The Use of Romantic Poetry in the Chartist Public Sphere
by
Daniël van Heijningen
Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
Literary Studies - Literature and Culture - English
University of Amsterdam
June 2015
Assessed by dr. R.W.H. Glitz
Table of Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1
1.
Chartism: The Rise of a Working-Class Subaltern Counter Public ......................... 4
Social Unrest in the 19th Century and Chartism ............................................................. 4
Different Conceptions of the Public Sphere .................................................................... 7
Habermas’s Theory of the Public Sphere .................................................................... 8
Criticism of Habermas’s Concept of the Public Sphere .......................................... 10
Fraser’s Rethinking the Public Sphere................................................................................ 14
The Public Sphere and the Literary Analysis of the Chartist Press ........................... 18
2.
The Use of Romantic Poetry in the Chartist Public Sphere .................................... 22
The Chartist Press ............................................................................................................. 22
Poetry in the Chartist Press ......................................................................................... 23
The Chartist Circular........................................................................................................... 24
Shelley's “Song to the Men of England” ........................................................................ 26
Coleridge's “Religious Musings” Lines 288 to 315 ....................................................... 33
A selection from Shelley’s Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem ...................................... 41
“Politics of the Poets No. III”: Wordsworth’s Poems on Liberty ............................... 51
“To Wordsworth” ......................................................................................................... 51
Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty ...................................................................................... 52
The Sonnets of 1802 ...................................................................................................... 56
3.
The Use of Romantic Poetry in The Northern Star and The Chartist Circular ......... 61
Romantic Poetry in The Northern Star ............................................................................ 61
Discussion .......................................................................................................................... 67
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 73
Works Cited ........................................................................................................................... 82
Introduction
The early 19th century saw Chartism rise out of the social unrest that had been
brewing in Britain for some time. This radical working class movement demanded
change in the electoral system; the Chartists believed these changes would allow the
working class to voice their problems in parliament and change society. Chartism
was the first successful national working class protest movement and soon became
more than just that as it developed a political, social and economic program.
This thesis will study Chartism within the framework of the public sphere.
With the term “public sphere”, Habermas refers to the (abstract) social spaces where
individuals discuss their common concerns; these discussions took place in physical
spaces, such as cafes and public squares, as well as in the media through papers,
letters and art. In the process of discussion, the individuals become a public, which
in turn forms a public opinion (4). Through this public opinion the public and
therefore indirectly the individuals can influence political action by using publicity.
The public sphere is thus a social space that mediates between the individual citizen
and the state (27). Approaching Chartism through the theoretical framework of
Habermas’ public sphere seems promising, as Chartism was in substance a new
segment of the public that wanted to partake in the public discussion in order to be
able to defend their rights and improve their living conditions.
From the beginning in 1838, Chartism rapidly expanded over the British
territories, which was in large part due to the Chartist newspapers, pamphlets and
similar forms of publication. Through these papers, the Chartists were able to spread
ideology, information and tactical advice quickly. Moreover, because these papers
reported on local radical activities all over the country it created a sense of national
connectedness; in this way Chartism was able to unify a collection of impulses that
previously had acted alone under the banner of the Charter. In their papers, the
Chartists reserved a significant amount of space for poetry. Poetry formed an
integral part of the Chartist working class culture; they considered poetry an
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effective medium for galvanizing the people into political action. The majority of the
poetry in the Chartist papers was the work of working class poets, yet they also
frequently used Romantic poetry. In this thesis, I will investigate why and how the
Chartist papers used Romantic poetry in their propagation of the Chartist cause. The
main question this thesis will try to answer is what is the function of Romantic
poetry in the Chartist public sphere? To answer this question, this study will pose
three sub-questions to examine the articles containing Romantic poetry. First, why
did the Chartists use this specific poem? Second, why were the specific lines of that
poem chosen and others excluded? Finally, how does the poem relate to the rest of
the article that encompasses it?
This thesis consists of three sections. The first part will discuss Chartism in the
context of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere. It will focus on Habermas’s
original conception in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Fraser’s
critique on Habermas’ theory. By considering the different approaches to the public
sphere, we can determine how Chartism should be interpreted within this analytical
framework. In short, I will argue that the case of Chartism demonstrates the value of
certain conceptions of the public sphere while simultaneously demonstrating the
inadequacy of others.
The second part of this thesis will deal with the use of Romantic poems in The
Chartist Circular. Considering that Chartism was essentially a working class
movement, discerning the reason why the Chartists used poetry from authors
outside their own class can provide insight into the workings of Chartist
newspapers. This study will demonstrate that considering the public sphere in the
literary analysis of the Chartist press, creates a deeper understanding of certain
aspects of their use of Romantic poetry.
Four reasons guided my choice to study The Chartist Circular. First, The
Chartist Circular is one of the Chartist papers that are accessible online. Second, The
Chartist Circular was one of the journals Shabaan searched for instances in which
Romantic poetry was used, but did not analyze. Third, while Sanders analyzed the
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use of poetry in The Northern Star, the biggest and most influential stamped
newspaper, the smaller unstamped papers, like The Chartist Circular, have so far
received little attention (Sanders, 2006). These unstamped papers played an
important part in the Chartist movement, as they offered the possibility for different
currents within the same movement to express themselves, as well as the possibility
to elaborate on local issues (Thompson, 44). As a consequence, the unstamped
Chartist Circular might have used poetry in a very different manner and thus fulfilled
a different role in the public sphere. Finally, analyzing an unstamped paper provides
the possibility of comparing the results to those of Sanders study of The Northern
Star. The third and final part of this thesis will investigate this hypothetical
difference, it will consider if stamped and unstamped papers use poetry differently.
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1. Chartism: The Rise of a Working-Class Subaltern Counter Public
This chapter will study Chartism in the context of the public sphere and
consider what benefits this has for literary analysis. To begin with, it will briefly
introduce Chartism. Second, it will analyze which conception of the public sphere is
best suited to study Chartism. There are various theories on the public sphere and
not all perceive Chartism in the same way. Finally, this chapter will consider how
analyzing Chartism as a public sphere can contribute to a deeper understanding of
the Romantic poetry in the Chartist press. This study will argue that studying
Chartism as a public sphere is beneficial not only for our understanding of the social
protest movement, but also for our understanding of the way the Chartists used
Romantic poetry.
Social Unrest in the 19th Century and Chartism
Nineteenth century Britain was a country in political and social unrest. The
industrial revolution, urbanization and a significant increase of the population had
changed society. In contrast, the legislature had practically remained the same. The
introduction of machinery halfway through the eighteenth century combined with
the continuous technological progress increasingly led to the replacement of manual
labor by a more mechanized production process. This change to a more mechanized
production process had catastrophic consequences for the working class, as it caused
the rate of unemployment to rise significantly. This significant degree of
unemployment in turn caused greater competition amongst the workers and a drop
in wage levels to under the amount the workers needed to sustain themselves
(Shabaan, “Shelley’s Influence” 159-160).
The first reaction to these changes came in the form Luddism. Between 1811
and 1817, on various occasions, workers united to express their rage by destroying
the frames and machines that had replaced them (Steedman, 225-250). The economic
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discontent in the beginning of the nineteenth century caused an ever-increasing call
for electoral reform amongst the lower classes. Especially during years of economic
agitation, the support for a parliamentary reform increased and masses protested in
the streets for democracy or republicanism (Lambert).
Between 1829 and 1832, various political movements came into existence.
However, these movements focused primarily on supporting the middle-class
struggle for parliamentary reform. The working class supported these initiatives
under conviction that the middle class would in turn help them in obtaining suffrage
for their class (Shabaan 161). When the Reform Bill of 1832 turned out only to serve
the purposes of the middle class, the coalition between the working and the middle
class disintegrated and the workers continued on their own.
Another event that strongly increased the support for radical working class
resistance and later on Chartism was the New Poor Law Amendment of 1834. This
law aimed at lowering the cost of the poor relief system by applying the principles of
the market (Westmoreland). The law consisted of two specific measures. First, the
government created workhouses that aimed to repel all but the neediest by making
the conditions worse than the lowest paid worker would live in. Within these
workhouses, families were separated and the inmates were forced to execute heavy,
often pointless labor (“Human Rights 1815-1848”). Second, the government decided
to make all poor relief to able-bodied people outside of the workhouses illegal,
thereby making these places the only option for the unemployed poor. These
workhouses became an object of hate for the poor and the poor started referring to
them as “poor law bastilles" (Bloy “Economic and Political”). Westmoreland argues,
“the Poor Law act of 1834 probably did more to convince the workers of the need for
radical change than anything else” (“Chartism: The Birth”).
In 1837, the London Working Men's Association (LWMA) published William
Lovett’s The Peoples Charter. It was this political manifesto gave the name to the
5
followers of this movement (Chartists), and the movement itself (Chartism). The
Peoples Charter demanded six basic reforms: universal voting rights, secret ballot,
abolition of property qualifications for MPs, compensation for MPs, equally sized
constituencies, and annual elections. In practice, this manifesto asked for the right to
vote and the ability to represent their class in parliament, so that working class could
give voice to their problems and improve the conditions they were living in.
The demands of Chartism were not new; what was innovating and what gave
Chartism its strength, was its national reach. For the first time, a national working
class movement supported one program. Although there had been a long tradition
of radicalism before Chartism, these were all local and unconnected groups, based
on specific local issues. The Charter became a symbol of resistance and hope for a
better future, under which the poor and disgruntled working class gathered.
Chartism thus came forth out a collection of impulses that previously had acted
alone; it was able to unify these groups under the banner of the Charter, even though
they suffered from different forms of social, economic and political oppression.
Chartism thus established the first national working class public sphere.
Although Chartism started out as a working class protest movement reacting
to the economic disgruntlement, it soon grew out to become more than that, as the
movement developed a political, social and economic program (Shabaan 159). In
other words, what started out as social and economic unrest, became a political
campaign by a well-organized movement. What is important and necessary to
understand the novelty of Chartism, is the ways in which Chartism is fundamental
different from preceding radical groups:
Chartism was the demand for recognition by articulate and self-conscious
working people. It was not a demand for the replacement of the existing
institutions … It was the demand for the inclusion in a political system, in
whose efficacy they believed, of labourers who could see themselves as part
6
of an expanding economy, but as the victims of the system they were helping
to create (Shabaan 95).
This is significantly different when compared to preceding movements. While
previous movements such as the Luddites had cooled their rage on machinery, the
Chartist demonstrated a deeper understanding of the social relations of the
nineteenth century society. The Chartists understood that if they wanted to protect
themselves against the interests of others, they needed to be able to participate in the
political system. The Chartists demonstrated awareness of the social conditions of
their time and a willingness to enter in the public discussion in order to obtain the
right to vote.
The main reasons we should study Chartism as a public sphere are the three
aspects that make Chartism different from their radical predecessors: rational critical
debate, national unity, and the use of publicity to obtain their objectives. However,
there are various ways to conceive the public sphere. The next paragraph will
consider different conceptions of the public sphere to discover which one is best
suited to study Chartism.
Different Conceptions of the Public Sphere
Academics from various fields have weighed in on the discussion
surrounding Habermas’s concept of the public sphere (translated from the German
öffentlichkeit). Even though his theory has generally altered the way we conceive the
role the public plays in a democracy, certain aspects of his theory have been widely
contested. Especially Habermas’s choice exclusively to analyze the liberal bourgeois
public sphere caused dissent. The rest of this chapter will consider the debate
surrounding Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, focusing mainly on Fraser’s
critique, but also on the criticism of Calhoun, Eley, Kaelble, Kellner, Lunt and
Livingston.
7
Habermas’s Theory of the Public Sphere
With the term public sphere, Habermas refers to the (abstract) social spaces
where individuals discuss their common concerns. In the process of discussion, the
individuals become a public, which forms a public opinion. Through this public
opinion, the public can influence political action by using publicity. It is thus a social
space that mediates between the individual citizen and the state (Habermas, S.
Lennox, and F. Lennox 49-50). The public sphere is a place where individuals can
freely discuss matters on the basis of rational arguments, without interference from
the state (Eriksen 25). A last important aspect of the Public sphere that Habermas
discusses is the central role of the press. He argues that the press is a fundamental
tool in guaranteeing the accessibility of the public sphere. Habermas even claims the
press is “an institution of the public itself, effective in the manner of a mediator and
intensifier of the public discussion” (Habermas, S. Lennox, and F. Lennox 53).
Habermas, in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into
a Category of Bourgeois Society, takes the bourgeois public sphere as the exemplary
model of a public sphere. He situates the upcoming of the liberal model of the
bourgeois public sphere during the 18th century, and considers it as a way in which
civil society balanced absolutist states. This sphere held the absolutist states in check
by publicly discussing its functioning. These discussions took place in salons, clubs
and reading societies, but even more essential to the development of the public
sphere was the upcoming of newspapers and therefore the availability of
information regarding the functioning of the state. Later on during the 18th century,
changes in the law guaranteed the protection from economic and political forms of
control through freedom of speech, assembly and press and eventually
parliamentary representation. A change thus took place from a sphere where the
rulers presented their decisions to the people, to a sphere in which the bourgeoisie
monitored the functioning state and with its public discussion tried to steer the state
in the right direction (1-14).
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Habermas’s public sphere rested on three fundamental principles. First, he
argues that within the discursive associations that made up the bourgeois public
sphere there was a disregard of status, as the quality of the arguments was more
important than the participant’s social status (36). Second, the bourgeoisie opened
the discussion on which issues belonged to the domain of common concern, making
culture and society available as a topic for discussion (36). There were, however,
limitations to what participants could discuss in the bourgeois public sphere.
Habermas makes a strict distinction between the public and the private domains.
The public sphere is were private people discuss public issues, while private issues
pertain to the private sphere and should not be discussed in the public sphere. Third,
the public was inclusive, as all who were “propertied and educated” were able,
through the participation in discussion groups or the acquisition of periodicals, to
participate in the debate (37). There was a general idea that everyone should be able
to take part in the discussion. The separate discussion groups understood
themselves to be part of a bigger public. A last element, which Habermas considers
vital for the functioning of the bourgeois public sphere, is the strict division between
civil society and the state. This is why Habermas stresses that: “the public sphere,
made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs
of society with the state, was itself considered part of the private realm” (176).
In The Structural Transformation, Habermas argues there is only one public
sphere. Initially this public sphere was homogenous as its members all belonged to
the bourgeoisie. However, by the end of the 19th century other groups entered the
public sphere (175-181). According to Habermas, this expansion of the public sphere
led to the degeneration of the public sphere. It caused the blurring of the clear
divisions that had characterized the bourgeois public sphere on two levels. First, the
boundaries between the private and the public sphere became less clear, because
with the entrance of new groups private interests started competing in the public
sphere. Instead of ignoring class divisions, they became the basis of discussion and
9
action. Second, the strict separation between civil society and the state disappeared,
as the “occupation” of the political public sphere by the “unpropertied masses”
caused an interlacing of the state and society (177). He argues that because these
masses were without property they had no interest in keeping private matters out of
the public sphere. By eliminating these divisions, they removed the fundaments of
the public sphere without creating a new one. The result of this was the interference
of the government in the social order “through advance planning, distribution, and
administration” (178).
Habermas argues that ultimately, the expansion of access changed the way in
which the public participated; “the key tendency was to replace the shared critical
activity of public discourse by a more passive culture consumption on the one hand
and an apolitical sociability on the other” (Calhoun 22). Habermas argues that in our
modern society the public no longer participates through active debates, but instead
reacts to politics by demonstrating their approval or disapproval. Accordingly, states
do not respond to the critical public but use publicity to gain support for their
actions (The Structural Transformation 178-181).
Criticism of Habermas’s Concept of the Public Sphere
Through the years, academics have both acclaimed and criticized Habermas’s
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. This study will briefly discuss three
recurring points of criticism, as they are of interest to the discussion at hand. First,
Calhoun argues The Structural Transformation deals with the various periods in an
asymmetrical manner, as “Habermas tends to judge the eighteenth century by Lock
and Kant, the nineteenth by Marx and Mill, and the twentieth by the typical
suburban television viewer” (33). Similarly, Kaelble argues that Habermas is too
skeptical about the 19th century while he idolizes the public sphere of the
enlightenment (11-12).
