Discuss the Influence of the French Revolution on English
Literature.
Introduction:
It would be peremptory to
treat the French Revolution as just another historical incident
having political significance alone. The French Revolution exerted a
profound influence not only on the political destiny of a European nation but
also impinged forcefully on the intellectual, literary, and political fields
throughout Europe. It signalised the arrival of a new era of fresh
thinking and introspection.
The conditions prevailing in
England at that time made her particularly receptive to the new ideas
generated by the Revolution. In literature the French Revolution was
instrumental in the creation of a new interest in nature and the elemental
simplicities of life. It accelerated the approach of the romantic era
and the close of the Augustan school of poetry which was already
moribund in the age of Wordsworth.
Poetry and
Politics:
The age of Wordsworth was an age
of revolution in the field of poetry as well as of politics. In both
these fields the age had started expressing its impatience of set formulas and
traditions, the tyranny of rules and the bondage of convention. From the
French Revolutionthe age imbibed a spirit of revolt asserting the dignity of
the individual spirit and hollowness of the time-honoured conventions which
kept it in check. Thus both in the political and the poetic fields the age
learnt from the Revolution the necessity of emancipation-in the political
field, from tyranny and social oppression; and in the poetic, from the bondage
of rules and authority. The French Revolution, in a word, exerted a
democratising influence,both on politics and poetry. Inspired by the
French Revolution, poets and politicians alike were poised for an onslaught on
old, time-rusted values. It was only here and there that some conservative
critics stuck to their guns and eyed all zeal for change and liberation with
suspicion and distrust. (Thus, for instance, Lord Jeffrey wrote in the Edinburgh
Review that poetry had something common with religion in that its
standards had been fixed long ago by certain inspired writers whose authority
it would be ever unlawful to question.) But such views did not represent the
spirit of the age which had come under the liberating influence of the
French Revolution....................................................................................................................................
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