss of revolutionary idealism prefigured the collapse of his creative and personal life after 1798. For Wordsworth, on the other hand, revolutionary failure was the key to his emergence as poet of Tintern Abbey and The Prelude.
Jonathan Sachs
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195376128
- eISBN:
- 9780199871643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195376128.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In their polemical responses to the French revolution, Edmund Burke, William Godwin, John Thelwall, and others deploy Roman texts and Roman heroes for opposing sides in the conflict. Burke bolsters ...
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In their polemical responses to the French revolution, Edmund Burke, William Godwin, John Thelwall, and others deploy Roman texts and Roman heroes for opposing sides in the conflict. Burke bolsters his argument with Roman texts, especially Cicero, but his appeal to Roman precedent rests uneasily with his emphasis on specifically national precedent. Godwin, though traditionally considered a “radical” thinker, relies on the exemplary praise of Roman heroes in a backwards looking manner that often works against his progressivism. Ultimately, this chapter uses its focus on contests over the Roman republican legacy in the Revolution Controversy to argue that this important debate on political philosophy is something more complicated than a simple opposition between “radical” and “conservative” positions.Less
In their polemical responses to the French revolution, Edmund Burke, William Godwin, John Thelwall, and others deploy Roman texts and Roman heroes for opposing sides in the conflict. Burke bolsters his argument with Roman texts, especially Cicero, but his appeal to Roman precedent rests uneasily with his emphasis on specifically national precedent. Godwin, though traditionally considered a “radical” thinker, relies on the exemplary praise of Roman heroes in a backwards looking manner that often works against his progressivism. Ultimately, this chapter uses its focus on contests over the Roman republican legacy in the Revolution Controversy to argue that this important debate on political philosophy is something more complicated than a simple opposition between “radical” and “conservative” positions.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Imogen: A Pastoral Romance was the last of three novels produced by William Godwin in the winter of 1783 and 1784 and the one over which he took the most trouble.1 The title ...
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Imogen: A Pastoral Romance was the last of three novels produced by William Godwin in the winter of 1783 and 1784 and the one over which he took the most trouble.1 The title alone signals Godwin's departure from the eighteenth-century fictional conventions exploited in his two earlier novels, Damon and Delia, a picaresque narrative, and Italian Letters, modelled on the epistolary form. However, critical discussion of Imogen has generally been confined to Godwin's interest in eighteenth-century primitivism as reflected in the Preface. The novel's most remarkable feature, its construction out of poetic models, has gone practically unnoticed. In particular, Godwin's use of John Milton's A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, or Comus, has not been explored.2 Godwin's conjunction of pastoral romance, political idealism, and topical comment makes Imogen the first expression of that innovative blend of philosophy and fiction to be developed in Caleb Williams.Less
Imogen: A Pastoral Romance was the last of three novels produced by William Godwin in the winter of 1783 and 1784 and the one over which he took the most trouble.1 The title alone signals Godwin's departure from the eighteenth-century fictional conventions exploited in his two earlier novels, Damon and Delia, a picaresque narrative, and Italian Letters, modelled on the epistolary form. However, critical discussion of Imogen has generally been confined to Godwin's interest in eighteenth-century primitivism as reflected in the Preface. The novel's most remarkable feature, its construction out of poetic models, has gone practically unnoticed. In particular, Godwin's use of John Milton's A Masque Presented at Ludlow Castle, or Comus, has not been explored.2 Godwin's conjunction of pastoral romance, political idealism, and topical comment makes Imogen the first expression of that innovative blend of philosophy and fiction to be developed in Caleb Williams.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The development of Godwinian methods in pursuit of a critique of William Godwin is Charles Brockden Brown's distinctive achievement in Wieland; or, The Transformation, his first completed novel, ...