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Second, Habermas underestimates the potential of the plebeian public sphere
in society. Habermas, in the introduction of The Structural Transformation, stated:
Our investigation is limited to the structure and function of the liberal model
of the bourgeois public sphere, to its emergence and transformation. Thus it
refers to those features of a historical constellation that attained dominance
and leaves aside the plebeian public sphere as a variant that in a sense was
suppressed in the historical process. (The Structural Transformation XVIII)
In reaction, several authors have demonstrated that the plebeian public sphere
deserved more credit than Habermas gave it (Kellner; Negt & Kluge; Calhoun;
Fraser). They describe plebeian public sphere as an autonomous sphere parallel to
the bourgeois public sphere.
Finally, critics have often accused Habermas of idealizing the bourgeois
public sphere because he presents it as an open arena of rational debate, while in
reality the discussion was mainly between educated, propertied men and excluded
other social groups (Kellner). In his Marxian consideration of the public sphere,
Habermas addresses the fact that the bourgeois public sphere represented its own
class interests as well as the fact that class and property dictated whether one could
participate in the debate (The Structural Transformation 124). Habermas thus
recognizes these flaws in the bourgeois public sphere and admits he is presenting “a
stylized picture of the liberal elements of the bourgeoisie public sphere and of their
transformation in the social-welfare state” (XIX). However, Habermas does not treat
these aspects extensively as they would hurt his historical ideal.
Based on the criticism of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,
Habermas altered his view on the public sphere. In his chapter in Calhoun’s
Habermas and the Public Sphere, he reflects on how his opinion has changed:
Rereading this book after almost thirty years, I was initially tempted to make
changes, eliminate passages, and make emendations. Yet I became
11
increasingly impressed with the impracticability of such a course of action:
the first modification would have required me to explain why I did not
refashion the entire book. This, however, would be asking too much of an
author who in the meantime has turned to other matters (Habermas, “Further
Reflections” 421)
He addresses his neglect of the working class public sphere, which he had
characterized as a mere “variant of the bourgeois public sphere that remained
repressed in the historical process” (Habermas 423). New studies have convinced
him that he had underestimated the plebeian public sphere:
The emergence of the plebeian public sphere thus marks a specific phase in
the historical development of the life relations of the petit bourgeoisie and the
strata below it … it is more than a mere variant, since it develops the
bourgeois public sphere’s emancipatory potential in a new social context. The
plebeian public sphere is, in a manner of speaking, a bourgeois public sphere
whose social preconditions have been rendered null. (Lottes in Habermas,
“Further Reflections” 426)
A second issue Habermas adresses is the accusation that he idolizes the
bourgeois public sphere. He argues he should have specified more clearly that he
was not providing a normative ideal that we should implement in our society, but an
ideal type to which to compare the present (Habermas, “Further Reflections” 422).
He argues he should have more clearly described the differences between the ideal
and the actual bourgeois public sphere. In his later work this conflict between his
historical representation and normative objective, caused Habermas to shift his
attention from searching for an ideal in a historic context to analyzing the rational
potential of everyday communicative practices. He thus shifted from an historic
ideal to a more abstract one. Lunt and Livingstone aptly illustrate Habermas’s
reconceptualization of the public sphere:
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[T]he rethought public sphere is inevitably dispersed, and its legitimacy rests
less in the nature of the place where communication occurs and instead in the
nature of the communication itself. … Habermas now embraces the contested
nature of public life, the importance of recognition of diverse identities and,
therefore, the legitimacy of multiple forms and sites of deliberation. … No
longer is bourgeois conversation specifically idealised, as in Habermas’s
original formulation of the public sphere, because he has moved away from
conceiving of the idealised political consciousness of the participant in the
public sphere (Lunt and Livingstone 6).
Ultimately, the weaknesses of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
are related to the objective of the author. In his book, Habermas wished to
demonstrate the pitiful state of our present-day public sphere, where rational debate
is nearly absent. To achieve this he needed a strong normative ideal to which to
compare modern society, as a bigger contrast would render his point more
forcefully. Habermas chose to analyze “a particular historical moment at which
certain possibilities for human emancipation were unlocked, possibilities that for
Habermas were ordered around the ‘central idea of communicatively generated
rationality’” (Eley 290). However, as Eley argues, Habermas is more interested in
creating a strong ideal against which he can compare the modern public sphere, than
in the particular political histories of the eighteenth and nineteenth century (“Further
Reflections” 328). There is thus a tension between the normative intensions and the
historical facts. All these elements make that Habermas’s conception of the public
sphere is not very useful to study Chartism. Now that we have discussed the
problems inherent in Habermas’s conception of the public sphere, it is time to
consider another approach to the public sphere, which is more suited to analyze
Chartism.
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Fraser’s Rethinking the Public Sphere
Coming from a feminist point of view, Fraser analyzes the way in which nondominating social movements express themselves in the public sphere. Social
movements are a vital part of democratic politics and public discourse, as they can
change the content of the public debate by introducing new subjects (Calhoun 37).
Calhoun argues that Habermas’s neglect for social movement points to negligence
towards agency, towards the struggles, which reform the public sphere and its
participants. Although Fraser does not reject the idea of the public sphere itself, she
identifies four crucial claims Habermas made about the bourgeois public sphere that
are problematic if they are confronted with a critical evaluation of historical facts. Of
the four claims Fraser discusses in her article, “Rethinking the Public Sphere”, three
are of interest in this discussion.
The first claim deals with intra-public relations. Habermas argues that the
public sphere was openly accessible and that within this public sphere the
participants did not consider status. Fraser, on the other hand, argues that although
formally there were no restraints to participations in the bourgeoisie public sphere,
the protocols of style and decorum served as informal restraints. These protocols
limited the participation to the white male members of the bourgeoisie. Moreover,
groups that did not belong to the upper classes did not have the same opportunities
to contribute to the debate in the media, as members of the higher classes owned the
media. This combination of cultural exclusion and political economy did not create
an equal opportunity of participation (59-60). A last remark she makes on the subject
is that disregarding social status means that participants cannot discuss social
differences, but this issue relates to the contents of the public deliberation, which is
part of the third claim treated below.
Chartism, in a way, demonstrates the consequences of the limited accessibility
of the bourgeois public sphere, which was open to all that were “propertied and
14
educated” (Habermas, The Structural Transformation 37), and thus led to the exclusion
of the majority of the population. This exclusion in the public sphere was also part of
the system of parliamentary representation. It was this exclusion that caused the
social agitation in the United Kingdom from the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th
century. Chartism meant the end of the social exclusivity of the public sphere. The
result of the exclusion of the working class from the bourgeois public sphere was the
formation of a parallel working class public sphere.
The second claim deals with the inter-public relations. Habermas’s argues
there is one public sphere and that a plurality of publics causes dissolution and
deterioration, which negatively influences the public sphere (175-181). In contrast,
Fraser argues that in a society characterized by inequality, multiple contending
publics serve the democratic principle of equality of participation better (71). If only
one public sphere existed, non-dominant social groups would have no place to
discuss their common concerns. This is why Fraser argues we should consider the
existence of multiple parallel public spheres, which can overlap or contend each
other (72). She argues that subordinated groups have often organized themselves in
discursive spaces outside the dominant public sphere. She calls these groups
subaltern counter publics. These counter publics have a dual function, they serve as
an enclave,” a space of withdrawal” , but also as a bases from which to participate in
a wider debate in various ways (68). She sees the contestatory function of these
counter publics as fundamental against separatism. She considers the counter
publics to have an emancipatory function, as they participate in a discussion that is
not limited to their group only (67). These counter publics thus do not limit
themselves to discussing their issues within their own ranks, but use publicity to
make their problems known in a wider arena, for example in the form of petitions or
manifestations.
Fraser approaches the concept of the public sphere from the standpoint of
subordinated social groups that want to alter the existing system. This contestatory
15
function seems a fitting description of the function of Chartism. Before Chartism so
publicly and articulately expressed the problems of the working class were facing,
these problems might have been largely unknown outside that class.
The third claim deals with the content of the deliberations in the public
sphere. Habermas argued that in the public sphere private persons discuss public
matters; Fraser problematizes this distinction between private and public. She argues
that it is a subjective distinction. She states that in a democracy, counter publics
should have the possibility to put any subject up for discussion in order to try to
convince the rest. Fraser discusses two rhetoric practices through which some topics
are rendered ineligible for discussion by privatizing them; these are the rhetoric of
domestic privacy and economic privacy, both of which are relevant to the discussion
at hand (73). Through the notion of economic privacy, which regarded ownership
and the commerce of commodities as private affairs, the discussion of other systems
than the liberal laissez faire was ruled out. It also means that participants in the
public sphere could not discuss the relations of domination and subordination as
this concerns private interests.
The problem that Fraser recognizes is that in a society based on domination
and subordination, the dominating group decides what the common concerns are.
The same is true for choosing which issues belong to the private sphere and which
issues belong to the public sphere. Chartism is a perfect example of a subaltern
counter public using its contestatory function to try to change society. Chartism was
able to make male suffrage a public matter, by publicly discussing issues, which the
dominant public sphere considered private. They also made the working and living
conditions of the working class into a topic that was debatable in the public sphere
and from the 1840’s on the government started to try to improve the condition of the
working class (Brown).
A last aspect of importance is the division between civil society and the state.
Fraser discusses the desirability of this separation, but for the purposes of this study,
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it is more interesting to consider whether this division between civil society and the
state actually existed. Kaelble argues that the division between the state and civil
society, as envisioned by Habermas, is more accurate if related to the absolutist
states, and less applicable to democratic societies of the 19th and 20th century (11-12).
According to Kaelble, the state and civil society influenced each other reciprocally.
On the one hand, power holders influenced and sometimes even arranged public
discussion. In addition, power holders also have the power to try to keep certain
groups out of the public debate. On the other hand, the whole point of the public
sphere is that through deliberation the public sphere can influence those in power. In
addition, some of the citizens that make up the public sphere held a position of
power themselves (23).
In the case of Chartism and the preceding radicalism in Britain, it is possible
to identify examples of both types of intertwining of the state and civil society that
Kaelble mentions (11-12). On the one hand, in some occasions politicians and citizens
work together. More significant in the case of Chartism however, was that the state
influenced the public sphere, by actively trying to restrain the radicals from
participating in the public debate. The British government cracked down on the
Chartist movement not only by forcefully putting down riots and incarcerating
Chartist leaders, but also by restricting their possibilities of free press and assembly.
The government forbade seditious writings and gatherings of more than 50 people.
They also taxed the press in such a manner that it was unaffordable to the lower
classes. The government thus actively repressed the possibility of the working class
to participate in the public debate. Considering that the state was actively limiting
who could participate in the public sphere as well as restraining what participants
could say within the public sphere, it is evident that there was no clear division
between state and civil society in the beginning of the 19th century. Chartism also
stands for the beginning of what Habermas considers a problematic issue, the
intertwining of the state and civil society through the direct intervention of the state
17
in the economy in order to improve the plight of the lower classes. However, the
state had already been intervening in the economy in the interest of certain groups
for a long time, just not the working class.
In conclusion, the case of Chartism demonstrates the weaknesses of certain
aspects of Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. Especially the strict division
between public and private and between the state and civil society are problematic
when analyzing Chartism. Habermas’s focus on the normative ideal over the
historical accurateness makes his conception of the public sphere suitable to criticize
modern society, but less useful for analyzing historical movements. Finally, his lack
of attention for social movements, combined with his idea of a single public sphere,
make it hard to use this conception to study changes in the public sphere. Fraser’s
approach, on the other hand, focuses on social movements and the way they change
society. Chartism is a good example of a subaltern counter public using its
contestatory function. A fundamental difference between Fraser and Habermas is
that in Habermas’s conception, the public sphere is not a social space where
participants can discuss the relation of domination and subordination, while Fraser
devised her concept of subaltern counter publics to describe exactly that
phenomenon. Considering that Chartism was all about questioning the relation
between classes and trying to alter the power relations, Fraser’s conception of the
public sphere is simply better equipped to analyze Chartism.
The Public Sphere and the Literary Analysis of the Chartist Press
Now that we have considered the way Chartism fits into the framework of the
public sphere, this paragraph will focus on demonstrating how this influences the
literary analysis made in this thesis. It will discuss three aspects related to the
Chartist public sphere, which alter our understanding of the use of Romantic poetry
in the Chartist press.
18
The first aspect is the division between public and private discussed above.
As Calhoun argues, social movements are a vital part of democratic politics and
public discourse, by introducing new issues they can change what the participants
discuss in the public debate (37). In the case of Chartism, this introduction of new
topics has a more significant role, as it alters which issues belong to the private
sphere and which belong to the public sphere. Of particular interest for our literary
analysis is the rhetoric of domesticity. The rhetoric of domesticity was the Chartist
answer to the middle class gendered notion of virtue, which marked the working
class as morally inferior (Clark, “The rhetoric” 66). The middle class did not use this
rhetoric of virtue to impose domesticity on the working class, but to deny the
working class the privileges associated with it. In order to construct a more positive
image of the working class, Chartists made the domestic into a political issue,
defending it and using it as a political asset (67). One of the main argumentative
structures used by the Chartist was that of blaming familial misery on exterior
elements such as the masters who exploited them, the government that did not
protect their interests (the New Poor Law), and the aristocracy that ruled them. In
their rhetoric, the ideal (middle class) form of domesticity and the associated role of
women were unobtainable because of the exploitation by the higher classes. In
practice, the Chartist turned what the dominant public sphere considered the most
private matter into a public resource. This study encountered multiple accounts of
this rhetoric in articles containing Romantic poetry. If this study would not approach
Chartism as a public sphere, it would neglect the Chartist struggle of making private
issues into public matters, which was a fundamental part of Chartism. It would thus
fail to understand the Chartist’s use of the image of the domestic fully.
A second important aspect of Chartism was the self-education of the working
class; self-education was vital for the movement as it “was directed at identifying a
producerist interest within a monopolized and hierarchical societal structure that
impoverished their members and excluded them from politics” (Niemi and Plante
19
158). Self-education played an important role in the identity of the movement. A
frequently used argument to counter the Chartists call for suffrage was the claim that
the working classes were to ignorant to be given the right to vote, this made selfeducation all the more important. The demand for universal education and thus the
end of exclusion of the working class on economic grounds was one of the central
policies of the Chartists. Education was also one of the informal restraints keeping
the working class out of the public debate and the Chartist wanted society to
consider them worthy of participation. They also wanted the working class to be
conscious of how the upper classes were exploiting them. This inherent aspect of the
Chartist public sphere is a recurrent theme in the analyzed articles.
A final aspect of Chartism that is important to consider in the context of the
public sphere is the main internal division. The Chartists were divided into two
camps the moral force and physical force Chartists. This division centered around
which political strategy was best suited to obtain the Charter. The moral school was
convinced that they could obtain electoral reforms through self-education and
manifesting moral values, the people needed to be educated and enlightened in
order to be able to induce the government to recognize the rights and liberties they
should rightfully have. On the other hand, the physical force school argued that selfeducation and morals were not enough and that violence might be a necessary tool
in the process of obtaining male suffrage (J. Morgan, “Rise Like Lions”). Most
modern interpretations of Chartism claim that previous scholars overemphasized
this division, as the physical force Chartists often used a rhetoric of violence and
took part in the occasional riots, but never actually chose for armed struggle as
means of winning the Charter (Thompson 2). However, as Shabaan argues it is
impossible to state with certainty if using a violent rhetoric was a deliberate choice
the physical force Chartist made to scare the authorities or that they actually meant
their threats (167). Walton argues that the two different schools of thought were
dependent on each other as the moral force approach needed the threat of
20
insurrection for credibility while the physical force approach needed the
legitimization of having tried alternative approaches first (59). Whatever the case
may be, what is important for the discussion at hand is that the physical versus
moral force debate was important within the Chartist movement. The fact that there
was public discussion on subjects as important as the main strategy demonstrates
how Chartism functioned as public sphere of its own (Clark, “The Struggle” 225226). This division between moral force and physical force Chartism sheds light on
the reason Chartists chose to use certain Romantic poems.
