The Wanderer's Guilt-Burden
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The Wanderer’s Guilt-Burden John Lees University of Wollongong
Lees, John, The Wanderer’s Guilt-Burden, PhD thesis, School of English Literatures, Philos- ophy and Languages, University of Wollongong, 2004. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/344
This paper is posted at Research Online. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/344
The Wanderer’s Guilt-Burden
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
from
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
by
John Lees, BA Hons
SCHOOL OF ENGLISH LITERATURES, PHILOSOPHY AND LANGUAGES
2004
Certification
I, John Lees, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the School of English Literatures, Philosophy and Languages, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution.
John Lees 11 December 2004
Table of Contents
Abstract i
Acknowledgements ii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Godwin’s St Leon : The Supernatural Wanderer 25
Chapter 2 Shelley as St Leon: A Real-Life Wanderer 53
Chapter 3 Wordsworth’s “Poet-Wanderer” 76
Chapter 4 Byron and Childe Harold : Mortal Wanderers Over Eternity 108
Chapter 5 The Vampyre’s Empty Soul 159
Chapter 6 Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer 193
Conclusion 233
List of Works Cited 246
i
Abstract
This thesis examines the development of the male Wanderer figure by prominent writers of the Romantic Period - in prose, poetry, and in their self-portrayals. The major texts which it examines are: Godwin’s St Leon (1799); Wordsworth’s The Prelude (1805) and The Excursion (1814); Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818); Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819); and Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). By focussing on the Wanderer’s guilt-burden - an essential element in these constructions - it shows to what extent the Wanderer reflected the social conscience of his time. To that end, the thesis argues that the guilt borne by the Wanderer of the Romantic Period was primarily a guilt-burden of privilege.
The burden of a social conscience is what made the Wanderer pertinent to an age with egalitarian aspirations. It was this guilt-burden which lent the figure its vitality and significance. In that sense, the
Wanderer of the Romantic Period should not be considered merely as a type or version of the Wandering Jew; rather, the figure was primarily a secular construction which, if anything, replaced the religious guilt of the older myth with the increasing social concerns of that revolutionary age. ii
Acknowledgements
The pleasant, accommodating manner of all the staff in the English Department of the University of Wollongong has been a considerable blessing; I could not have asked for a more supportive environment. Dr. Anne Collett’s appreciative knowledge of the Romantics - graciously conveyed - has been a valuable resource; her insightful conversation has often kept me inspired. Most of all, I would here like to acknowledge the kindly support of Dr. Anne Lear, whose wisdom, humour and dedication to scholarship and teaching have provided me - for quite some time now - with much needed encouragement.
Thanks to the University of Wollongong for awarding me a scholarship, without which I could not have begun my candidature.
My beloved parents, Walter and Irene, have patiently borne with me through these years, providing all manner of undeserved assistance for which I will always be grateful.
1 Introduction
The male Wanderer is a recurring image in the English fiction of the Romantic Period. For just over two decades writers of the time successfully incorporated this compelling figure into their work. The public’s enthusiastic response to the Wanderer is demonstrated by the prolonged popularity of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a major work of Byron’s which, as it was written and published in three instalments (1812, 1816 and 1818), consolidated an image of the author himself as an “immortal” Wanderer. And there were real immortal Wanderers too - at least in fiction. At a time when the aristocratic vampire first wanders into literature, the supernatural creations of William Godwin and Charles Maturin leave an equally impressive mark. Endowed with preternatural powers, these privileged beings are formidable in their lone, suffering stature, forever set apart from the rest of humanity.
So persuasive was the figure of the Wanderer that the most popular and influential poets of the age, Wordsworth and Byron, chose to adopt this persona when presenting a self-image; they were also compelled, at one time or another, along with Shelley, to actually envisage themselves in a Wanderer’s role. But beyond the inherently Romantic appeal of the Wanderer’s defiant despair and isolated individuality, there was, it would seem, a more significant element in the on-going construction of the figure during this period - the possession of a guilt-burden. Why though should this particular characteristic of the Wanderer hold such an appeal to writers and readers of the so-called Romantic era? This thesis attempts to account for the persuasive power of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden, finding its source in the emerging social conscience of the time.
The discussion begins by showing how the notion of a guilt- burden played an important role in the egalitarian social philosophy of the 1790s. It then examines the different ways in which writers of the ensuing period incorporated this guilt-burden into their portrayals of the Wanderer. William Godwin’s novel, St Leon (1799), sets an important precedent in this regard, as Godwin himself was a prime conveyer of the egalitarian ideas which his novel sought to impart. With the character of St. Leon, an immortal aristocrat, Godwin established a 2 supernatural portrayal of the Wanderer that was to remain influential. Some twenty years later, the idea of a supernatural Wanderer with an immortal guilt-burden reached its most developed form in Charles Maturin’s novel, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). As the thesis concludes with Maturin’s text, it will be seen to what extent the enlightenment strategies of earlier egalitarian thinkers continued to influence the development of the Wanderer figure.