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The development of Godwinian methods in pursuit of a critique of William Godwin is Charles Brockden Brown's distinctive achievement in Wieland; or, The Transformation, his first completed novel, published September 1798. Brown's use of subjective narrative techniques to convey conservative political fears makes Wieland a pivotal text between Godwin's essentially optimistic critique of society in Caleb Williams and Mary Shelley's uncompromising pessimism in Frankenstein. Though much of the novel's immediate appeal lay in its qualities as a terror novel, Brown himself put great emphasis on its moral utility. Before looking at these imaginative strategies in more detail, there is a need to account for Brown's rapid shift from enthusiastic welcome of Godwin's fiction to distrust of revolutionary aspirations. Brown's mixed allegiance to Godwin should be seen in the light of American conservative reaction against revolutionary ideas.Less
The development of Godwinian methods in pursuit of a critique of William Godwin is Charles Brockden Brown's distinctive achievement in Wieland; or, The Transformation, his first completed novel, published September 1798. Brown's use of subjective narrative techniques to convey conservative political fears makes Wieland a pivotal text between Godwin's essentially optimistic critique of society in Caleb Williams and Mary Shelley's uncompromising pessimism in Frankenstein. Though much of the novel's immediate appeal lay in its qualities as a terror novel, Brown himself put great emphasis on its moral utility. Before looking at these imaginative strategies in more detail, there is a need to account for Brown's rapid shift from enthusiastic welcome of Godwin's fiction to distrust of revolutionary aspirations. Brown's mixed allegiance to Godwin should be seen in the light of American conservative reaction against revolutionary ideas.
Marilyn Butler
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129684
- eISBN:
- 9780191671838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129684.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
As revolutionary novelists, William Godwin and Robert Bage are virtually as unlike as they can be. A highly theoretical student of liberty, Godwin creates a fictional world in which social reality is ...
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As revolutionary novelists, William Godwin and Robert Bage are virtually as unlike as they can be. A highly theoretical student of liberty, Godwin creates a fictional world in which social reality is reflected symbolically through personal relationships, rather than re-created in detail. The businessman Bage prefers to deal in actuality: Hermsprong is a lively caricature of the world as it is. Godwin's mood is sombre, even tragic, Bage's sparkling and ultimately optimistic. Godwin's opinions influenced all the remaining jacobin novelists, and his pessimism, an understandable mood for an English radical of the period, extended itself in due course to his friends. Bage, the product of an older generation, was eventually to meet Godwin, but in his work he never acknowledges his influence. Both Godwin and Bage make the central assertion of the progressive when they assert the truth of the inner life over the mindless tyranny of the group.Less
As revolutionary novelists, William Godwin and Robert Bage are virtually as unlike as they can be. A highly theoretical student of liberty, Godwin creates a fictional world in which social reality is reflected symbolically through personal relationships, rather than re-created in detail. The businessman Bage prefers to deal in actuality: Hermsprong is a lively caricature of the world as it is. Godwin's mood is sombre, even tragic, Bage's sparkling and ultimately optimistic. Godwin's opinions influenced all the remaining jacobin novelists, and his pessimism, an understandable mood for an English radical of the period, extended itself in due course to his friends. Bage, the product of an older generation, was eventually to meet Godwin, but in his work he never acknowledges his influence. Both Godwin and Bage make the central assertion of the progressive when they assert the truth of the inner life over the mindless tyranny of the group.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This book is a pioneering analysis of the school of fiction inaugurated by William Godwin, and developed in the works of his principal followers, Charles Brockden Brown and Mary Shelley. In the first ...
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This book is a pioneering analysis of the school of fiction inaugurated by William Godwin, and developed in the works of his principal followers, Charles Brockden Brown and Mary Shelley. In the first study of these authors as a historically specific group, the book argues for a greater unity between Godwin's fictional techniques and his radical political philosophy than has been perceived. Its analysis of the works of Brown and Mary Shelley, moreover, reveals how these writers modified, reshaped, and redefined Godwin's distinctive themes and techniques in response to shifting ideological pressures in the post-revolutionary period. Examining prose fiction in a period traditionally seen as dominated by poetry, the book stresses the necessity for a revised view of British Romanticism. Uncovering the links between Godwin's fictional analysis of subjective experience and his progressive political philosophy, this book paves the way for a reappraisal of the apparently quietist and introspective concerns of other writers of the period.Less
This book is a pioneering analysis of the school of fiction inaugurated by William Godwin, and developed in the works of his principal followers, Charles Brockden Brown and Mary Shelley. In the first study of these authors as a historically specific group, the book argues for a greater unity between Godwin's fictional techniques and his radical political philosophy than has been perceived. Its analysis of the works of Brown and Mary Shelley, moreover, reveals how these writers modified, reshaped, and redefined Godwin's distinctive themes and techniques in response to shifting ideological pressures in the post-revolutionary period. Examining prose fiction in a period traditionally seen as dominated by poetry, the book stresses the necessity for a revised view of British Romanticism. Uncovering the links between Godwin's fictional analysis of subjective experience and his progressive political philosophy, this book paves the way for a reappraisal of the apparently quietist and introspective concerns of other writers of the period.