21
2. The Use of Romantic Poetry in the Chartist Public Sphere
This chapter will consider the use of Romantic poetry in the Chartist public
sphere. It will analyze the Chartist press as an expression of that public sphere. The
Chartist press is one of the few aspects of this public sphere that remain intact. In
specific, this chapter will analyze why and how The Chartist Circular used Romantic
poetry in order to propagate the Chartist cause. This chapter will address four
questions related to the instances in which The Chartist Circular used Romantic
poetry. First, why did the paper use this specific poem? Second, why were the
specific lines of that poem chosen and the others excluded? Third, how do these
poems relate to the rest of the article? Finally, what is their function in the Chartist
public sphere? However, before we start to analyze the instances in which The
Chartist Circular used Romantic poetry, it is necessary to discuss briefly the Chartist
press and the significance of poetry in the Chartist press.
The Chartist Press
As mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the aspects that made Chartism
substantially different from other preceding protest movements was its national
reach. The fact that Chartist activities from all over the country were reported on in
the Chartist press, made all these small groups feel they were part of a greater
movement; this sense of national unity could not have been obtained without the
Chartist press (Thompson 55). Moreover, through their newspapers the Chartists
could rapidly diffuse ideas, information, and suggested strategies, thereby making it
a fundamental tool for spreading the ideology and strengthening the idea of
knowing what was happening within the movement (Thompson 40). However, the
Chartist papers did not exclusively serve as a weapon in the struggle for civil liberty
it was also a means of educating the people. Some authors even argue that if there
had not been newspapers to provide propaganda at a local level there would have
been no Chartist movement at all (Hugman 25).
22
In 1836 the British government passed the Newspaper Act, this law reduced
the duty on newspapers from 4d to 1d, thereby making newspapers commonly
available to the middle class. At the same time, the 1836 act rendered unstamped
papers legal as long as they did not report on news. However, it also severely
augmented the penalties for publishing or owning unstamped newspapers that did
report on news. This made it more difficult for the working class to obtain news
(Thompson 41).
The result of the 1836 Newspaper Act was the creation of two different types
of Chartist papers. On the one hand, there were small-sized cheap journals with no
duty stamp on them and therefore limited to commenting, as they were not allowed
to report any news. These unstamped journals did not get concessions with the post
and railway and were thus more limited in their reach. On the other hand, there
were larger legal newspapers selling at a much higher price but with a wider reach
(“Chartist Newspapers”). These two different types of papers served different
purposes within the movement. Due to their high costs, only one stamped Chartist
newspaper managed to maintain itself: The Northern Star. It was this stamped
newspaper that held the national public together by reporting on all radical activity.
The Northern Star was the biggest newspaper reaching the largest audience, but also
one that the working class could not easily afford. Even if The Northern Star was the
most influential newspaper, the smaller and unstamped papers also played a
significant part in the movement. They offered the possibility for different currents
within the same movement to partake in the discussion and they offered the
possibility to elaborate on local issues. The unstamped papers also served the
purpose of providing information on the Charter at a local level.
Poetry in the Chartist Press
Poetry was a very common part of newspapers in the nineteenth century and
the Chartist press was no exception to this phenomenon. Nearly all Chartist
23
newspapers contained a poetry column and these columns were one of the main
sources of poetry for the working class. The majority of the poetry published in the
Chartist journals came from artisans and factory workers and contemplated the
concerns of the working class. Many of the Chartist poets came from illiterate
families that could not afford education for their children, and were thus
autodidacts. According to Sanders, writing poetry had a specific function for the
Chartists; it served to demonstrate what the working class was capable of, it was a
symbol of their sophistication (62).
Poetry was without a doubt a political tool; the Chartist not only used poetry
to express the dire living conditions of the lower class, but also to inform and
mobilize people (“Chartist Poetry”). Due to the low diffusion of literacy and the high
tax on papers it was difficult for the working class to keep itself politically and
culturally informed; poetry provided a way of keeping themselves informed without
relying on information coming from the higher social classes. Moreover, poetry was
easier to put to mind because of its rhyme pattern. Shabaan argues that to the
Chartists, poetry “became a means of resisting tyranny and despotism on the one
hand, and of enhancing the search for freedom and happiness on the other, till 'All
genuine poets' were taken to be 'fervid politicians'” (183).
Chartist newspapers however, were not limited to explicitly Chartist poetry of
the moment; they also frequently used Romantic poetry. Considering that Chartism
was a working class movement and that poetry written by members of this class
served to demonstrate the sophistication of the working class; analyzing the purpose
of using poetry of members of competing classes/publics can be of value, especially
if applied to the conception of the subaltern counter public.
The Chartist Circular
This study chose to analyze The Chartist Circular, a smaller unstamped paper,
based on three factors. First, while Sanders has analyzed the use of poetry in the
24
most important Chartist stamped paper, The Northern Star, the unstamped journals
have received little attention. Second, considering that The Chartist Circular was
unstamped it might have used poetry differently, for as argued above unstamped
papers offered the possibility for different currents within the same movement to
partake in the discussion and offered the possibility to elaborate on local issues. This
might have translated into a clearer taking of positions in the public sphere. Sander’s
research can thus service as reference material to which to compare the findings of
this study. The last reason behind the choice for this journal is a practical one, The
Chartist Circular was one of the journals Shabaan searched for instances in which
Romantic poetry was used, but did not analyze (28).
The Chartist Circular was an unstamped, four-page journal sold at the price of
1/2d that came out weekly. The paper ran from September 1839 to July 1842, during
its first year the paper sold 22,500 copies a week (“Chartist Circular”). It was one of
the most successful and long-lasting Chartist journals in Scotland. The Chartist
Circular was under the guidance of the Universal Suffrage Central Committee for
Scotland and its aim was to disseminate the Chartist message in Scotland (“Chartist
Circular: the voice”). Because the paper was unstamped and therefore not allowed to
contain any news items, it focused on creating a better understanding of the Charter
and its objectives (Fraser, “The Chartist” 82-86).
During the three years The Chartist Circular was in print, it published
Romantic poetry on nine different occasions. This study will analyze the first four of
these instances in their order of their appearance. First, Percy Bysshe Shelley's “Song
to the Men of England” in The Chartist Circular of 19 October 1839 (16). Second, an
extract from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “Religious Musings” in The Chartist Circular
of 18 April 1840 (121). Third, a selection of stanzas from canto III of Shelley’s Queen
Mab; A Philosophical Poem in The Chartist Circular of 25 July 1840 (178). Finally,
selections from five poems by Wordsworth in The Chartist Circular of 1 August 1840
(182).
25
Shelley's “Song to the Men of England”
“Song to the Men of England” is the most frequently used Romantic poem in
the Chartist press (Shabaan, “Romantics” 25-46). Shelley wrote this poem in reaction
to the Peterloo Massacre. In 1819, the emerging labor unions had gathered 60.000
people to demonstrate peacefully for political reform at St. Peter’s Fields in
Manchester. The authorities, fearing disorder or even a revolution, reacted in a
disproportionate manner. Before the orators had the possibility to speak the
yeomanry, a cavalry police unit made up of aristocrats, attacked the gathered
protesters leaving eleven people dead and several hundred others wounded. Soon
after radicals started referring to the demonstration as the Peterloo massacre in
reference to the bloody battle of Waterloo that had taken place 4 years earlier
(Evans). This incident achieved an almost myth like status amongst the
contemporary radicals and amongst the Chartists two decades later (Sanders 89).
The poem addresses the living conditions of the working class and the conflict
of this class with the higher classes that oppress them. In the poem, Shelley directly
addresses the men of England, asking them various questions. Why work for the idle
aristocrats who oppress them? Why work if they do not share in the spoils of their
labor? He asks them what advantages they obtain for their work. Through these
questions, Shelley shows them that they obtain no benefits for their work, for the
ruling class claims all they produce. The scope of all these questions is to make the
working class readers think about the social conditions of the society they live in. He
wants them to ponder why they allow the higher classes to exploit them. The stanzas
that follow, five and six, are central to the poem’s purpose and significance.
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.
26
Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap:
Find wealth—let no imposter heap:
Weave robes—let not the idle wear:
Forge arms—in your defence to bear (17-24).
In stanza five by repeatedly stressing the difference between the ones who produce,
“ye”, and the ones who obtain the benefits of the production process, “another”,
Shelley incites his readers. Moreover, the contrast between the verbs sow and reap,
weave and wear, and forge and bear emphasizes the differences in the social system
between workers and their masters. Shelley illustrates this contrast in the language
of those addressed in the poems, the people of England, with activities related to
their professions of farmers and artisans.
In stanza six he echoes stanza five but replaces another by the words
“”tyrant”, “imposter”, and ”idle”, he thereby stresses his strong objections
concerning the exploitation of the workers. In fact, Shelley is telling the Englishmen
to keep what they produce instead of yielding it to the higher classes. In particular,
the phrase “Forge arms, in your defence to bear” (24) is noteworthy because it
insinuates the use of violence to defend their property and liberty (Provost). Shelley
dares the workers to revolt, but in the last two stanzas also threatens the workers by
stating that if the situation does not change it will have dire consequences. He argues
that if the workers lack the courage to start a revolution, they will have to “Shrink to
your cellars, holes, and cells” (25) and they will have to “Trace your grave, and build
your tomb” (30) until “England be your sepulchre!” (32).
The poet uses the simple metaphor of the beehive in his poem, describing the
workers as bees and the owners as drones. This is a striking metaphor because in the
bee community, the bee does all the work, while the drones live exploiting the work
of the bees. To understand how much influence this poem had, it suffices to read
what Briggs writes; he says that despite the big differences between the different
27
groups of Chartists of different cities “all Chartists would have thought of
themselves, however, as ‘sons of toil’, bees, not drones, members of the ‘industrious
classes’” (Briggs 93).
The language used by Shelley in this poem is simple; just like the metaphor he
uses is simple. The reason for this is that he wanted the poem to be accessible for
people that did not enjoy a lot of education. The whole poem can read as a political
speech at a working class rally where Shelley is addressing the crowd. First, he asks
them rhetorical questions to make them understand their situation. Second, he
explains how exactly the exploitation takes place. Third, he tells the crowd to resist
and take what is rightfully theirs. Finally, he threatens the crowd by stating that
inactivity will have dire consequences in order to push them over the edge.
The predominant logic in “Song to the Men of England” is an economic one,
although if we consider work ethics as a moral question, then the repeated criticism
of idleness also functions as a moral condemnation of sorts. Shabaan considers
Shelley’s insights as ‘strikingly advanced’ especially considering that his analysis
predates Marx. She argues that Shelley approaches Marx’s theory of labor-value and
surplus value in his analysis that demonstrates that the people produce wealth but
they are not the ones to claim the benefits (140).
In his poem, Shelley seems to have two different attitudes towards the
working class. On one side he feels compassion for the situation they live in, on the
other side he disdains them because they permit the people in power to exploit
them. First, Shelley encourages the people of England to revolt explaining why they
should do so; later Shelley speaks in a derogatory way to them men of England
because he does not understand why the working class does not rebel. However,
Shelley might have used the disdain towards the working class on purpose, to give
the workers the additional push by enraging them. Shelley, by being slightly
offensive and making clear that if the workers do not act now it will be their doom,
hopes to anger them enough to spur them into immediate action. This rhetoric
28
would probably have worked well for the Chartists as they considered the
Romantics and Shelley in particular as a cultural, moral, and political authority
(Randall 172).
What is it that attracted the Chartists to this poem? First of all, Shelley wrote
“Song to the Men of England” as a response to the Peterloo Massacre, an event that
caused a great amount of indignation in the social protest movement. It is true that
the massacre occurred before the rise of Chartism, but it had been a peaceful
demonstration asking for parliamentary reform and can be considered as one of the
myths of English radicalism. When writing this poem, Shelley seems to have had the
average protester in mind, for he writes the poem in simple language so they could
understand it. In this poem, Shelley seems to be at one of the Chartist public
gatherings speaking to them, for example by asking the questions in the beginning of
the poem, he knew he would have stirred up the crowd. Shelley treats themes that
are very important for the Chartists, such as the inequalities in division of wealth
and labor. However, the aspect that probably spoke most to the mind of the Chartist
was the bee metaphor. The Chartists were very proud of the fact that they worked
hard and Shelley’s beehive metaphor pleasingly contrasts the workers with the
image of the useless exploiting aristocracy. Shelley was not the first to use this
beehive metaphor, which opposes the working bees to the drones, as this metaphor
dates back to ancient Greece (Liebert). However, the metaphor had become widely
diffused. Morgan argues that in the nineteenth century, the notions of the busy bee
and the drone had become idiomatic (V. Morgan 166). Although there were other
instances in which poets used a beehive metaphor, considering the success of “Song
to the Men of England” amongst the Chartists and its numerous appearances in the
Chartist press, it is probably this poem that made the metaphor popular. The
Chartist press borrowed this beehive metaphor frequently. For example, O’ Connor’s
opening editorial in The Northern Star described the exploitation of the working class
as: “the absorption of the honey of the factory bee, by the drone who owns the key”
29
(1). The Chartist Circular discusses the same exploitation in a front-page filling article
entitled “The Doings of Drones” (325).
The way The Chartist Circular introduces the poem gives some indication as to
why the Chartists admired Shelley to such an extent. The author calls Shelley one of
the 'poets of the people', and praises several of his characteristics first the fact that
Shelley, who was born an aristocrat, later severed all bonds with his own class
(Shelley rejected his inheritance of his father’s estate and his seat in parliament).
Second, Shelley was always critical of the aristocracy and sympathized with the
working class. The author states that Shelley believed that eventually a clash
between the classes would inevitably occur and Shelley was on the side of the people
and he taught them the “laws of union and the strength of passive resistance”.
However, more factors made Shelley a favorite of the Chartist public that the author
of the article does not mention. Shabaan identifies three other important causes (120). First, she argues that the Chartist considered Shelley to be more essentially
radical, meaning that he supported a different kind of political philosophy compared
to most other radical philosophers and poets of his time. Shabaan divides the
political philosophers and poets into two categories; on the one hand, there are
radicals, who try to identify the root of the problem and resent the injustice they, but
do not call for immediate political action. Shabaan mentions Godwin as an example
of this group (17). On the other hand, there are reformers, radicals with a clear plan
on how to improve society and the political system. She places Shelley in the second
category as he considered that “that man has not only the right, but even the duty to
rebel against injustice” (18). Shelley did not consider education alone enough to
achieve the reformation of society, nonetheless he saw education as the necessary
basis for political struggle. His work was more immediate than that of most other
poets, in the sense that he did not only seek enlightenment but argued for concrete
action. In particular, “Song to the Men of England” with its call for immediate action
and the use of weapons was probably very attractive to the physical force Chartists.
30
A second reason for Shelley popularity is that the Chartist not only agreed with his
ideas about the reforms that were necessary, but more specifically they were
strongly attracted to his visions of a better future (J. Morgan “Shelley in the 19th”).
The last factor, and the one Shabaan considers the most important of all, is that
Shelley was a political poet and the Chartists considered poetry one of the most
important ways of mobilizing the people. The fusion of poetry and politics in
Shelley’s work matched with the Chartist idea that poetry was the best literary
means in the struggle for political reform (Shabaan II). The Chartist Circular contains
an example of this conviction:
Many facts could be drawn from history to prove the great influence of poetry
in moulding the popular mind to its will. Take, for instance, Dante, in the 13th
century, exposing the errors, and laughing at the claims of an arrogant state
church, and declaiming against its abuse in its own territories … Poets and
their poetry have, and will continue to exert an extensive influence on the
destinies of mankind (“Politics of the Poets No. I” 170).
A fundamental aspect this study still needs to address is how to interpret The
Chartist Circular’s use of the poem “Song to the Men of England” in relation to its
function within the public sphere. This study will elaborate on five elements in
particular. First, the scope of this article was to claim Shelley as part of the Chartist
subaltern counter public as a “poet of the people”. This was very satisfying for the
Chartists considering that Shelley, even though he was born in the upper class that
was part of the dominant public sphere, had chosen not to be part of it.
Second, the poem serves the didactic purposes of the Chartists, which was
central to the Chartist movement, as the Chartists considered education and
awareness the first steps in the direction of political change. The poems mobilizing
tone reinforces this function. Shelley’s “Song to the Men of England” is a very sharp
description of the socioeconomic situation at the time and the poem expresses
exactly what the Chartist editors wanted to instill upon their readers, namely how
31
the rich were responsible for the suffering of the poor. Moreover, this educative
function is something that Shelley seemed to have consciously embedded in the
poem. The structure of the poem leaves room for reflection by the reader.