Before that, however, Chapter 2 considers the very immediate impact that Godwin’s ideas have upon the young Percy Shelley, showing how this revolutionary aristocrat’s self-conscious reading of St Leon leads him on a real-life Wanderer’s quest to Ireland in 1812. There Shelley was able, albeit for a short while, to fulfil the Wanderer’s role which, after reading Godwin’s philosophy and fiction, he envisaged for himself. With an eye to the self-image of the Wanderer which so possessed him, the discussion evaluates Shelley’s mission in light of what Godwin had perhaps intended for the figure.
The first part of Chapter 3 examines the genesis of Wordsworth’s Poet-Wanderer. With comparative reference to the poetry of Coleridge as well, it traces what can be called a Poet’s “nagging sense of privilege,” showing how that may become a guilt-burden of sorts. In Wordsworth’s case, he is able to transform this burden into worthy labour for the Poet, creating in due course the Poet-Wanderer - a figure that reconciles the privileged role of the Poet with a wider social conscience. It was in the unpublished text of The Prelude (1805) that Wordsworth first envisaged himself in this role.
However, it was not until in The Excursion (1814), published some ten years later, that Wordsworth revealed himself to the public as the Wanderer figure to which he aspired. The ambitious scope of this text allowed him to perform the type of work for which The Prelude had provided a prospectus. The second part of Chapter 3 considers whether or not Wordsworth achieved his conscientious aims; for the social role which the Poet-Wanderer performs in The Excursion is markedly different from that which was earlier conceived for him. A short poem by Robert Southey, “The Complaints of the Poor” (1798), which employs a Poet-Wanderer figure in a similar strategy, allows us to see how Wordsworth may have strayed somewhat from what he earlier deemed in The Prelude to be his solemn social duty. 3
It was Byron’s Childe Harold, though, who managed to possess the public imagination as the foremost Wanderer of the period. From the outset of his writing career, Byron recognized the Wanderer’s guilt- burden as an appealing trait which would continue to fascinate an eager audience. But the guilt which Byron’s Wanderer bore had little or no associative link to the social conscience which gave the trope its life. Nevertheless, because the appeal of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden had already been established, it could be left to Byron to develop and manipulate its aesthetic rather than its social significance. Guilt, for Byron, played a central role in the development of a “dark-in-soul” image. Chapter 4 evaluates this on-going construction through the course of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812 - 1818).
That two of the most significant poets of the age, Byron and Wordsworth, chose to image themselves through the Wanderer, attests to the enormous appeal of this trope to the period’s sensibility. The Wanderer’s guilt-burden was, however, becoming increasingly emptied of its weight, until Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) removed it altogether. This short story is remarkable for its comment upon Byron’s fashionable guilt: an empty guilt which Polidori’s immortal Wanderer cynically employs. Chapter 5 explores The Vampyre’s sophisticated mis- placement of the Wanderer’s burden, a treatment which had left the figure looking somewhat shallow.
But the Wanderer still had a powerful message to convey to this society; and so, it was left to Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) to restore the credibility of the figure by reviving the social significance of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden. Maturin’s construction of the Wanderer thus stands, at the end of this discussion, as a final testament to the social conscience of the Romantic age - a troubled conscience which, like the Wanderer, was in danger of losing its way.
For his guilt-burden, and for its popular appeal, the Wanderer of the Romantic Period can perhaps thank his nearest relative - the Wandering Jew of European mythology. However, the immortal guilt borne by the Wandering Jew is not quite the same guilt as that borne by the Romantic Wanderer. In order, therefore, to avoid seeing the Wanderer of the Romantic Period as merely a version or development of the Wandering Jew, as some influential studies tend to, this thesis 4 refers only to the legendary figure as a near relative. That is not, however, to underestimate the influence of this popular myth upon the construction of the figure here examined.
When George K. Anderson, in his comprehensive study of the Wandering Jew legend, arrives at the Romantic Period in England, he finds that ‘passing allusions . . . are so numerous among so many writers that it is impracticable to attempt to collect them; besides, they do little more than show that the writer had heard of the Wandering Jew’ (1965, p.181). This proliferation of ‘passing allusions’ does, nevertheless, point to the widespread appeal of the figure. And since the Wandering Jew was already established in the popular imagination as a character associated with enormous guilt, the writers of the period could rely upon his guilt-burden as an engaging element in the construction of their own Wanderers. But while both figures carry a guilt-burden of sorts, that burden differs considerably in its nature.