Bart Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691154770
- eISBN:
- 9781400884957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154770.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines William Godwin's role in the development of philosophical utilitarianism. It first provides a background on Godwin's early life before discussing his relationships, first with ...
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This chapter examines William Godwin's role in the development of philosophical utilitarianism. It first provides a background on Godwin's early life before discussing his relationships, first with Mary Wollstonecraft whom he married and then with Mary Jane Clairmont, his second wife. It then considers some of Godwin's works, including An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness; The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays; The Lives of the Necromancers; and Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. The chapter also describes Godwin's poor health in his later years. Godwin died in 1836 at the age of 80.Less
This chapter examines William Godwin's role in the development of philosophical utilitarianism. It first provides a background on Godwin's early life before discussing his relationships, first with Mary Wollstonecraft whom he married and then with Mary Jane Clairmont, his second wife. It then considers some of Godwin's works, including An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness; The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays; The Lives of the Necromancers; and Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. The chapter also describes Godwin's poor health in his later years. Godwin died in 1836 at the age of 80.
Andrew Cayton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607504
- eISBN:
- 9781469608266
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469607504.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter discusses the time when Mary Wollstonecraft first met William Godwin. They met at a small party in London in November 1791. “The interview was not fortunate,” Godwin later recalled. He ...
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This chapter discusses the time when Mary Wollstonecraft first met William Godwin. They met at a small party in London in November 1791. “The interview was not fortunate,” Godwin later recalled. He had sought an invitation to dinner at a friend's to meet Thomas Paine, who had recently published The Rights of Man. Godwin had no interest in Wollstonecraft, whose style he found distasteful. Unfortunately, Paine was “no great talker,” and Wollstonecraft was; he therefore “heard her, very frequently,” when he “wished to hear Paine.” The conversation centered on the characters of famous men and religion. Godwin thought Wollstonecraft eager to criticize, no matter how equivocal the evidence.Less
This chapter discusses the time when Mary Wollstonecraft first met William Godwin. They met at a small party in London in November 1791. “The interview was not fortunate,” Godwin later recalled. He had sought an invitation to dinner at a friend's to meet Thomas Paine, who had recently published The Rights of Man. Godwin had no interest in Wollstonecraft, whose style he found distasteful. Unfortunately, Paine was “no great talker,” and Wollstonecraft was; he therefore “heard her, very frequently,” when he “wished to hear Paine.” The conversation centered on the characters of famous men and religion. Godwin thought Wollstonecraft eager to criticize, no matter how equivocal the evidence.
Andrew Cayton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607504
- eISBN:
- 9781469608266
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469607504.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter compares William Godwin to Charles Brockden Brown, who was struggling to survive as a man of letters in a nation suddenly overrun with speculators, bankers, lawyers, and soldiers. By the ...
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This chapter compares William Godwin to Charles Brockden Brown, who was struggling to survive as a man of letters in a nation suddenly overrun with speculators, bankers, lawyers, and soldiers. By the early nineteenth century, the eighteenth-century blend of intellectual, social, and economic speculation uneasily embodied in the person of Gilbert Imlay had fractured. Commerce, which had signified, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “intercourse in the affairs of life,” became strictly economic, the business of exchanging commodities and capital. Intercourse acquired its modern meaning when Thomas Malthus linked it to sexuality; it connoted male penetration of the female body, nothing more. Society became a synonym for public life. Godwin denounced these changes, and not only because he was personally uncomfortable with them. Social commerce was as important to a healthy society as economic commerce.Less
This chapter compares William Godwin to Charles Brockden Brown, who was struggling to survive as a man of letters in a nation suddenly overrun with speculators, bankers, lawyers, and soldiers. By the early nineteenth century, the eighteenth-century blend of intellectual, social, and economic speculation uneasily embodied in the person of Gilbert Imlay had fractured. Commerce, which had signified, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “intercourse in the affairs of life,” became strictly economic, the business of exchanging commodities and capital. Intercourse acquired its modern meaning when Thomas Malthus linked it to sexuality; it connoted male penetration of the female body, nothing more. Society became a synonym for public life. Godwin denounced these changes, and not only because he was personally uncomfortable with them. Social commerce was as important to a healthy society as economic commerce.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804758406
- eISBN:
- 9780804779685
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804758406.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter explores the poetics and politics of anonymity in William Godwin's Caleb Williams, a text that strongly contrasts with Rousseau's work and yet elaborates similar concerns for the ...