Third, the poem is a good example of how something that was considered a
private matter by the dominant public sphere, ownership and the commerce of
commodities and its connection to social labor and the living conditions of the
working class, were turned into a public matter by the Chartist subaltern counter
public.
Fourth, the use of poetry of a famous Romantic poet added persuasiveness to
the Chartist arguments as the Chartists considered them figures of authority.
However as argued above, Shelley held a special position in the Chartist public
sphere. Morgan argues Shelley was “a political chip in ideological battles between
the Chartists and their liberal rivals in print culture on the meaning and direction of
history” (“Shelley in the 19th”). According to Foot, Shelley tried to convince the
working class to rebel against the system of exploitation because he was an “enemy
of all irresponsible authority, especially the irresponsible authority which derives
from wealth and exploitation” and “sided on every occasion with the masses when
they rose against their oppressors” (26).
A final function of Romantic poetry in this article is the reinvention of
the working class identity. Fraser argues non-dominant social groups operate in
parallel discursive arenas where they can develop and spread counterdiscourses,
which allow them to devise their own view of their own identity, necessities and
desires (67). The appropriation of Shelley’s metaphor should be considered in this
light. While the upper classes had negative considerations of the working class, the
Chartists constructed a more positive image of their identity, which was focused on
the fact that they worked hard. Shelley’s metaphor suited this function perfectly.
32
Coleridge's “Religious Musings” Lines 288 to 315
Coleridge started writing the “Religious Musings” in 1794 at the age of
twenty-two. During the period that Coleridge composed “Religious Musings”, the
French Revolution was taking place and Coleridge supported this revolution. The
main themes in the “Religious Musings” are Unitarianism (the belief that the father,
the son and the Holy Spirit are one God), government, property, the French
revolution, and the apocalypse. While Coleridge was a supporter of radical ideas at a
young age, later, when the outcome of French Revolution disappointed him, he put
aside his radicalism and focused on Unitarianism.
The Chartist Circular did not print the extract from the poem under its original
title “Religious Musings”. Instead, the Chartists put another title above it: “The
Corn-Law Repealers”. They place the poem, which Coleridge had written on the
French Revolution, in the context of the Anti-Corn Law movement. The British
government implemented the Corn Law in 1815; it highly taxed imported grain,
rendering importation practically unprofitable. The government, under pressure of
the landowners, passed this protectionist law to protect its own agriculture. These
laws kept the prices of grain artificially high and because of this law in times of
famine no extra grain could be imported cheaply (Simkin). This was very
problematic for the working class; because their main food source was bread, they
felt the blow of the rising grain prices the hardest. The images in the extract from
“Religious Musings” in The Chartist Circular fit the protest against the Corn Law
perfectly.
In the extract of “Religious Musings” in The Chartist Circular, Coleridge
laments the effect that the oppression of the higher classes has on the working class.
He starts by describing how the greedy oppressors are keeping the masses from the
abundance of food; this fits well considering that the Corn Law effectively made it
impossible for the working class to obtain food at a low price, while at the same time
33
protecting the rich landowners. These circumstances force the poor, who remain
with so little they cannot survive, to do things they otherwise would not have, to the
extreme of committing bloody acts. He gives five examples of moral degradation
caused by the exploitation and the resulting poverty. The first example, is that of a
man that forced by hunger resorts to violent muggings. The second is a girl that
forced by poverty, prostitutes herself to drunks. The third is an old woman who lives
of charity and dies slowly of a chronical lack of food. The fourth example talks of the
despaired beggars who are turned away from the full poorhouses, already half dead
they suffer even more under exploitation of the rich, who Coleridge describes as “the
vulture's beak” (307). Coleridge thus metaphorically compares the exploitation to the
plucking of flesh from a corpse by carrion birds. The last example is that of a poor
widow who wakes up screaming from the dreams of her murdered husband and
who during the cold winter nights in her desolated cottage has to curl up around her
crying baby to keep it warm. Coleridge then tells these “Children of Wretchedness”
to rest and says there will be more suffering before it will be over, but he stresses the
day of retribution is near (311-315).
The poem “Religious Musings” is 426 lines long but The Chartist Circular uses
only 28 lines. Why did the editors select these lines in the poems and exclude others?
Coleridge's “Religious Musings” is as the title suggests for the biggest part a
religious poem, but the Chartist were not interested in this aspect. The fragment of
the poem is the beginning of the thirteenth stanza of the poem, but the end cuts the
stanza abruptly for it continues for another 18 lines. The part of the poem as printed
in The Chartist Circular has several elements that would clearly be interesting to the
Chartists: the oppression of the masses by the rich, the suffering and hunger of the
poor due to the exploitation and the dire consequences this exploitation has:
O thou poor Wretch
Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want,
Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand
34
Dost lift to deeds of blood!” (283-286).
The key in these lines lies in the word unnatural for it gives the “deeds of blood” a
forced character, in other words it is the result of the oppression of the rich. Two
other aspects that would have attracted the Chartist are the tone of the writer and the
images of hunger, which he frequently uses. The following lines are an example of
this: “Oh! aged Women! ye who weekly catch/ The morsel tossed by law-forced
charity,/ And die so slowly, that none call it murder!”(292-294). Coleridge here is
saying two things, first of all that the rich would not indulge in charity if they were
not obligated by the state and more importantly that if the rich let someone die of
hunger it should be considered murder. In other words, the socioeconomic system of
exploitation is a criminal one. If we consider the poem under the perspective of the
Corn Law, these images of hunger gain even more force. Another aspect that spoke
to the imagination of the Chartist, and was frequently present in their poetry was the
image of the apocalypse. The image of the apocalypse was so popular, because the
apocalypse stands for the ending of one world and the beginning of another. Poets
used this image to make clear how big an impact the ratification of the Charter
would have on society. The fact that the poem ends with this image is supposed to
give hope of a better day to the readers, and explains why they stopped the poem
there. Moreover, the line that follows in the original poem: “The Lamb of God hath
open’d the fifth seal” (316), is strongly religious and was not an image the Chartists
were looking considering that they believed man had to change society not God.
What is also significant is that although the poets name is present under the extract
of the poem, the article never mentions the poet in the following two columns of
comment, which is in stark contrast with the praise we see in the other analyzed
instances. The reason behind the absence of discussion of the poet is that after the
French revolution Coleridge had changed his mind on radicalism and had become
devoutly religious.
After the poem, there are two columns of comment on the Corn Law. The
35
journalist starts his column by echoing Coleridge addressing the readers as children
of wretchedness telling them like the poet that they must rest awhile. He then
describes how the upper class lives blessedly under the protection of the state and on
the money of the state, while the working class who manufactures all for the higher
classes is left with nothing, not even the sympathy of those for whom they work. The
writer effectively copies the rhetoric Shelley used in “Song to the Men of England” of
a working class that produces and the upper classes that reaps the benefits. He
argues that in parliament they do not care about the misery of the working class and
do not wish to hear about its grievances, referring to both the failed Chartist
petitions and the Anti-Corn Law League. The author argues that as long as the
composition of the parliament stays as it is, changes for the good will not occur. He
states that although there are many Corn-Law Repealers, the monopoly on grain will
remain, because the parliament is filled with greedy aristocrats, who would never
abolish something that enriches them. The rich do not care about the fate of others as
long as they are doing well.
The author argues that if The Corn-Law Repealers are serious about wanting
the abolishment of this law they should ally themselves with “unfranchised
millions” because if universal suffrage would be introduced the Corn Law would
have been immediately abolished. The author considers class legislation to be at the
root of many evils of society and the Bread tax (a popular name for the Corn Law) is
an example. The people responsible for the “starvation tax” were the rich who the
journalist refers to as the landed aristocracy, and the “moneyocracy”. Their wealth
qualifies them to be members of parliament and they use their mandate to enrich
themselves even more. The author ends his article by stating that there is now an
almost universal cry for the abolishment of the Corn Law. He calls on the Corn-Law
Repealers, who were mostly middle class, to: “unite with the people - the longoppressed, insulted people, for the attainment of our political equality - for the
sacred Charter of our rights, and our combined power will soon become omnipotent
36
(“The Corn-Law Repealers”).
The function of the use the extract from “Religious Musings” for the Chartist
Public sphere is very different compared to “Song to the Men of England”. Three
aspects deserve special attention. First, the Chartists use Coleridge’s poem in an
attempt to widen the support for the Chartist subaltern counter public on the one
hand and the support in the struggle against the dominating public sphere on the
other. As mentioned before, the fact that the article does not discuss Coleridge has to
do with his change of heart regarding radicalism. The choice for Coleridge’s poem
might relate to the fact that he was a respected poet amongst middle class readers.
The Chartists might have considered his poetry more suitable for convincing middle
class readers than for example Shelley, whom the middle class considered to have
dangerous political ideas. What is clear however is that the journalist is trying to win
middle class support by portraying the aristocracy, the designer of class legislation,
as the common enemy. He chooses the topic of the Corn Law as it was a law that was
detrimental to both the middle and working class.
Contrary to Chartism, the Anti-Corn-Law League was very much a middleclass organization. Although the aims of Chartism and the Anti-Corn-Law-League
were different, as Chartism focused on political reform while the Anti-Corn-Law
League focused on free trade, they were not necessarily incompatible. However, the
developments between 1832 and 1834 complicated the possibilities for collaboration.
The 'Great Betrayal' of 1832 was the main reason for Chartism’s hostility towards the
Anti-Corn-Law League. The working class had supported the middle class struggle
for suffrage thinking that they in turn would help the working class obtain the right
to vote. However, when the 1832 Reform Act granted the middle class the right to
vote, the middle class was not interested in further political reform. The tension
between the middle and the working class augmented even further in the following
years, with the amendment to the Poor Law and the failure of the Ten-Hour bill,
aimed at restricting the number of working hours, made clear that the economic
37
interests of the employers and workers were mutually hostile. As a consequence,
even if the Anti-Corn-Law League argued that all classes would benefit from the
repeal of the Corn Laws it met the suspicion of the working classes. The fact that the
leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law-League could not guarantee that the abolition of the
Corn Laws would produce a rise in wages, although they could demonstrate it
would increase profits enhanced the working class’s distrust. In addition, the leaders
of Anti-Corn-Law-League openly opposed the Ten-Hour movement because they
believed it would harm their profits (Bloy “Chartism and the Anti-Corn”).
The article in The Chartist Circular attempts to unite two competing political
protest movements. It is both an attempt at winning middle class support for the
Charter, as well as an attempt at causing a division between the higher classes,
which the 1832 reform act had united. However, it should be noted that the AntiCorn Law League was one of the main competitors of Chartism. In fact, Hovell
argues that during the less successful periods of Chartism, the Anti-Corn Law
League persuaded a significant number of the more well-off and moral force
Chartists to join their cause (213). This article might thus also be considered as means
of keeping Chartists from defecting to the Anti-Corn Law League, by demonstrating
that its concerns were also Chartist objectives. Whatever the case may be, the fact
remains that this article containing Romantic poetry was the only one to appear on
the front page of The Chartist Circular demonstrating that they were serious in their
intent. However, the degree to which the article could have influenced the middle
class Corn-Law Repealers is difficult to determine, as it is unclear how many of them
actually would have read The Chartist Circular.
The second aspect, domesticity, relates to the division between private and
public issues. Clark argues that domesticity was “a trope that performed specific
political functions in Chartist language” (“The Rhetoric”63). As discussed above, the
dominant public sphere thought of domesticity in the sense of separate spheres,
where men took part in the public sphere of work and politics while the women
38
found refuge in the private sphere of the home. Domesticity became an important
element in the Chartist rhetoric because of the upper class marked the working class
as morally inferior and therefore inadequate for suffrage. Moral force and physical
force Chartists used the trope of domesticity differently. Moral force Chartists, a
minority group within the movement, thought male suffrage had to be earned by
demonstrating moral virtue, and thus in their vision of domesticity the working class
was to be blamed for their own domestic misery, this vision was similar to the
middle class vision. The physical force Chartists on the other hand, loathing this selfreproaching vision, used a more “melodramatic and biblical narrative” (Clark, “The
Rhetoric” 72), which blamed domestic misery and moral degradation not on
working-class immorality but on upper-class oppression and exploitation often
symbolized by the aristocratic libertine. Clark argues that melodrama offered the
possibility to describe the divergent types of working class family lives in a single
narrative, consisting of five elements. The first element is an image of a (preindustrialist) idyllic past, in which the whole family worked together in the same
household. The second is the current domestic hardships of the working class. The
third is the figure of the evildoer, namely the rich oppressors. The fourth is the
rescue by courageous Chartist resistance. The last element is a better future realized
through manhood suffrage. In the extract of the poem by Coleridge, four of these
elements are present, namely the idyllic past, the domestic misery, the upper-class
oppressors, and a better future. However, Coleridge’s poem does not describe this
change as the result of male suffrage; it is in this aspect that the article contributes to
the trope by describing the Charter as the necessary means to change society. The
only element missing is the rescue by the courageous Chartist man; considering the
fact that the article was asking for the support of other groups, making the portrayal
of the male Chartist as the only actor would be contrary to the articles purpose. Out
of the five cases that Coleridge describes in his poem two of the can be directly
related to the trope of domesticity, although if we consider homelessness as the
failure of domesticity two others fit this trope as well. These images of domesticity
39
consisting of domestic misery and the lack of the domestic serve as a rebuttal with a
double purpose, simultaneously defending working class morality by stating that
the working class is not responsible for its own misery and attacking the upper
classes by arguing that their exploitation causes the moral degradation of the
working class. The article argues that the immoral behavior (violent robbery,
prostitution, pauperism) and suffering encountered in the poem should not be
considered as expressions of the immorality of the working class, instead it argues
that external influences cause this immorality. In a way, the use of the trope of
domesticity can be regarded as a reinvention of the working class identity. While the
upper classes considered them morally inferior, they developed a new narrative
within their parallel public sphere that blamed their immoral behavior on the upper
class exploitation.
Third, in the discussion above a distinction was made between a moral and a
physical force rhetoric of domesticity. Based on this distinction the extract of
“Religious Musings” is clearly an example of the way physical force Chartists used
the trope of domesticity. The argumentative structure of domesticity that physical
force Chartists used was that of blaming domestic misery on exterior elements such
as the masters who exploited them, the government that did not protect them, and
the aristocracy that ruled them. This rhetoric is clearly visible in the lines of
Coleridge’s poem and in the following commentary. However, the scope of the
article, obtaining middle class support, seems to be in contrast with this physical
force rhetoric. While the article aims to convince the middle class that the upperclass oppression and exploitation is responsible for the lack of morality of the
working class, it uses this rhetoric to justify the behavior of the working class to the
middle class. This paints a confusing picture; the Chartists use as a physical force
representation of domesticity, but also try to justify their behavior in the pursuit of a
moral force objective. This demonstrates that the boundaries between physical and
moral force Chartists were not always completely clear.
40
A selection from Shelley’s Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem
Queen Mab, a utopian political epic, was published in 1813. It was Shelley’s first
major poem and it served as the basis for his radical political ideas. Shelley decided
to have only 250 copies of Queen Mab printed for distribution among his friends and
acquaintances, because he was afraid of libel persecution. It was not until eight years
later when William Clark brought out the first pirated edition of Queen Mab that it
started reaching a wider audience and playing a role in the radical public discourses
(Grimes 3). This pirated version was so popular that soon more and more pirated
versions came on the market. Queen Mab was so influential and popular among the
upcoming labor unions and Chartist movements that some academics even refer to it
as “The Chartist Bible” (Holmes 208). In Queen Mab, Shelley discusses various social
evils such as the monarchy, the church, commerce, war and marriage; he also
envisions a future where these corruptive forces no longer play a role. Shelley
presents these critiques in the form of a series of visions. Queen Mab is written from
the perspective of a girl, Ianthe, that is taken by a fairy and shown how the
corrupted current state of things are now, how they were in the past and how idyllic
the future could be.
In The Chartist Circular no. 44 (25 July 1840) p. 178, we find a selection of five
stanzas of the third canto of Queen Mab. The article is entitled “Politics of the Poets
no. II” and discusses Shelley’s political convictions regarding monarchical rule.
Before introducing the poem, the journalist echoes some of Shelley’s arguments from
the poem. He stresses that monarchy makes both kings and subjects miserable and
that the king is just a man and therefore as likely to make mistakes as anyone else.
