Project (John Bennett)
Coleridge, in a fashion similar to his poetic peers, reacted to the outbreak of the Revolution with all the vigor, passion and idealism of youth. He embraced the ideas that the Revolution purported to embody; the creation of a new sociopolitical system based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity for all. Coleridge was seventeen years old at the time of the fall of the Bastille. What appeared to be the dawning of a new era for humanity is celebrated by the young Coleridge in the poem, "The Destruction of the Bastille"; Coleridge wrote:
I see, I see! glad Liberty succeedIt is important to note that Coleridge and other young Romantics were not simply naive idealistics as the early phase of the French revolution found considerable support throughout England. A tradition of peaceful Dissent in England had been successful in limiting royal absolutism and establishing a constitutional monarchy and some saw the beginning of the French Revolution to be following the English example. Coleridge, along with other Romantic writers, mixed socially in Dissenting circles that included Wollstonecraft, Hazlitt, Edgeworth, Bage and Godwin. The period from 1789 to 1794, from the fall of the Bastille to the establishment of the Directorate after the reign of Terror, was the time where Romantic response to the Revolution peaked in terms of fervor and radicalism. It is also important to note that during this period there was also considerable social and economic changes happening in Britain. It was a time of rapid population growth, urbanization, and technical improvements which, taken together, heralded the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Corresponding to these changes was a heightened interest by many writers in the injustices suffered by the common man, be they social, economic, or political.
With every patriot virtue in her train!
And mark yon peasant's raptured eyes;
Secure he views the harvests rise;
No fetter vile the mind shall know,
And Eloquence shall fearless glow.
Yes' Liberty the soul of life shall reign,
Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro' every vein.
(The Destruction of the Bastille, 1789)
Coleridge was extremely dissatisfied with European society as a whole at this time as is demonstrated by his and Southey's attempt to establish their own ideal community. This community, a "pantisocracy," would have seen a small band of unmarried men and women emigrating to America and a colony would be established that would allow for religious toleration and communal ownership of all land and wealth; Coleridge argued that an egalitarian system could only arise if men were equal in terms of material wealth. An older Coleridge would later accept the fact that differences, be they economic or social, do and will always exist in each individual's situation; this understanding formed an important part of his political philosophy. The "pantisocratic" scheme was abandoned in 1795 due to lack of financial support and interest.
Events in France, and their consequences in Britain, forced the Romantics to reevaluate their position. What had originated as a relatively bloodless overthrow of a despot with the hope of creating an republic had degenerated into social mayhem. Since the fall of the Bastille, France had witnessed the imprisonment and execution of Louis XIV, the September Massacres, Robespierre and the Terror; in Britain the declaration of war against France in 1793 and the ensuing patriotic fervor saw public opinion turn decidedly against France and French sympathizers. "Friends of liberty" no matter how moderate they were in their views were thought of by many to be Jacobinical extremists with anarchy as their goal. In his "Address Delivered at Bristol" Coleridge laments over the course of events in France, and warns Britain to heed the warning of the French example:
The example of France is indeed a warning to Britain. A nation wading to its rights in blood, and marking the track of freedom by devastation! Yet let us not embattle our feelings against our reason. Let us not indulge our malignant passions under the mask of humanity. Instead of railing with infuriate declamation against these excesses, we shall be more profitably employed in tracing them to their source.
Coleridge still believed in the promise of liberty but his rationalist philosophy was wavering. He began to question why the democratic principles that formed the cornerstone of the Revolution had yet to be realized. Essentially, Coleridge began to formulate a political philosophy in which the political system could not be based solely on reason and must appeal to the whole of man's nature, the polity must appreciate man's feelings, attachments, and traditions. Abandoning Paine's "inalienable rights" and advocating moral duties, Coleridge saw the best avenue for social change to be within the existing traditional society. The events in France demonstrated that abstract freedoms which were not curtailed by moral restraints result in a social collapse. The reason of the individual is subjugated to the passion of the mob.
In 1798 France invaded republican Switzerland and Coleridge lost any remaining sympathy for France and, for that matter, the principles of the Revolution. "France: An Ode" was written at this time; originally titled a"Recantation" the poem traces the poet's initial exultation at the beginning of the Revolution, his mixture of apprehension and hope as the events in Europe unfold, with the invasion of Switzerland Coleridge denounces France and recants his earlier convictions, and the poem concludes with a reflection on the ideal of freedom. Freedom, Coleridge believes, cannot be attained in governed society and is realized by the Individual through a sublime union with nature and God. Coleridge's political philosophy becomes increasingly similar to the conservatism of Burke and to a Neo-Platonic tradition. Coleridge's conservatism did not prevent him from attacking social injustices (he would late be a strong supporter of Peel's Factory Bill which would improve working conditions, in particular for children) and he would maintain that good government must be moral government. Coleridge's political philosophy was influential; much of Great Britain's nineteenth-century conservatism tempered with social reform finds its basis in the thought of this one time "radical."
References
H. T. Dickinson, Britain and the French Revolution. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
I. A. Richard, The Portable Coleridge. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.
R. W. Harris, Romanticism and the Social Order. London: Blandford Press, 1969.
Document revised April 6, 1997