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This chapter explores the poetics and politics of anonymity in William Godwin's Caleb Williams, a text that strongly contrasts with Rousseau's work and yet elaborates similar concerns for the ideology of personhood and the amplification of feeling through narrative form. Whereas Rousseau's anonymous fantasies temporarily entertain a move into the realm of the imaginary, Godwin develops a political strategy out of the aesthetic abstractions first alluded to in the Reveries, imbibing Rousseau's fugitive experiments into his own singular praxis. It is by turning the concept of anonymity into a full-scale political theory in Caleb Williams that Godwin makes his mark: narrative uncertainties and character unravelings intimate that subjectivity is politically viable because it is easily substituted, mobile, and betrayable.Less
This chapter explores the poetics and politics of anonymity in William Godwin's Caleb Williams, a text that strongly contrasts with Rousseau's work and yet elaborates similar concerns for the ideology of personhood and the amplification of feeling through narrative form. Whereas Rousseau's anonymous fantasies temporarily entertain a move into the realm of the imaginary, Godwin develops a political strategy out of the aesthetic abstractions first alluded to in the Reveries, imbibing Rousseau's fugitive experiments into his own singular praxis. It is by turning the concept of anonymity into a full-scale political theory in Caleb Williams that Godwin makes his mark: narrative uncertainties and character unravelings intimate that subjectivity is politically viable because it is easily substituted, mobile, and betrayable.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The epigraph and subtitle to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus signal Mary Shelley's challenging expansion of the Godwinian novel to incorporate major Western creation myths. To understand ...
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The epigraph and subtitle to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus signal Mary Shelley's challenging expansion of the Godwinian novel to incorporate major Western creation myths. To understand Shelley's commanding position in the Godwin school, however, we must consider not only the early Frankenstein, but also her ambitious formal experiments in her novels of the 1820s, Valperga and The Last Man. Frankenstein was dedicated to William Godwin, and, for several conservative reviewers, its anonymous publication in March 1818 provided an opportunity to attack the entire Godwin circle. However, Mary Shelley lacks Godwin's optimistic faith in man's capacity for rational judgement. While she accounts for the monster's deformity in terms of social oppression, her treatment of Frankenstein as an exemplar of egotistical ambition suggests a less historical approach, moving towards the conventional psychological focus of her later revisions.Less
The epigraph and subtitle to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus signal Mary Shelley's challenging expansion of the Godwinian novel to incorporate major Western creation myths. To understand Shelley's commanding position in the Godwin school, however, we must consider not only the early Frankenstein, but also her ambitious formal experiments in her novels of the 1820s, Valperga and The Last Man. Frankenstein was dedicated to William Godwin, and, for several conservative reviewers, its anonymous publication in March 1818 provided an opportunity to attack the entire Godwin circle. However, Mary Shelley lacks Godwin's optimistic faith in man's capacity for rational judgement. While she accounts for the monster's deformity in terms of social oppression, her treatment of Frankenstein as an exemplar of egotistical ambition suggests a less historical approach, moving towards the conventional psychological focus of her later revisions.
Andrew Cayton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781469607504
- eISBN:
- 9781469608266
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9781469607511_Cayton
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal with Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Most controversial were the details of the ...