Moreover, the king inherits the throne no matter what his character is like. The king
lives in a corrupt court of insincerity, in which he does not realize that he is a normal
man. It is from the monarchy that “moral pestilence” spreads among the people. The
central line of critique is “We set up a gaudy bauble, and sacrifice the happiness of
the individual who sports the gewgaw, and the peace and prosperity of the
41
community, at this altar of vanity.” In other words, the king is just a normal
unhappy person wearing extravagant jewelry causing misery by oppressing the
people and demanding that they idolize him. To support his arguments the writer of
the article brings forth the selection of Queen Mab. The writer stresses that “this
awful truth can never be to often pressed upon the minds of the people” (“Politics of
the Poets II”).
The first section of Queen Mab in the article are stanzas three four and five of
canto three. In the first selected stanza, Shelley describes what kind of person the
king is as well as the palace where he lives. Shelley depicts the king as a prisoner of
his own palace. The guards protect the king by keeping the people out, but also by
keeping the king in, because outside of the palace the he has no friends. He states
that being a sovereign, ties a man’s soul to wretchedness, in other words it is the
position of power that corrupts. In the poem, his golden necklace becomes the
golden chain that shackles his soul. “The King, the wearer of a gilded chain / That
binds his soul to abjectness” (30-31). He calls the king a fool, nicknamed monarch by
the people at court. He argues that the courtesans, by repeatedly telling the king he
is special, trick him into thinking he is more than just a normal man. The king is a
man who takes joy from watching his subjects suffer. The poem illustrates this by
providing images of hunger produced by the uneven distribution of wealth, which
are a frequently recurrent theme in Chartist poetry.
A sullen joy
Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan
But for those morsels which his wantonness
Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save
All that they love from famine (37-40).
The fact that the king wastes the food that could feed the famished strengthens the
indignation this image creates. When the king hears of the horrors caused by his
rule, he pretends to consent with the situation, but has to hide his shame-flushed
42
cheeks.
The second stanza Shelley presents the kings at his meal. The king has to force
his unwilling appetite to an excess of food and Shelley thereby continues the image
of waste of food and excessiveness,
“If gold,
Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled
From every clime could force the loathing sense
To overcome satiety” (46-49)
The king in these stanzas seems divided between his kingship that corrupts him and
his human nature. An alienating power seems to come from the tyrant and his
capital (Morton 171). Shelley says that if gold, wealth and vice, factors related to his
position, would not corrupt the king, and he would return to a more natural state he
would be happy and the peasants who would no longer be forced upon their labor
would arrive home to “Tastes not a sweeter meal”(57). Shelley hereby means that if
the king would renounce to his excess and would resign his position others would
have more and the king would be happier. However, as Morton argues the rest of
Queen Mab, which is not part of the selected stanzas in the article, makes clear that
these corrupted aspects cannot be reformed. The workers will thus continue to be
forced to do their work in order to sustain a monarchy that cannot sustain itself.
The third stanza in the article presents the king after his meal. The king has
little time for peaceful slumber for his conscience comes to haunt him. Morton
argues this stanza can be seen as the king’s natural human aspect countering his
artificial kingly side (171). His conscience points out the anger and suffering he
causes by exploiting and subduing his people. These stanzas are a symbol of the
artificial side of the king winning over the natural side, the corruptive influence of
the monarchical system is too strong for his human side. However, even if the
artificial prevails, the king is still conscious of the fact that his behavior is not
43
natural. The kings is thus struggling with the internal division, for on the one hand
his royal position corrupts him and makes him do evil things and enjoy them, while
on the other hand his humanity makes him ashamed of his wrongdoing and
conscious of his immorality.
The fourth stanza used in the article is stanza thirteen from canto three. In this
very straightforward stanza, Shelley again focuses on the fact that a monarchy is not
a natural state. The consequences of this unnatural state are vice for the monarch and
misery for the subjects. He argues that men should not command, nor obey for on
the one side power corrupts while on the other side obedience destroys thought and
freedom. The stanza ends with a clear metaphor that illustrates his point:
“… obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.” (177-180)
In other words, subjects become mindless creatures whose only function is to
produce. Machines are also the opposite of natural thereby reinforcing his idea that a
monarchy is unnatural. This metaphor was even more significant to the Chartists
considering the amount of suffering industrialization and the mechanization had
caused the working class and the thereby created hatred for these machines.
The last stanza used here is stanza fifteen from canto three. Shelley starts by
giving an ideal picture of nature in which “all things speak / Peace, harmony and
love” (195-196). He then argues that the only exception is man. They forge weapons
to end this peace and they allow the rise of tyrants who love to see them suffer. He
asks if the light of the sun and moon shines differently on poor and rich. He also
puts forth the question if mother earth is a stepmother to those who work, but a
mother to the idle who are raised in luxury that use men as playthings and harm that
peace out of for their own profit, in other words does nature prefer the rich over the
44
poor. Shelley presents these questions to his readers to make them realize that to
nature all men are equal and that the distinctions between them were manmade.
Indirectly Shelley is also arguing that man can unmake these distinctions for
anything made by man can be changed by man.
The journalist of The Chartist Circular continues the article by responding to
the questions that the last cited stanza leaves open. He argues that god gives equally
to all and that it is mankind that has created injustice and inequality by corrupting
god’s gifts. Giving Shelley’s purely natural rhetoric a religious sense, something that
Shelley, being an atheist, would probably have disapproved. He then continues by
stating, “we will not deny that Shelley has written much that the world finds
difficult to understand; but he has also written much which all hearts and minds can
appreciate”, referring to the fact that Shelley wrote two different types of poetry,
aesthetic poetry and radical political poetry. Shelley wrote these two types of poetry
with different types of target audiences. His political poetry was clearly composed
with the working class in mind and thus written in a manner that they would
understand and containing specific topics that were attractive to them. His more
aesthetically orientated poetry on the other hand, proved difficult to understand for
the Chartists and thus resulted less attractive, as the journalist’s comment shows.
Moreover, even those Chartists that understood his more aesthetic poetry almost
certainly still preferred his political poetry, as they were primarily interested in his
politics.
The author praises Shelley for the clear way in which he depicts the effects of
despotism, and argues that such a clear description should be enough to “startle the
still slumbering multitude from their sleeps to, at least, a full knowledge of the
terrible incubus” (178). The poem thus fits the anti-royalist sentiments within the
Chartist movement, as royalty in particular was the symbol of the exploitation of the
working by the idle. He asks what the government has done for the normal man,
and concludes they have done nothing at all. He argues that all that the rich do is
45
follow their own interests at the expense of others. It is the policies of the rich, which
cause crime, misery, desolation and death amongst the working class. The author
laments that the rich are responsible for the poverty of the working class because
they created and preserve the social system of exploitation, but at the same time,
they treat poverty as a crime of the working class. Even though the rich are “the
patrons of every vice”, the upper class complains about the morals of the working
class, while hiding behind their royal façade of jewelry and ancestry. The journalist
states that the situation will not change until the people are informed and they
jointly liberate themselves of this burden. Towards the end of the article, the
journalist inserted a few lines by Chartist poet Ebenezer Elliott; he introduces these
lines by stating: “For the present we must conclude with a few lines, breathing the
same spirit, from one who is no less a poet and a friend of man, Ebenezer Elliott”
(178). The article ends with the statement: “the great poets of the world have not
written for a class, or for this or that nation, but for man, and man ultimately will
receive the benefit of their labours”, referring to both Shelley and Elliott (178). This is
significant as it places a middle-class Chartist poet on the same level as Shelley.
Why did the Chartist Circular pay special homage to this by now forgotten
poet? Elliott came from a middle-class family and later in life became a relatively
successful iron trader. He was part of the Chartist movement for a period. He was
interesting to the Chartists as he was exclusively a political poet and almost all of his
poems regarded a single issue, contesting the Corn Law (earning him the sobriquet
the Corn Law Rhymer). In his attacks on the Corn Law Elliott focused on the
inequalities they created in society and in particular on the awful living conditions of
the poor and the oppression exerted upon them (Morris and Hearne 1-15). The more
specific function of the use of Elliott’s poetry will be discussed below.
It is not difficult to understand why Chartist would have been attracted to
Queen Mab. In fact, various aspects would appeal to the editors of Chartist
newspapers. First, the contrast between exorbitance of the monarch compared to the
46
suffering and hunger of the working-class was definitely interesting to them, as this
contrast fits the theme of the article, to criticize the selfishness of royalty, perfectly.
Second, as Grimes argues in Queen Mab Shelley does not hide his radical message
behind a metaphor, but leaves his idea that a monarchy is an unnatural state of
affairs out in the open (7). The fact that the poem and the article describe the
distinction between the people and royalty as manmade is significant because it
means that man can also change this relationship. Moreover, it challenges the divine
right to rule. These elements all fit perfectly with the Chartist anti-royalist
sentiments. The main scope of the article as part of the series Politics of the Poets is
to show that famous poets share the Chartist’s political ideals. Shelley and Queen
Mab are a safe choice by the author as the radical political ideals of Shelley were
public knowledge and the article was not going to alter anyone’s opinion. All the
same, Queen Mab does clearly demonstrate the politics of the poet Shelley regarding
the monarchial system.
Although it is clear that Queen Mab was popular among the Chartists, a
question that remains is, why did the author choose exactly these five stanzas? The
main reason the editors selected these stanzas is that they regard the monarchial
system, which was the issue they wanted to discuss. The article starts with the third
stanza, because the first two stanzas of canto three are the fictional setup, discussing
the fairy. The author was more interested in the visions of the corrupted present. In
stanza three, the first stanza that he uses, Shelley describes the king as a normal
human being with a corruptive function. Stanza four describes the excess of the
royalty and discusses the fact that if everything were shared all would be happier.
The fifth stanza describes how the king in in all his self-indulgence, is still haunted
by his conscience, thereby stating that he knows that he does bad things. The stanza
that follows in Queen Mab gives the word to the king who asks for death but is afraid
to get it, giving speech to the king who repents would damage the argument made
in the article and is thus left out. The next stanza used (thirteen), expresses the key
47
argument most clearly, namely that monarchism is not natural. The following stanza
(fourteen) of the original poem talks of Nero, the author probably left it out as it does
not directly relate to England and some readers of Chartist papers might not have
known him. The last segment of the poem used in the article, stanza fifteen,
discusses how nature treats everyone equal and argues that it is man himself that
created distinctions between one and another. In addition, the stanza ends with the
question if nature favors the part of society that lives idly in luxury. This is an ideal
ending for the journalist, who answers the question in the rest of his article.
The use of Shelley’s Queen Mab in the Chartist public sphere is similar to
“Song to the Men of England”. The main objective of the article and the function for
which the stanzas from Queen Mab are used is didactic. The intention is to inform the
reader about the corruptive power of the monarchial system and to start a public
debate on the role of the monarchy. Queen Mab is in itself a didactic work for as
Shabaan argues, it considers ignorance to be at the root of religious and political
tyranny (IX, 247). Shelley describes Ianthe’s travel in Queen Mab as a quest for
knowledge in which observation of the past and the present lead to an
understanding of the world. Queen Mab therefore perfectly espouses the didactic
purposes of the Chartists, who considered understanding the first necessary step to
political change. The selection from Queen Mab used in the Chartist Circular clearly
relates how monarchy is responsible for the misery of the working class. Shabaan
states that the way the king is portrayed in Queen Mab was used as an “an authentic
portrayal of the monarch's life, guilt, folly and vanity” by many Chartist papers (186187). In fact in the column that precedes the poem the author echoes Shelley’s poem
depicting his descriptions as certain facts. However accurate Shelley’s descriptions
may or may not be, the fact remains that the figure of the king was at the head of a
system of exploitation and moral corruption, which is something the poem expresses
perfectly and exactly the message the Chartist Circular wants to transmit onto its
readers. In fact, the author of the article literally states, “this awful truth can never be
48
to often pressed upon the minds of the people” (“Politics of the Poets II” 178).
Moreover, the journalist stresses the importance of knowledge for rallying the
people to the cause, for without knowledge they do not understand how they are
wronged and will not stand up to change the situation.
A second aspect, related to the didactic purpose, is undermining the concept
of the divine right to rule. In Queen Mab, Shelley emphasizes the fact that nature does
not divide men, and that monarchy is a man-made system, the article than states that
indeed god does not distinguish between poor or rich. Arguing that god does not
distinguish between people is a direct negation of the divine right of kings.
Although others had criticized the divine right of kings long before Chartism and it
was thus not innovative in that sense, what is significant in this situation is the
objective behind the criticism. By describing monarchy as an unnatural manmade
system of governance the journalist was trying to impress upon his readers that the
situation could be changed as anything that is made by man can be changed by man.
A third aspect is as discussed above to establish that Shelley shares the
political ideals of the Chartists. This is an aspect present in the entire “Politics of the
Poets” series. However, this is more than a simple act of claiming similarity in
political ideals, they are in fact claiming Shelley as part of the Chartist public sphere;
Shelley becomes an expression of their subaltern counter public. Considering that we
have already discussed this aspect in the analysis of “Song to the Men of England”,
we will not discuss it here again.
A fourth aspect is the moral degradation of the working class caused by the
upper class. Although this element is not directly present in the poem, the author
uses the poem to discuss this matter. Although the moral corruption of the ruling
class is a very clearly part of the poem, the effect on the morality of the people is not.
However, the author discusses this aspect twice in his article, once before and once
after the fragments of Queen Mab. First, in the introduction of his article he states that
49
“The simple principle of love, sincerity, and truth dwell not within the tainted
atmosphere of the court. This moral pestilence does not stop here; it spreads far and
wide among the people, destroying intellect, virtue, and independence” (“Politics of
the Poets II” 178). Second, in the discussion of the poem itself he argues that the guilt
of the monarch and the misery of the people can be clearly witnessed in society. He
argues that the ruling class has a discernable influence on society as well:
Have they not filled the world with blood and fire. Have they not covered its
surface with crime, misery, desolation and death, “as with paving stones”.
They create poverty, and then brand it as a crime. The patrons of every vice,
they affect to lament it among the people, and screen themselves behind the
glitter of crowns and coronets and escutcheons (“Politics of the Poets II”178).
Even though it might not be an element of the poem, the author uses Shelley’s work
to address the external causes of the moral degradation of the working class, a
frequently discussed matter in the Chartist public sphere.
The fifth and last element regarding the public sphere in this article is the
promotion of the by now forgotten poet Elliott Ebenezer. By putting a Chartist poet
next to Shelley and arguing he is “no less a poet, and a friend of man” the author is
making a statement regarding the sophistication of the Chartist public sphere itself
(178). What is interesting is that The Chartist Circular measures the greatness of a poet
more on political then aesthetic grounds. In this sense, the conclusion referring to
both Elliott and Shelley is significant: “The great poets of the world have not written
for a class, or for this or that nation, but for man, and man ultimately will receive the
benefit of their labors” (“Politics of the Poets II” 178).
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“Politics of the Poets No. III”: Wordsworth’s Poems on Liberty
The third instalment of “Politics of the Poets” used fragments of five different
poems by Wordsworth (“Politics of the Poets No. III” 182). The article uses lines
from: "Advance—Come Forth from Thy Tyrolean Ground", “Feelings of the
Tyrolese”, “Avaunt All Specious Pliancy of Mind”, “London, 1802”, and “Great Men
Have Been among Us”. There are also four lines of Shelley’s “To Wordsworth”, with
which the journalist starts his article.
“To Wordsworth”
Shelley wrote “To Wordsworth” as an epitaph; however, at the time Shelley
wrote the poem Wordsworth was still alive. The poem first discusses a theme that is
often present in the poetry of Wordsworth, the loss of youth, and Shelley states he
shares his sadness at this loss. The poet continues by praising Wordsworth for what
he was: a poet of nature and a poet of the people. Shelley “borrows” the imagery of
nature characteristic of Wordsworth’s poetry, by using words such as “lone star”
and “frail bark” in order to mock Wordsworth. Shelley praises Wordsworth saying
that: In honoured poverty thy voice did weave / Songs consecrate to truth and
liberty (11, 12). It is at this point in the poem that the tone changes, what started as
praise for who Wordsworth was, turns into a reprimand of what Wordsworth
became: Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, (13). Shelley is accusing
Wordsworth of two things here, first the fact that he took a government job and is
thus no longer living “in honoured poverty”, and second that because of these new
associations of his he has lost his radical political ideas and is no longer writing
about “truth” and “liberty”. Shelley claims these things because Wordsworth had
come under the patronage of Lowther, an influential Tory, in 1812, and in 1813, the
same Lowther appointed Wordsworth the post of Distributor of Stamps for
Westmorland and Penrith (Bruccoli). Shelley expresses his grieve at the fact that the
old Wordsworth is no longer. In fact, Wordsworth’s change in political alignments
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disappointed Shelley so strongly; he decided to declare Wordsworth poetically dead.
“Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be” (14)
In the article only the last four lines of “To Wordsworth” are used, which
means they only printed Shelley’s accusation. The article does not discuss the poem;
“To Wordsworth” only serves as an example of how some radicals see Wordsworth.
The journalist wonders why most people consider Wordsworth a Tory. He considers
the opinion people have of Wordsworth strange, because as he argues the spirit of
Wordsworth’s poetry is “Radical- deeply, essentially, entirely radical”. He claims
that Wordsworth’s choice of subjects, which are often simple peasants, and his series
of sonnets dedicated to liberty amply demonstrated his radicalness. He states that
these intoxicating compositions have the tone of a trumpet referring to Shelley’s
trumpet of prophecy. According to the writer of the article, these sonnets have made
Wordsworth into the Tyrtaeus of England, in other words England’s national poet
who writes poems that give the English the courage to fight. The editors selected
these poems by Wordsworth to convince the reader of Wordsworth’s radical nature.
Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty
The next two poems in the article "Advance—Come Forth from Thy Tyrolean
Ground", “Feelings of the Tyrolese” are part of Wordsworth’s Tyrolese sonnets.
Wordsworth wrote these poems in reaction to the uprising in Tyrol after their
occupation by Napoleon. Wordsworth was initially a fervent supporter of the French
Revolution, but when Napoleon seized power, he became very disillusioned. This
disappointment grew even stronger when Napoleon conquered Tyrol. Tyrol had
been a republic for a long time and Wordsworth considered Tyrol “the symbol of
true liberty” (Olic-Hamilton). Therefore, when the little land of Tyrol rebelled
against the French, the poet sympathized strongly with the insurgents. During the
uprising in 1809 and after the failure of the uprising, in the same year, Wordsworth
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wrote nine sonnets on the subject. The two sonnets in the article are of the period
before Napoleons troops quenched the rebellion.
In "Advance—Come Forth from Thy Tyrolean Ground" Wordsworth calls for
the stern, but sweet nymph of liberty to come from the mountains. She needs to
come from her natural habitat, because “the hunter train at dawn/Have roused her
from her sleep” (6, 7). Liberty is needed to protect the population of the Alps against
Napoleons troops, “the hunter train” (6). He is asking for this force of nature to come
forth a free Tyrol and eventually the entire Alps.
“Feelings of the Tyrolese” on the other hand, is the answer of the Tyrolese
population to the French demand for the surrender of Tyrol. It describes the sense of
attachment the Tyrolese feel to their country. The land is something that they have
passed on from generation to generation. A right they will defend with their lives. It
is their motto and religion, and this is how nature and god want it to be. This
principle as Wordsworth describes it is part of everyone in society and the land they
live on:
“We read the dictate in the Infant's eye;
In the Wife's smile; and in the placid sky;
And, at our feet, amid the silent dust
Of them that were before us.”
Wordsworth says they should sing old songs as they march into battle to “to assert /
Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind” (13, 14), saving Europe from Napoleon’s
despotism.
The writer uses fragments from these two poem to show “with what a voice
of power he [Wordsworth] calls on liberty” in the first three lines of "Advance—
Come Forth from Thy Tyrolean Ground", and to demonstrate “in what deep and
eternal sources he [Wordsworth] lays the springs of his patriotism” in 8 selected
lines from “Feelings of the Tyrolese”. The first thing that should be mentioned is that
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The Chartist Circular takes the poems absolutely outside of their context. The article
never mentions the war for Tyrolean independence. The author chose to use just the
first three lines of "Advance—Come Forth from Thy Tyrolean Ground", thereby
changing the implications of the first three lines. In the poem, the spirit of liberty
comes from the Alps to battle invading forces, by selecting just the initial three lines
it seems as if the poet was asking for liberty to come to England. Leaving out the title
of “Feelings of the Tyrolese” has a similar function. The journalist wants to
demonstrate Wordsworth’s patriotism and for this reason does not mention that the
poem is about the Tyrol. What the author of the article was interested in was the
image of patriotism. He uses lines one to four and six to nine, he omits line five and
ten to fourteen because there are references in them to the Tyrolese war for
independence and the author wants the article to focus on England.
The theme of the third poem used to demonstrate Wordsworth radical nature,
“Avaunt All Specious Pliancy of Mind”, is similar to the first two. Again, the
resistance to Napoleon is the main topic, but the focus changes from Tyrol to Spain.
The poem regards the, by Wordsworth perceived, difference between the population
of England and Spain in their attitude towards Napoleon. Wordsworth composed
the poem in 1810 shortly after the Spanish population had started a revolt against
the French occupation and the rule of Napoleon’s brother Joseph I. While the English
had disrupted French trade outside the European continent by capturing ships and
taking over the French colonies, at the time Wordsworth composed “Avaunt All
Specious Pliancy of Mind” the English had made no consistent military effort to stop
Napoleon’s expansion. The British involvement started to be more determined and
decisive two years after the Spanish uprising and after Wordsworth had composed
his poem. Wordsworth thus wrote this poem in a historical context in which the
Spanish were actively resisting Napoleon’s despotism, while England was not.
In the poem “Avaunt All Specious Pliancy of Mind” Wordsworth describes
two sorts of people. He speaks in contempt of people that are easily swayed to
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change their opinions and are unctuous of nature, while he praises people that are
more steadfast and thus stick to their principles. While England used to be full of the
second category of people, Wordsworth now senses a lack. However, according to
Wordsworth Spain is still full of people that fit this description. Wordsworth has
great hope that Spain through its art, strength, iron, and gold, representing her
culture, military strength and wealth, will vanquish the Napoleonic occupiers. La
Bossière argues that the poem regards a question of moral relativism, the idea that
moral truth or justification is relative to a culture or society (30). In the conflict with
Napoleon Wordsworth considers the Spanish heroes because they consider the
struggle against Napoleon in the same way he does, namely as a categorical moral
choice between subjugation and liberty.
There are two significant elements in the way that the Chartists used “Avaunt
All Specious Pliancy of Mind” that need to be considered. The first is that The
Chartist Circular completely takes “Avaunt All Specious Pliancy of Mind” out of its
original context; the poem, as presented in the paper, no longer regards the
Napoleonic wars in any way. The accompanying introduction of the poem states:
“Hear his noble idea of liberty as the birthright of all men, and of propriety of the
common people vindicating that right” (182). In his poem, Wordsworth considered
the idea of liberty in the struggle against the oppression of a foreign tyrant and he
does not consider the struggle between the people and the higher classes. Second,
Wordsworth in his poem simultaneously praised the Spanish and criticized the
English. The Chartist however by omitting the following lines: “Such men of old/
Were England's native growth; and, throughout Spain / (Thanks to high God) forests
of such remain” (9-11), diametrically oppose the point Wordsworth was trying to
make. By taking out the lines concerning Spain, the Chartists make it seem that
Wordsworth was actually praising the English, while he was in fact lamenting the
lack of men with the appropriate sense of morality in England. This is different from
the use in the two preceding poems. In those poems, the Chartists took out the
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geographical elements thereby making them seem to regard England. On the other
hand, “Avaunt All Specious Pliancy of Mind” mentions England but in a negative
way; by omitting certain lines the Chartists actually reverse Wordsworth’s claims.
This makes sense considering that the Chartists introduced the poem with the lines
“liberty as the birthright of all men, and of propriety of the common people
vindicating that right” (“Politics of the Poets No. III” 182). In addition, by reversing
the sense of Wordsworth’s poem the Chartists are able to present themselves as
those suitable men individuated by Wordsworth, fighting for their birthright.
The Sonnets of 1802
Wordsworth wrote “London, 1802” and “Great Men Have Been among Us”
after he had returned from France. He was very disappointed that the French
Revolution had ended with the usurpation of power by Napoleon. The poems
Wordsworth wrote in 1802 contrast the downhearted state of France in 1802 with the
enthusiasm that the poet had witnessed there ten years before. Another aspect of the
poems that Wordsworth wrote in 1802 is the poet’s dismay at the decay of English
society. Part of the problem for Wordsworth was that the French betrayal of the
ideals of the revolution and the formation of the imperialist threat meant that it was
no longer France that defended liberty, but England that had to defend its liberty
against the imperialist threat (Behrendt 644).
In the sonnet “London, 1802” Wordsworth has two different purposes first he
criticizes the current state of affairs in England and then he praises the greatness of
Milton. The poet wishes that Milton were still alive so that he could safe England, for
the country has become like a stagnant swamp, a corrupted vile place. Wordsworth
then lists the elements of society that need to return to their former glory, namely,
“altar, sword and pen, / Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower” (3, 4). The
problem thus lies with the church (altar), the government/military (sword), literature
(pen), the home (fireside), and the economy (wealth of hall and bower), hall and
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bower respectively standing for city and countryside. The institutions have lost the
natural gift of “inward happiness” (6), because of their selfishness. The poet asks
Milton to rise from the dead to give the people “manners, virtue, freedom, power”
(8). Wordsworth then continues to praise Milton elaborately; he describes him as “a
star” (9), who’s poetic voice was “like the sea” (10) and “pure as the naked heavens”
(11). All these comparisons to nature are in Wordsworth consideration the greatest
compliments, because Wordsworth almost venerates nature. Although Milton was
so important, Wordsworth in the last three lines wants to emphasize that he was a
humble person. He cheerfully lived like all others and took upon himself “the
loeliest duties” (14) of teaching morality to his contemporaries. Behrendt argues that
Wordsworth considers Milton more in the sense of an exemplary moral individual,
rather than as a political activist; a representation that converts the figure of Milton
along the lines of Wordsworth’s own transformation caused by his delusion over the
outcome of the French revolution (Behrendt 644).
The other 1802 sonnet of which “Politics of the poets No. III” uses a fragment
is “Great Men Have Been among Us”. This poem is, in part, similar to “London
1802”. Again, Wordsworth brings forth Milton as an example of how things should
be. The other main theme in this poem is Wordsworth’s disillusion with the outcome
of the French revolution. Wordsworth talks of great and wise authors of the past:
Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, Vane and other friends of Milton. All these writers were
republicans that were part of the commonwealth tradition and in Wordsworth’s time
this was a very politically charged group of names (Crawford 120-121). These
authors had the ability to envision how a nation could be genuinely glorious and
splendorous. They understood “what strength was, that would not bend / But in
magnanimous meekness” (8, 9). Magnanimous meekness here refers to the fact that
these men also knew there strength in restraint. However, the poem is not
completely radical as Wordsworth does not mention contemporary republican
thinkers, thereby distancing himself from the radicals of his day and age and
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indirectly arguing that England no longer possess the necessary spiritual leaders for
change. In fact, Wordsworth primarily brings up these English thinkers to compare
them to the situation in France. Milton and his likeminded friends are in this poem
imagined as the ideal men to lead a nation in a revolution, in contrast with the
revolution in France, which had failed to produce such republican leaders (Crawford
121). For the French leaders like Robespierre and Napoleon missed this
magnanimous meekness, the capacity for restraint. Wordsworth argues that because
France lacked such exemplary men, a void, which causes constant change, came into
existence. The French were lost without a “master spirit” and had no path to follow.
The French had no example and were thus in need of “books” and “men” that
would unite them. This poem is thus another example of Wordsworth
disappointment over the outcome of the French Revolution. However, The Chartist
Circular did not use the last six lines of the poem regarding France, turning the poem
into a praise of historical republican thinkers, instead of a critique on the outcome of
the French revolution.
The use of these two poems from 1802 is interesting for the Chartist because
of the presence of the figure of Milton. Most Romantics and Chartists regarded
Milton as historical champion of republicanism. Therefore, the use of this figure by
Wordsworth works well for the case the author of the article was trying to make,
namely that Wordsworth was not a conservative, but a radical. Moreover, the poem
“London, 1802” has other characteristics that are interesting for the Chartists that the
author of the article praises: the description of England as a corrupted place and the
call for a reform of the institutions of the church, the army, the law and the press
along the lines of Milton. “Great Men Have Been among Us” on the other hand,
praises the restraint at the hands of the revolutionary thinkers of England’s past.
Wordsworth was disappointed with the results of the French revolution and was
certainly not preaching for a revolution in England at the hand of the Chartists,
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which might be the reason the Chartists changed “what strength was, that would not
bend / But in magnanimous meekness”, into magnanimous weakness.
A significant aspect that is not part of the Romantic poems themselves, but
part of the same article is a poem by Chartist poet Elliott Ebenezer. It regards the
discussion of Napoleon in the poem by Elliott as well as the commentary that
accompanies it. The lines “Yet, better was it that the fool of force/ Triumph’d by
force, and fell by force subdued/ Than that the ancient thrones of foot and horse/
Had quell’d at once, the uprous’d multitude”(“Politics of the Poets No. III” 182). In
the commentary, the journalist states that even if the presence of Napoleon is a
scourge, the world is still a better place than if the French would have permitted
their kings to continue their rule. The fact that the Chartists added this poem and
commentary to an article containing various poems that were originally highly
critical of Napoleon, but which the editor altered as not to regard Napoleon at all, is
a peculiar decision, not to say a case of political manipulation.
This article has a specific purpose within the public sphere. All poems except
for “London, 1802”, take the poems drastically out of their context. The Chartists did
this so they could demonstrate the radical nature of Wordsworth poetry. The whole
article is an attempt at claiming an authority figure for their cause, as a poet of the
people. Through his poetry they try to demonstrate his affection for liberty, his
patriotism, his affection for Milton, and his idea that liberty is the birthright of men
and that the people should defend this right. Although the goal they have is similar,
there are significant differences between the articles “Politics of the Poets No. II” and
“Politics of the Poets No. III”. In the case of Shelley, there was no need to convince
the readers of his allegiance to the working class, while the article on Wordsworth is
also an attempt at convincing the Chartist that Wordsworth was not a Tory.
Moreover, whereas the selected poetry of Shelley is in line with the point the
Chartists are trying to make, in the case of Wordsworth the Chartist frequently
omitted lines thereby altering the sense of the poems to make them fit their
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argument. The Chartist probably did this because most of the poems used in the
article do not regard England. In this sense, it is interesting that the author’s argues
that:
This, in faith, is most marvellous language for a Tory! Nothing less than
Republicanism, the purest and highest … After such language from Mr
Wordsworth, despotism will have little ambition to call him friend.
Wordsworth is upsides with the ‘people’s poets,’ Burns and Elliott (“Politics
of the Poets No. III” 182).
The objective is thus not only to claim him as a poet of the people, but also to
undermine his position as a Tory authority figure.
A second element related to the public sphere is promoting a Chartist poet.
Exactly like in the article on Shelley’s Queen Mab, the Chartists compare a great
Romantic poet, Wordsworth, to Chartist poet Elliott Ebenezer. Considering that, the
previous paragraph already discussed such an instance, there is no need to discuss it
here again.
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3. The Use of Romantic Poetry in The Northern Star and The Chartist Circular
This chapter will compare the use of Romantic poetry in The Chartist Circular and
The Northern Star. To start it will consider how The Northern Star used Romantic
poetry. This study will base its conclusions regarding The Northern Star on Sanders
research on the use of poetry in this paper, as well as on a cursory analysis of the
usage of Romantic poetry in The Northern Star made in this study. Second, it will
compare these results to the findings of the previous chapter on the use of poetry in
The Chartist Circular. By comparing these two papers, this study hopes to learn more
about the different functions Romantic poetry had in the Chartist public sphere.