Traditionally, the Wandering Jew, usually named Ahasuerus or Cartaphilus, was a figure associated with or used to illustrate religious guilt. It was believed that he had taunted or struck Christ (both, in some versions of the tale) on the way to the Cross, and was therefore condemned to wander the Earth until Christ’s return, remaining alive to bear the eternal guilt of his immortal transgression. In tracing the elusive origins of this myth from the Middle Ages, R. Edelmann notes the malleability inherent in the story, as ‘everywhere the theme was taken up and transformed in accordance with local conceptions and spiritual conditions’ (1986, p.8). Similarly, in a study of its literary manifestations, Rosenberg finds that ‘it adapts itself to the demands of diverse generations and diverse beliefs’ as ‘each age recreates the Wandering Jew in its own image’ (1961, p.188). While such an adaptable figure would seem to present a writer with an open prospect, it has actually proven, at least for the writers of the Romantic Period, to be quite limiting.
In considering its place within the Romantic tradition of European literature, Anderson notes: ‘It is a curious fact that most attempts to give the Wandering Jew a central position in a long narrative have failed’ (1965, p.171). To account for this, he surmises that ‘the Legend lacks the dramatic tension needed to build up a cumulative narrative capable of holding, for an extended period, the 5 interest of the reader’ (p.171). In looking at the English literature of the period, Anderson is quite right to find ‘the most complete portrait of the Wandering Jew’ (p.179) in what is basically a sub-plot of Matthew Lewis’ Gothic novel, The Monk (1796). (And even this sub-plot, it must be said, is superfluous to the rest of the story.) Such a noticeable absence of sustained or substantial appearances leads Anderson to despair that the ‘better writers seem to have recognized their difficulty and abandoned their projects’ (p.171). His foremost example of this is Goethe, who ‘would have been the most capable of attempting the feat in question’ (p.171). On that canonical level, it is unsurprising that Anderson dismisses both Godwin and Maturin’s novels as corruptions of the original legend.
To Anderson, St. Leon comes across as ‘an extremely long and dull affair,’ as he notes that Godwin’s additions have nothing ‘to do in any actuality with the Legend of the Wandering Jew itself’ (pp.180- 181). Likewise, ‘the resemblances between’ Melmoth the Wanderer and the ‘concept of Ahasuerus are not many,’ with Maturin’s ‘unwieldy and confusing’ text regarded as an unsuccessful piece of literature (pp.189- 190). That the two most substantial portrayals of the Wanderer from this period are not faithful portraits of the Wandering Jew should neither surprise nor disappoint us. The ambitious novels of Godwin and Maturin are successful works in their own right, as they in each case effectively construct a Wanderer that fulfils their own particular strategies - strategies which are examined in this thesis.
However, two recent studies which include the supernatural Wanderer figures of Godwin and Maturin in their discussions have tended to follow Anderson’s line, seeing the figure as either a development upon or corruption of the Wandering Jew. Both Godwin’s St. Leon and Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer are examined in Davison’s thesis, “Gothic Cabala: The Anti-Semitic Spectropoetics of British Gothic Literature” (1997). Beginning with Lewis’ brief portrayal of the Wandering Jew in The Monk, Davison finds a ‘slippery slope of degradation,’ down which the figure ‘falls significantly further’ (p.138) when ‘St. Leon assumes the mantle of the Wandering Jew’ (p.142) in Godwin’s text. Continuing along this degenerative line, Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer is seen as a novel which ‘helps to pave the way for Count Dracula by rendering the threat of Judaization more physically, and even sexually, violent’ (pp.159-160). 6
Alternatively, Tichelaar offers a positive appraisal of these supernatural characters in his thesis, “The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption” (2000). Like Davison, he looks forward to Stoker’s novel (1897) through ‘the legend of the Wandering Jew, whose attributes are echoed in Dracula’ (p.334). It is, however, a line of development rather than degradation which Tichelaar traces, from ‘St. Leon; A Wandering Jew with Rosicrucian secrets’ (p.78) until ‘the culmination of the Gothic wanderer tradition’ (p.21) in ‘Dracula: The New Wandering Jew’ (p.333). To that end, the supernatural Wanderers of the Romantic Period, St. Leon and Melmoth, are again considered as types of the Wandering Jew, with the novels of Godwin and Maturin classed amongst works ‘significant in their additions to his depiction’ (p.88). I happen to agree with Anderson on one very significant point: that neither Melmoth nor St. Leon “is” the Wandering Jew. I would emphasize, however, that they are not intended to be versions or types of the legendary figure. Despite such an impressive heritage, there is still room to consider the Wanderer of this period from another perspective, one which also includes non-supernatural portrayals of the figure.