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In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal with Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Most controversial were the details of the romantic liaisons of Godwin's wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, with both American Gilbert Imlay and Godwin himself. Wollstonecraft's life and writings became central to a continuing discussion about love's place in human society. Literary radicals argued that the cultivation of intense friendship could lead to the renovation of social and political institutions, whereas others maintained that these freethinkers were indulging their own desires with a disregard for stability and higher authority. Through correspondence and novels, the author of this book finds an ideal lens to view authors, characters, and readers all debating love's power to alter men and women in the world around them. He argues for Wollstonecraft's and Godwin's enduring influence on fiction published in Great Britain and the United States, and explores Mary Godwin Shelley's endeavors to sustain her mother's faith in romantic love as an engine of social change.Less
In 1798, English essayist and novelist William Godwin ignited a transatlantic scandal with Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Most controversial were the details of the romantic liaisons of Godwin's wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, with both American Gilbert Imlay and Godwin himself. Wollstonecraft's life and writings became central to a continuing discussion about love's place in human society. Literary radicals argued that the cultivation of intense friendship could lead to the renovation of social and political institutions, whereas others maintained that these freethinkers were indulging their own desires with a disregard for stability and higher authority. Through correspondence and novels, the author of this book finds an ideal lens to view authors, characters, and readers all debating love's power to alter men and women in the world around them. He argues for Wollstonecraft's and Godwin's enduring influence on fiction published in Great Britain and the United States, and explores Mary Godwin Shelley's endeavors to sustain her mother's faith in romantic love as an engine of social change.
Kenneth R. Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199657803
- eISBN:
- 9780191771576
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657803.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
John Thelwall and William Godwin are the two highest-profile examples of ‘usual’ and ‘unusual’ suspects from the 1790s. Their lives clearly reveal the phenomenon of bifurcated biography ...
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John Thelwall and William Godwin are the two highest-profile examples of ‘usual’ and ‘unusual’ suspects from the 1790s. Their lives clearly reveal the phenomenon of bifurcated biography characteristic of persons active in the pamphlet wars of the time, moving from fame to obscurity. Both were involved in the Treason Trials of 1794 and the effects of the Gagging Acts of 1795. They are analogues to the modern political phenomenon of ‘disappeared’ persons. Thelwall retreated from political writing and speaking, seeking relief in poetry, travel writing, and elocutionary lessons. Godwin was the preferred target for ‘hegemonic’ attacks on free-thinking enthusiasm for cultural reformation in Britain; he sought refuge in anonymous publication for nearly fifteen years after the turn of the century. His defense of Mary Wollstonecraft’s life backfired, destroying her reputation for over a century. His attempt to answer Malthus’s Essay on Population—which was originally motivated against Godwin’s perfectibilian theories—was similarly unsuccessful.Less
John Thelwall and William Godwin are the two highest-profile examples of ‘usual’ and ‘unusual’ suspects from the 1790s. Their lives clearly reveal the phenomenon of bifurcated biography characteristic of persons active in the pamphlet wars of the time, moving from fame to obscurity. Both were involved in the Treason Trials of 1794 and the effects of the Gagging Acts of 1795. They are analogues to the modern political phenomenon of ‘disappeared’ persons. Thelwall retreated from political writing and speaking, seeking relief in poetry, travel writing, and elocutionary lessons. Godwin was the preferred target for ‘hegemonic’ attacks on free-thinking enthusiasm for cultural reformation in Britain; he sought refuge in anonymous publication for nearly fifteen years after the turn of the century. His defense of Mary Wollstonecraft’s life backfired, destroying her reputation for over a century. His attempt to answer Malthus’s Essay on Population—which was originally motivated against Godwin’s perfectibilian theories—was similarly unsuccessful.
Pamela Clemit
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112204
- eISBN:
- 9780191670701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112204.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Abandoning the structural complexity of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley enacts her loss of faith in individual improvement at the level of narrative form. Given the overwhelming grief and powerlessness of ...
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Abandoning the structural complexity of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley enacts her loss of faith in individual improvement at the level of narrative form. Given the overwhelming grief and powerlessness of her first-person narrator, the reader is also forced into the role of passive witness to man's defeat by forces beyond his rational control. However, this single point of view may be seen as entirely proper to the novel's apocalyptic theme, and in this sense Shelley's disenchanted creation myth moves towards the separate genre of science fiction. Despite or because of her profound intellectual uncertainty, Shelley achieved an unparalleled extension of the imaginative scope of the Godwinian novel. Through the unforgettable images at the heart of Frankenstein and The Last Man, the symbolic concerns of William Godwin's tradition are both revitalized and deflected, and thus made available to mainstream nineteenth-century fiction writers.Less
Abandoning the structural complexity of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley enacts her loss of faith in individual improvement at the level of narrative form. Given the overwhelming grief and powerlessness of her first-person narrator, the reader is also forced into the role of passive witness to man's defeat by forces beyond his rational control. However, this single point of view may be seen as entirely proper to the novel's apocalyptic theme, and in this sense Shelley's disenchanted creation myth moves towards the separate genre of science fiction. Despite or because of her profound intellectual uncertainty, Shelley achieved an unparalleled extension of the imaginative scope of the Godwinian novel. Through the unforgettable images at the heart of Frankenstein and The Last Man, the symbolic concerns of William Godwin's tradition are both revitalized and deflected, and thus made available to mainstream nineteenth-century fiction writers.