Romantic Poetry in The Northern Star
Sanders in his article "A Jackass Load of Poetry" analyzed the editorial policy
of The Northern Star’s poetry column. Although his research is not focused on
Romantic poetry per se, as he considers all poetry that was published in The Northern
Star, the conclusions he draws are still of value to this study. His main claim is that
throughout the existence of The Northern Star the editors of the poetical column gave
an increasing amount of importance to the aesthetic value of poetry (47). Sanders
argues that the Chartists saw this activity of raising the standard of poetry as a
significant aspect of the movement for several reasons (62). First, Poetry was the
medium Chartism used to make itself “culturally intelligible” to its supporters; it
thus functioned as a producer of the identity of Chartism. Second, literary
production was in itself an objective of the Chartist movement, in the words of
Haywood: “[i]n order to prove themselves worthy of political representation, it was
a vital task to also conquer the realm of symbolic representation” (IX).
One of the elements that Sanders uses to demonstrate his claims are the
comments that accompanied the rejections of poems that the Chartists submitted.
The editors of the poetry column were quite hard on the aspiring Chartist poets. The
rejections demonstrated resolute, and frequently merciless, commitment to the
safeguarding of the poetic quality and aesthetics:
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W.M., A Worsbro' Common Weaver, desires us to alter any word we think
proper, or put in any new words that may be needed in his verses. The best
thing we cant [sic] suggest to him is, to alter all the words, or, what might be
still better, take them all away, and leave the paper blank (qtd. in Sanders 53).
This however did not discourage the Chartists submit their poems and thus expose
their work to such harsh critique. Later on, the amount of poetry became so large
that the editors started collective rejections; this however did not alter their
attachment to the aesthetic side of poetry. Sanders identified a significant change in
the editorial approach to poetry in 1844:
For ourselves, we have ‘registered a vow’ never (knowingly and wilfully [sic])
to give publicity to any more trash, feeling assured that we shall best gratify
our readers in general, and instruct our poetic friends in particular, by calling
from the deathless pages of Byron, Shelley, Burns, Nichol, &c., &c., rather
than by giving insertion to outpourings which can lay no claim to the title of
“immortal verse.” Of course all that may cross our path, original and really
poetic, will find with us ready insertion (qtd. in Sanders 54).
This strategy of publishing the great poets of the past, to serve as an example for the
aspiring Chartist poets, is a clear attempt at raising the quality of the poetry the
Chartists were producing. It demonstrates that the value the paper attributed to
aesthetics. Sanders describes this process as a project of “transforming the quantity
into quality” (Sanders 55). As part of this new strategy, the editors introduced the
series “The Beauties of Byron”. Sanders considers this policy as additional proof of
the Chartist idea that the capacity of the working class to be able to identify as well
as write poetry of a certain quality would demonstrate their adequacy, as a cultured
group, for suffrage.
Although Sanders does not analyze the poetry itself, he does give an idea of
how we should interpret its use. Considering that Sanders is not focused on
Romantic poetry in specific, as part of this thesis a cursory analysis was made of the
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fifty-seven identified instances in which Romantic poetry was used in The Northern
Star. This study considered three aspects: whether the poem was part of an article
that discussed it, if the content of the poem was primarily political, and if it was part
of a series. The great majority of the cases of Romantic poetry used, forty-four, were
part of the series “The Beauties of Byron” which was mentioned above. Besides “The
Beauties of Byron”, The Northern Star published thirteen other articles containing
Romantic poetry, in nine of these cases the editors did not comment upon the poems
at all. This analysis did not consider the instances in which the paper discussed
Romantic poets but did not publish their poetry.
Although “The Beauties of Byron” varies over instalments, in the greater part
of the series a short historical context, author’s context, intratextual context, or a
combination of these accompanied the selected poetry. The focus in this series
clearly lies on the aesthetic beauty of the selected pieces. This study will provide
three quotations to demonstrate this primacy of the aesthetic. First, the introduction
to a series of eleven instalments containing pieces of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
shows the focus on the aesthetic:
The extracts from which we purpose to give, will really be "Beauties of
Byron." We pass by the Dedication to "Ianthe," though its beauty strongly
tempts us to copy it: we pass by the opening stanzas, almost every line of
which teems with beauties; and here commence our extracts: (“Beauties of
Byron VIII” 3).
Second, the introduction to “The Giaour” discusses the context of the poetry itself as
well as the aesthetic quality:
The first appearance of the Giaour, when seen by the narrator of the tale, a
Turkish fisherman ; the lately picture of Leila, and the dark story of her death;
the encounter of the rivals — their terrific combat and death of Hassan; the
desolation of Hassan's hall and domains ; the imprecations of the story-teller
against the "accursed Giaour;" these, with other passages abounding with
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minute and beautiful descriptions, language the most luxuriant, and poetry of
the highest order (“Beauties of Byron XXV” 3).
In those few instalments of “Beauties of Bryon” that do have a clear political theme,
such as “The Prisoner of Chillion”, before even discussing the political theme the
beauty is pointed out and the short political discussion is followed by an explanation
of the story itself (not included in the quote):
This powerful and beautiful poem embraces a subject deeply interesting to all
haters of tyranny"-the sufferings of a noble man buried in the living tomb of a
dungeon for a long series of years for the ‘crime of holding tenets he would
not forsake’ (“Beauties of Byron: XXXV” 3).
These three extracts from the series “The Beauties of Byron” seem to confirm Sanders
argument of the primacy of aesthetics over the political.
Besides “The Beauties of Byron”, The Northern Star published thirteen other
Romantic poems. The paper published nine of these poems without an
accompanying commentary. Of these nine poems, eight had a political theme and
Shelley was the author of all eight poems. The paper published “Song to the Men of
England” on four different occasions under differing titles. The only non-political
poem printed without commentary was an extract out of “Isabella” by Keats. The
fact that The Northern Star published these political poems without commentary
what so ever is on itself significant, as it demonstrates that they were not using
Romantic poetry to provide explicit radical guidance or clarify political issues of the
moment.
This study will now shortly discuss the four poems in which the editors
provided a short context. The first instances is a satirical piece in which stanzas by
Byron, stanzas 177 and 178 from Childe Harold, are put in dialogue with two stanzas
they pretend were written by Prime Minister Robert Peel that mimic Byron’s lines
(“Harrow Reminiscences” 3). The article introduces the dialogue with three quotes
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regarding Prime Minister Peel. The first regards the fact that the fathers of Byron and
Peel went to school together. The second is a statement by Peel’s father arguing that
his son had doubled his fortunes and at the same time ruined the country. The last
quote is from another newspaper, English Public, and states “All our happiness
consists in being well deceived”, referring to the fact that Peel as a politician deceives
his people (qtd. in “Harrow Reminiscences” 3). The comparison presents Byron as a
lover of nature while Peel loves political play, but most of all himself. The clearest
example being the transformation of the lines “I love not man the less, but nature
more” into “I love not man the less, but self the more” (“Harrow Reminiscences” 3).
The Northern Star, in this case, used Byron’s poems in a political manner, in satire of
the prime minister, but the selected stanzas on their own are in no way political.
The second article, written by T Frost, discusses the Works of Scott, Byron and
Shelley. The focus of the piece is to analyze the temporality in the works of these
poets. First, he describes Scott as the storyteller of a past age and although he starts
with praise for his works, he adds that this glorification of the past comes with
conservative opinions in politics and religion. Second, Frost presents Byron as the
poet of the present, as his poems preach democracy and are a criticism of the existing
institutions. Finally, Frost argues that Shelley is the representative of the future, a
non-clerical prophet predicting the arrival of a moral summer. As an example of this
image of the future, they give an extract out of The Revolt of Islam (canto 9 stanza
XXV). Literary analysis takes up a prominent position in the article, however it is
also true that the political content of the poetry of the different poets are part of that
analysis. Frost does not only argue that these authors write about the past, present,
and future, but also judges their respective political ideas to be the most fitting for
those periods. Frost is thus arguing that conservatism is outdated.
The third case is a very short review of The Masque of Anarchy alongside two
other radical works. The article introduces the poem with one line of historical
background, stating that Shelley wrote it in reaction to the Peterloo Massacre
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followed by five stanzas. The article interrupts the poem and states that the lines that
follow clearly describe the slavery of the English followed by ten stanzas. They
conclude the article by stating that also his description of freedom is a very powerful
one followed by the famous last stanza of The Masque of Anarchy, “Rise like lions
after slumber”. Only three sentences of commentary directly regard this poem,
consisting of one line of historical context and two cases of pointing the reader to the
political contents of the poem.
The last instance contains a great variety of extracts from Queen Mab, in what
is essentially an advertisement for a new edition of this large poetic work (“Queen
Mab” 3). The article introduces various extracts with short descriptive titles such as
“Courtiers”, “Kings and subjects”, “The poor and their oppressors”, and “The doom
of falsehood and tyranny” (“Queen Mab” 3). What stands out as odd is the closure of
the advertisement:
We do not agree with all the ideas and sentiments expressed in Queen Mab;
but regarding the poem as a whole, we have no hesitation in asserting that no
youth can rise from its perusal-without feeling more than ever wedded to
virtue, and bound by that tie to struggle for the happiness of mankind, and
the triumph of Truth and Justice (“Queen Mab” 3).
This is the only instance encountered in this study where the editors of a Chartist
paper describe parts of a work by a Romantic poet as contrary to their liking. In this
case, the primary motive of printing these poems is clearly commercial, as the editor
argues:
Our principal reason for calling attention to this work, is to intimate to the
lovers of genuine poetry who may not possess this poem, that the copy
published by Mr Watson is a neat, cheap, and unmutilated edition , which
they would do well to obtain(“Queen Mab” 3).
66
Discussion
The focus of this thesis is to discover what function Romantic poetry has in
the Chartist public sphere. The preceding chapters analyzed the way The Chartist
Circular and The Northern Star used Romantic poetry in their articles. The reason this
study selected these two papers for analysis is that The Northern Star was a stamped
paper, while The Chartist Circular was an unstamped paper. This paragraph will
compare the results of this stamped and unstamped paper to find out if they used
Romantic poetry differently and if this different use can tell us something about their
role in the Chartist public sphere.
This study has identified several differences between the use of Romantic
poetry in The Northern Star and The Chartist Circular. The most significant difference
is that while The Northern Star gives the primacy to aesthetics, The Chartist Circular
considers the political content of the poems much more important. This difference is
noticeable in many aspects of the articles this thesis has considered. If the two main
poetical series of the two newspapers “Beauties of Byron” and “Politics of the Poets”
are considered, this opposition is clearly noticeable by just considering the titles.
“Beauties of Byron” focusses on giving examples of aesthetically laudable poetry
that serve as a reference to what good poetry is, as well as assist at improving the
aesthetic quality of the Chartist poetry and thereby the artistic level of its public
sphere. “Politics of the Poets” tries to demonstrate that the poetical figures of
authority shared the political ideals of the Chartists, as well as giving radical
guidance by teaching the readers about the injustices of society. In this sense, it is
significant that while The Northern Star publishes Romantic poetry to show people
the aesthetic difference with Chartist poetry, The Chartist Circular argues that the
Chartist poet Ebenezer Elliott is of equal greatness on political grounds. Moreover,
The Chartist Circular argues, “we will not deny that Shelley has written much that the
world finds difficult to understand; but he has also written much which all hearts
and minds can appreciate” (“Politics of the Poets no. II” 178). This demonstrates a
67
focus on the political aspect only, the language is only discussed when it powerfully
displays political reality and aesthetic poetry is put aside. On the other hand, in the
few cases that The Northern Star did publish political poetry with commentary it is
always very brief, while in all the instances encountered in The Chartist Circular long
columns of commentary accompanied the poetry.
The different focus of these two papers should be considered in the context of
the public sphere. The respective focus on the aesthetic and the political tells us
something of the role these papers played in the Chartist public sphere. Although
these papers are very different in their use of Romantic poetry, both newspapers
have didactic intentions. The Northern Star is attempting to teach its readers how to
write good poetry by providing them with good examples, which are mainly of the
Romantic era. Through this process of making the Chartist poetry more
sophisticated they try to demonstrate that the working class is culturally elevated
enough to be worthy of the right to vote. The Northern Star was thus aiming at
elevating the artistic quality of the Chartist public sphere. The Chartist Circular’s
teachings on the other hand are more political, they try to provide the Chartist with
an understanding of the workings of society and the unequal power relations that
control it, this is done out of the conviction that people need to understand what is
wrong before they will start to resist. The Chartist Circular explains the social
injustices in society to demonstrate the importance Charter to its readers. In a sense,
the use of poetry in The Chartist Circular can be seen as more traditional, and more in
line with the contestatory function of the Chartist public sphere.
Three reasons, or a combination of these, might have caused these differences
in the use of Romantic poetry by these newspapers. First, The Northern Star was a
stamped newspaper, while The Chartist Circular was an unstamped paper. The
stamped paper as the biggest newspaper in circulation could have more elevated
pretensions. Raising the cultural level of an entire class is only possible if you reach a
wide audience. The Chartist Circular on the other hand, as an unstamped newspaper,
68
did not have permission to publish news items and thus focused on creating a better
understanding of the Charter and its objectives (Fraser 82-86).
A second element that might explain the contrasting ways of using poetry is
the different periods in which the papers were printed. The Chartist Circular was on
print from September 1839 until July 1842, while The Northern Star had a much
longer run from November 1837 until November 1852. The Northern Star did not start
to publish aesthetic poetry until the shift in their editorial policy in 1844 (Sanders,
2006), while before 1844, they only published extracts from Shelley’s poetry without
commentary. Considering that The Chartist Circular no longer existed in 1844, it is not
possible to know if they would have changed their editorial strategy as well.
Thompson seems to confirm this hypothesis in her discussion of The Northern Star:
“Its literary contents – and [sic] it published poems and reviews in every
number - tended to appeal to the more serious readers. As the forties
continued, the quality of the staff employed on the paper became very high …
In 1844, it moved to London and changed its title to The Northern Start and
National Trades Journal … To some extent these later developments illustrate a
process which was taking place in other aspects of the movement after 1842,
the development of the structured and organized aspects of Chartism, and the
pull away from the more popular, less self-conscious elements which had
formed an important part of the movement and the Star’s public in the early
days (Thompson 53).
However, the fact remains that before 1844 these two newspapers already had
different editorial policies.
A third element, which Thompson’s quote already briefly mentioned, is the
different location of both papers. The Chartist Circular was based in Glasgow, while
The Northern Star started in Leeds and later, in 1844, moved to London. Mussel
argues that this relocation changed the relation of the newspaper with its readers
69
and the news (Mussell). While in Leeds, the newspaper had been near to the heart of
its readership and the news concerning them, with the move to London the news
concerning them came at a two-day distance. Mussel argues that the relocation of the
paper meant a reorientation towards London news networks. It could be that with
this move to the metropolis their ambitions increased and that their reinforcement of
their aesthetic campaign should be considered in this light.
Now that this study has considered the different focus and function of the
two papers as well as the reason behind these differences, it will consider the
poetical column as part of the paper. A question this study has yet to answer is to
which degree the use of Romantic poetry in these Chartist newspapers corresponded
to their general objectives of these papers.
The Chartist Circular used of Romantic poetry in their editorial strategy of selfeducation and recruitment. The poems had a supporting function in the articles,
which focused on providing the readers with a better understanding of the injustices
of society (Thompson 43). This was in line with the general objectives of The Chartist
Circular, as their goal was to disseminate the Chartist message in Scotland (“Chartist
Circular: the voice”). Part of explaining the Charter and its objectives is
demonstrating which problems the Charter meant to resolve. In this sense, the
Romantic poetry provided vivid examples of the wrongs in society. In addition, in
those cases that the poetry did not regard the discussed subject, the Chartists altered
the poems so that they could still use their forceful images of social injustice. Overall,
the Romantic poetry in The Chartist Circular thus had a supporting function.
The Northern Star on the other hand, seems to have had a divided editorial
strategy. Its main purposes as a stamped newspaper were to report on all radical
activities, discussing recent events and providing a list of upcoming radical events
(Thompson 47-48). These general functions do not explain the editorial strategy of
The Northern Star’s poetry column. The poetry column aimed at increasing the
70
artistic value of the Chartist public sphere by providing laudable examples of poetry.
We can thus discern that the poetry column in The Northern Star had a separate
function. These separate functions relate to the division between moral force and
physical force Chartism, which will be the last aspect of this discussion.
The division between moral and physical force Chartism, already discussed in
the first Chapter, was the main internal division within the Chartist public sphere.
The Chartists were divided over which political strategy was best suited to obtain
the Charter. The moral school was convinced that they could obtain electoral reforms
through self-education and manifesting moral values, the people needed to be
educated and enlightened in order to be able to induce the government to recognize
the rights and liberties they should rightfully have. The Physical force Chartists, on
the other hand, used a much more aggressive tone, they argued that self-education
and morals were not enough and that violence was a legitimate tool in the struggle
for male suffrage.
This study identified two instances that complicate this picture to a certain
degree. First, considering that The Northern Star was the property of the main
exponent of physical force Chartism, Chartist leader Fergus O’ Connor, its focus on
aesthetics is peculiar. Trying to improve the poetry of the working class to
demonstrate the sophistication of the working class seems more like a moral force
Chartist strategy. We would expect physical force Chartists to select political poetry,
as well as use a more aggressive tone in the articles that accompany the poetry.
Another example is present in the article “The Corn-Law Repealers”, which
contains an extract from “Religious Musings”. In this article, the author used
representations of domesticity that Clark identifies as part of the physical force
rhetoric (“The Rhetoric” 72). The main objective of the article however, follows a
moral force approach, seeking middle class support for the Charter through a
justification for the immorality of the working class. In this case the combined use of
71
the argument that the oppression of the upper-class is responsible for the
degradation of the working class works well with the argument that the middle class
should support working class voting rights, as it gives an external cause for the
degradation thus demonstrating that the morality of the working class is sound.
Although these arguments work well together, they paint a confusing picture and
demonstrate that the boundaries between physical and moral force Chartists were
not always completely clear. These instances seem to confirm Thompson’s claim that
this division was overemphasized (2).
72
Conclusion
This thesis focused on discovering what role Romantic poetry played in the
Chartist public sphere. In specific, it investigated why and how Chartist papers used
Romantic poetry. This study concentrated on the Chartist press in its analysis of the
Chartist public sphere, because it is the best-conserved expression of that public
sphere.
The first chapter analyzed different conceptions of the public sphere to
discover how we should conceive Chartism within this framework. It argued that
certain conceptions of the public sphere are more suitable to study Chartism with
than others. This study identified several problematic aspects in Habermas’s original
theory of the public sphere. Most of these issues relate to the fact that in Habermas’s
work, the bourgeois public sphere served as an ideal historical example to which he
could compare modern society. Although his analysis of the bourgeois public sphere
does describe a period of fundamental change in society, Habermas’s focus lies more
on the creation of a normative ideal than on the accurate description of a historical
phenomenon. In fact, in his later work Habermas no longer looked for the normative
ideal in a historical context, instead he started analyzing the rational potential of
everyday communicative practices. He thus moved away from a historic ideal to a
more abstract one.
While this study found Habermas’s theory unfit to study Chartism, Fraser’s
approach to the public sphere proved much more fruitful. Her approach focuses on
social movements that try to counter hegemonic norms and ideas. She problematizes
Habermas’s division between the private and the public sphere, as it is based on
subjective grounds. She considers the rhetoric practices of domestic privacy and
economic privacy through which some topics are rendered ineligible for discussion
by privatizing them. The fundamental difference between the two authors is that in
Habermas’s conception the public sphere is not a social space where participants can
73
discuss the relation of domination and subordination, while Fraser devised her
concept of subaltern counter publics to describe exactly that phenomenon.
Considering that Chartism was all about questioning the relation between classes
and making issues that were considered private publicly discussable, Fraser’s
conception of the public sphere is simply better equipped to analyze Chartism.
The first chapter also demonstrated how the framework of the public sphere
not only helps to understand Chartism better, but can also provide insights in the
literary analysis of the Chartist newspapers. Certain issues, such as the use of the
rhetoric of domesticity, the self-educating tone and the division between moral and
physical force Chartism, are better understood in the context of the public sphere.
The second chapter analyzed the use of Romantic poetry in The Chartist
Circular. Based on their order of appearance, this study analyzed the first four
instances in which The Chartist Circular used Romantic poetry. This thesis identified
five different functions of the use of Romantic poetry in the Chartist public sphere.
The Chartist Circular’s choice of poetry reveals much the agenda of the paper,
as all the selected poetry was political of nature. The poems either provided astute
insight in the functioning of society or provided images of the suffering of the
working class. The poetry in The Chartist Circular had a supportive function in the
sense that it helped in the main objective of creating a better understanding of the
Charter. The poems and articles that incorporate them, do not explain the Charter
itself, but point out which problems the Charter could help to resolve; they
demonstrate what the movement was fighting against. The results of this study seem
to confirm Hamish Fraser’s claim that, because the government did not allow
unstamped papers to contain news items, these papers focused on creating a better
understanding of the Charter and its objectives. The results of this study
demonstrate that The Chartist Circular used Romantic poetry to reinforce this
function.
74
The results of this study confirm the Self-educating nature of the Chartist
public sphere and the perceived importance education within the movement, which
Niemi and Plante describe (188). The main two functions of Romantic poetry in The
Chartist Circular relate to this didactic purpose. Education was one of the central
aspects of the Chartist movement. The Chartists considered education and
awareness the first necessary steps in the direction of political change. Without an
understanding of how society functions, the people would not understand in which
way the upper classes were exploiting them and therefore they would not stand up
to change the situation. The columns of commentary surrounding the poems
underline the importance of knowledge and education on multiple occasions.
Romantic poetry suited the Chartist cause well, as it provides astute insight in the
functioning of society and contains strong images of inequality, oppression and the
wish for freedom. Moreover, the Chartists considered the Romantic poets figures of
authority, so using their work reinforced this didactic activity. This relates to the
second function namely claiming poets as part of their public sphere, an
appropriation of sorts. Arguing that Romantic poets were supportive of the Chartist
cause increased morale and added persuasion to the Chartist arguments. However,
The Chartist Circular took it one step further, as they claimed several poets as poets of
the people. In some cases, the Chartists were creative with the work of the Romantic
poets; by selecting certain lines and omitting others, the Chartists made them appear
supportive of the Chartist cause. The fact that these two functions are often
combined seems to infer that in the case of The Chartist Circular education and
propaganda go hand in hand.
A third identified function was the promotion of a poet related to Chartist
cause. In two different articles the by now forgotten Elliott Ebenezer is compared to
the Romantic poets Shelley, Wordsworth, and Burns. This is an example of how The
Chartist Circular measures the greatness of a poet on political grounds rather than
aesthetic value. Moreover, by arguing that Ebenezer is “no less a poet”, the paper is
75
making a statement regarding the sophistication of the Chartist public sphere itself
(“Politics of the Poets No. II.” 178).
Another important function of the Romantic poetry in The Chartist Circular is
rendering private affairs into public issues. In the dominant public sphere of the
nineteenth century there were numerous subjects that were considered part of the
private sphere and thus not to be discussed in public. If the Chartist wanted to
reform society, discussing these issues was of vital importance. An important tool
the Chartist used in this struggle, which this study encountered in the poems and
articles, is the trope of Domesticity. This trope served a specific political purpose, as
the domestic is in itself the purest symbol the private sphere. The Chartists linked
images of domestic misery and the moral degradation of the working class to
oppression and exploitation by the ruling class as well as its moral corruption. This
was a powerful rhetoric because it linked a public aspect, the rule of the upper
classes, to the private aspects of private economy and domestic privacy, by arguing
that the public influenced the private they tried to force a debate on the issue. This
study found multiple examples of this rhetoric practice Clark described , it found
that the Chartist selected Romantic poetry that either contained these images or
could be linked to this discourse (“The rhetoric” 64-67.
Finally, Nancy Fraser argued that counter publics have a dual function as” a
space of withdrawal and regroupment” and as a basis from which to participate in
the wider debate (68). The analyzed articles in The Chartist Circular use Romantic
poetry mostly in the first sense, to stimulate the debate within the Chartist
movement. However, this study also encountered one example of the second
function of a basis from which to participate in a wider debate. In the article “The
Corn-Law Repealers”, The Chartist Circular directly addresses the middle class
supporters of the Anti-Corn Law League in an attempt to create an alliance against
the upper class oppressors. The Chartist chose the topic of the Corn Law, as this law
was detrimental to both classes. The article is thus trying both win support for the
76
Charter and trying to drive a wedge between the middle and upper class. This article
demonstrates that Chartism was not limited to discussions within its own ranks, but
also tried to participate in the wider debate.
The analysis made in the second chapter allows us to draw certain
conclusions. First of all, the analyzed articles fit well with Nancy Fraser proposition
to consider subordinated social groups as subaltern counterpublics. She argues that
these groups operate in parallel discursive arenas where they can develop and
spread counterdiscourses, which allow them to devise their own view of their own
identity, necessities and desires (67). A concrete example of this development of
counterdiscourses and reformulating identities is the use of domesticity in the
Chartist political rhetoric, of which this study identified multiple instances (Clark
“The rhetoric” 64-67). While the upper classes marked the working class as morally
inferior, the Chartists constructed a more positive image of their identity through the
rhetoric of domesticity. They argued that not the immorality of the working class
itself, but the exploitation of the higher classes was to blame for the domestic misery
and immoral behavior of the working class. A second example of the Chartists
reinventing the working class identity is the Chartists self-representation as worker
bees, opposed to an upper class of drones.
The last chapter considered the differences between the use of Romantic
poetry in The Northern Star and The Chartist Circular. This study partly based this
analysis on Michael Sanders’s research on The Northern Star’s editorial strategy for its
poetry column. This study found that the two papers use Romantic poetry in
completely different ways and to a very different purpose.
The first difference between the two papers regards the choice of poetry and
its function. The Northern Star gives primacy to aesthetics while The Chartist Circular
considers the political content of the poems much more important and regards
purely aesthetic poetry as irrelevant. The Northern Star focusses on providing
77
examples of aesthetically laudable poetry that can serve as a reference to what good
poetry is. Their objective is to use Romantic poetry as an example, to improve the
aesthetic quality of the Chartist poetry and thereby the artistic level of the Chartist
public sphere. The Chartist Circular on the other hand, tries to demonstrate that the
poetical figures of authority shared the political ideals of the Chartists, as well as
giving radical guidance by teaching the readers about the injustices of society. Their
objective is to use the Romantic poetry to illustrate the social injustice and the
suffering this causes. The Chartist Circular integrates Romantic poetry in their radical
advice to elaborate on the issues the Charter was supposed to resolve.
A second related aspect is the virtual distance the papers put between the
Chartists and the Romantic poets. The Northern Star publishes Romantic poetry to
show its readers the huge aesthetic gap between the exemplary poetry of the
Romantics and Chartist poetry; the Romantics are thus pictured as unreachable. In
The Chartist Circular on the other hand, this distance is almost nonexistent; they
describe the Romantics as poets of the people, but even more significant is that they
argue that Elliott Ebenezer, a Chartist poet, is of equal greatness to Romantic poets
as Shelley, Wordsworth, and Burns.
A third aspect is how the poetry columns function as part of a bigger whole,
the papers themselves. The use of Romantic poetry in The Chartist Circular and The
Northern Star corresponded in different degrees to the general objectives of these
papers. The Chartist Circular used of Romantic poetry in their editorial strategy of
self-education and recruitment. The poems had a supporting function in the articles,
which focused on providing the readers with a better understanding of the injustices
of society. This was in line with the general objectives of The Chartist Circular, as their
goal was to disseminate the Chartist message in Scotland. The Northern Star on the
other hand, seems to have had a divided editorial strategy. Its main purpose as a
stamped newspaper was to keep the movement united by reporting on all radical
activities, discussing recent events and providing a list of upcoming radical events.
78
These general functions do not explain the editorial strategy of The Northern Star’s
poetry column. The poetry column aimed at increasing the artistic value of the
Chartist public sphere by providing laudable examples of poetry. We can thus
discern that The Northern Star’s the poetry column had a separate function.
Relating to the function of Romantic poetry in The Northern Star we can say
that it complicates the way we perceive the division between moral and physical
force Chartism. The editorial policies of the poetry column of the two papers can be
argued to pertain to the opposing schools of thought within the Chartist public
sphere; The Northern Star seems to follow a Moral force strategy, while The Chartist
Circular has a physical force approach. The fact that The Northern Star gives primacy
to aesthetics, as part of a strategy to improve the poetry of the working class in order
to demonstrate their sophistication is peculiar and complicates the moral versus
physical force paradigm. Self-education and self-improvement are central to the
moral force Chartist strategy, but the newspaper was the property of the main
exponent of physical force Chartism, Chartist leader Fergus O’ Connor. The Northern
Star in general used a very militant tone and featured multiple articles that attacked
the moral force strategy. For these reasons, we would expect The Northern Star’s
poetry column to be more like The Chartist Circular’s poetry column. We would
expect them to select political poetry and to use a more aggressive tone in the articles
that accompany the poetry. This blending of the two strategies in one newspaper
seems to confirm Bloy’s claim that the boundaries between moral and physical force
Chartism were not always clear.
In conclusion, this thesis has analyzed the function of Romantic poetry in the
Chartist public sphere. It has looked at two Chartist papers as the best remaining
expressions of that public sphere. Although The Northern Star and The Chartist
Circular are very different in their use of Romantic poetry, they both have a didactic
function. The Northern Star is attempting to teach its readers how to write good
poetry by providing them with examples of quality, mostly of the Romantic era.
79
Through this process of making the Chartist poetry more sophisticated they try to
demonstrate that the working class is culturally elevated enough to be worthy of the
right to vote. This was thus an attempt at raising the cultural level of the Chartist
public sphere. The Chartist Circular’s teachings on the other hand are more political;
they try to provide the Chartist with an understanding of the workings of society
and the unequal power relations that control it. This is done out of the conviction
that people need to understand the injustice in order to resist in a successful way. In
other words, The Chartist Circular purpose was to inform the members of the Chartist
public sphere in order to develop their contestatory function.
Although this thesis was able to identify the function of Romantic poetry in
the Chartist public sphere, there are some limitations to this study. First, although
this study demonstrated that there was a significant difference in editorial policy
between The Northern Star and The Chartist Circular and it provided three plausible
explanations for this difference, it could find no conclusive evidence to confirm any
of these explanations. The reason for this is that little to nothing is known about the
editorial work of most Chartist newspapers. Second, although The Chartist Circular
contained nine instances of the use of Romantic poetry this study analyzed only four
instances, it was however affirmed that the remaining instances did not contain
elements that would contradict the conclusions drawn in this study. The scope of
this study simply did not permit the analysis of the remaining instances. Third, this
study analyzed the use of Romantic poetry in the Chartist press as expressions of the
public sphere; however, Romantic poetry might have been used differently in other
spaces within the public sphere. Therefore, the conclusion may not be valid for the
public sphere as a whole. The decision to study newspapers was made because they
present the best-conserved expression of the Chartist public sphere.
This study has contributed to the understanding we have of Chartism and the
ways Chartist used poetry for their cause. It concluded that certain conceptions of
the public sphere, such as Fraser’s are better suited to study Chartism than others,
80
primarily Habermas’ original conception. This study thus argues that studying
poetry in the context of the public sphere adds depth to the literary analysis. By
using the framework of the public sphere not only is it possible to better understand
Chartism, but also to gain a deeper understanding of the use of poetry by the
Chartists and the function poetry played in their movement. For example, the use of
domesticity in the public debate becomes relevant only if the opposition between
private and public sphere are considered. The different forms of didactic intentions
of the Chartist papers are also more clearly explained in the context of the public
sphere. This study also has found additional evidence that the division between
moral force and physical force Chartism is not as categorical as thought. It
contributes by providing additional evidence of the blending of these two strategies,
in this case regarding the way the Chartists utilized poetry in their newspapers. The
main discovery is that the editors of the two analyzed Chartist newspapers had
completely different editorial approaches and used poetry to fulfil completely
different functions.
This study has explored the function of Romantic poetry in the Chartist public
sphere. In particular, it has looked how The Chartist Circular used Romantic poetry.
Future research might try to uncover if Romantic poetry was used in the public
sphere in other spaces than newspapers. Another aspect of interest is if the Chartists
used other non-Chartist poetry, from periods preceding Romanticism, in a similar
fashion. For example, another study might start with the instalment of the “Politics
of the Poets” series that discusses the politics of Shakespeare. Last but not least, little
to nothing is known about the editorial work of most Chartist newspapers. While
this thesis has tried to analyze the editorial strategy of Chartist newspapers by
looking at the articles themselves, research regarding the editorial work behind the
Chartist newspapers could greatly benefit future investigations.
81
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