Marilyn Butler
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129684
- eISBN:
- 9780191671838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129684.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The most marked trend in the English popular novel of the 1790s is its resolute rationality, its suspicion of the uncontrollable workings of the unconscious mind. No feature is more common in novels ...
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The most marked trend in the English popular novel of the 1790s is its resolute rationality, its suspicion of the uncontrollable workings of the unconscious mind. No feature is more common in novels of any ideological complexion during the revolutionary era than an unremitting hostility to that central plank of Henry Mackenzie and other leading sentimentalists, the intuitional psychology of David Hartley and David Hume. Conservative critics of the novel see that the true threat to orthodoxy lies in the moral relativism implicit in the sentimental movement. It is therefore cunning of them, though inaccurate, to ascribe to the ‘jacobins’ of the 1790s subjectivity, emotionalism, indulgence towards human weakness, and belief in sexual freedom, all of which the jacobins explicitly renounce. For the time being, the English progressive novelist speaks resolutely to the Reason. Sentimentalism has many critics in the period, but no one who is juster, more penetrating, more whole-hearted, than William Godwin.Less
The most marked trend in the English popular novel of the 1790s is its resolute rationality, its suspicion of the uncontrollable workings of the unconscious mind. No feature is more common in novels of any ideological complexion during the revolutionary era than an unremitting hostility to that central plank of Henry Mackenzie and other leading sentimentalists, the intuitional psychology of David Hartley and David Hume. Conservative critics of the novel see that the true threat to orthodoxy lies in the moral relativism implicit in the sentimental movement. It is therefore cunning of them, though inaccurate, to ascribe to the ‘jacobins’ of the 1790s subjectivity, emotionalism, indulgence towards human weakness, and belief in sexual freedom, all of which the jacobins explicitly renounce. For the time being, the English progressive novelist speaks resolutely to the Reason. Sentimentalism has many critics in the period, but no one who is juster, more penetrating, more whole-hearted, than William Godwin.
Ginger S. Frost
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719077364
- eISBN:
- 9781781700723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719077364.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Social History
The period of the Civil Wars saw an outpouring of criticism for the church and traditional marriage practices. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's own relationships showed the risks of marital ...
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The period of the Civil Wars saw an outpouring of criticism for the church and traditional marriage practices. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's own relationships showed the risks of marital experimentation without societal changes. Wollstonecraft's plight showed the dangers of cohabitation for women. Their relationship was different, both because of Wollstonecraft's prior experience and because Godwin was more considerate. The Godwin/Mary Shelley elopement defied the ‘monopoly’ of marriage. The majority of free unions in the Romantic period had little to do with theorising against marriage. The Owenite movement made a strong argument against traditional marriage. Owenites challenged the biblical basis of marriage and highlighted the problems with England's marriage laws. The writings of Radical Unitarians influenced the women's movement that began in the 1850s. The number of men and women willing to support new family forms showed strong dissent from the English laws and church.Less
The period of the Civil Wars saw an outpouring of criticism for the church and traditional marriage practices. William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's own relationships showed the risks of marital experimentation without societal changes. Wollstonecraft's plight showed the dangers of cohabitation for women. Their relationship was different, both because of Wollstonecraft's prior experience and because Godwin was more considerate. The Godwin/Mary Shelley elopement defied the ‘monopoly’ of marriage. The majority of free unions in the Romantic period had little to do with theorising against marriage. The Owenite movement made a strong argument against traditional marriage. Owenites challenged the biblical basis of marriage and highlighted the problems with England's marriage laws. The writings of Radical Unitarians influenced the women's movement that began in the 1850s. The number of men and women willing to support new family forms showed strong dissent from the English laws and church.