If, as Rosenberg suggests, ‘the Wandering Jew can mean all things to all men and all ages’ (1961, p.189), the figure was nevertheless far too limiting a prospect for the writers of the Romantic Period. They needed, it seems, to develop their own conception of the Wanderer; one which fulfilled their own purposes. Importantly though, they took one very essential characteristic from the Wandering Jew - his guilt-burden - and transformed it considerably. What once carried religious, spiritual, even anti-semitic significance, was used by these authors to convey more secular concerns, as the eternal guilt borne by the Wandering Jew was now made to stand for something quite different. Thanks to the emerging egalitarianism of the time, the Wanderer of the Romantic Period was given his own guilt to bear, a guilt-burden associated with privilege. This new type of guilt was discovered, or rather uncovered, by a new revolutionary spirit.
7 The New Spirit of Inquiry
The tumultuous events of the French Revolution inspired a period of intense debate in 1790’s Britain, as the intellectuals of the period could sense an impending crisis in this radical challenge to an established social order. The dilemma at hand was whether or not, and to what extent, such reform should be embraced or resisted. To those who desired change, like Tom Paine, there was a new spirit of inquiry abroad which sought now to enlighten the minds of the British populace in regard to their oppressed situation. In The Rights of Man, Part II (1792), Paine writes:
Without consuming, like the ultima ratio regum, it winds its progress from nation to nation, and conquers by a silent operation. Man finds himself changed. He scarcely perceives how . (Paine, 1989, p.194)
As the spirit of inquiry takes hold and man ‘acquires a knowledge of his rights by attending justly to his interests, and discovers in the event that the strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it’ (p.194), such an enlightened change will be both universal and inevitable. ‘I do not believe,’ writes Paine, ‘that monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of Europe’ (p.150). And, as he speaks ‘not of one country, but of all’ (p.195), it is clear where Paine wants this spirit of enlightenment to move through next.
Tom Paine’s urgent appeal to an irresistible justice was constructed largely in response to the social conservatism of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). While Burke’s reflections were upon France his fear, like Paine’s hope, was for Britain, as he too perceived the universality of these far-reaching events: ‘It appears to me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more than Europe’ (1987, p.9). Burke was alarmed at the prospect of this unprecedented upheaval occurring in Britain. Speaking of the rights of man he implored that ‘all men have equal rights, but not to equal things’ (p.51). Consequently, the French attempt to redress social inequality was presented as unnatural and unjust: ‘Everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all 8 sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies’ (p.9). Here indeed was a warning: that the French Revolution was not a worthy model for the British to aspire to.
While Burke himself desired no such revolution his book did, in fact, provoke the exchange which gave rise to the intellectual expression of revolutionary ideas for the reform of British society. E. P. Thompson reminds us that we should not view this debate ‘only as a reflected glow from the storming of the Bastille’ (1963, p.102). Rather, ‘an English agitation, of impressive dimensions, for an English democracy’ (p.102), can be traced, as in ‘the 1790’s something like an “English Revolution” took place . . .’ (p.177). From the midst of this debate an emerging social conscience began to find expression in the egalitarian arguments of 1790s radicals like Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin.
These radical egalitarians identified privilege as the root cause of social oppression. To their enlightened social consciences equality was natural and just, whereas privilege was deemed unnatural and unjust. It was the radical spirit of inquiry which sought to uncover this truth and enlighten the British populace. To that end, the divisions and distinctions that came with privilege needed only to be exposed in order for the course of justice to proceed; for ‘such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to distinguish him from darkness . . .’ (Paine, 1989, p.152).
The focus of the inquiry was the role of privilege in society - whether or not it deserved the honours accorded to it, and whether an unequal distribution of resources could be justified. Property and hereditary distinction were at the forefront of the interrogation - a direct response to Burke’s argument, which had sought to protect the privileges of the propertied classes with an appeal to the ‘natural’ imbalance of a received social structure. Burke writes:
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. . . The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends hereditary possession (as most concerned in it), are the natural securities for this transmission. (p.45; Burke’s italics) 9
Thus, the institutions of privilege - monarchy and aristocracy - were vigorously defended with this natural-sounding argument. For Paine though, Burke’s reasoning was far from sound. There could be nothing natural or just in allowing the dead to rule over the living:
The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. (Paine,1989, p.55)
With the old order dying fast , ‘It is,’ insists Paine, ‘the living and not the dead that are to be accommodated’ (p.55). Furthermore, he looks forward to the downfall of those bastions of privilege which Burke sought to uphold: ‘I do not believe that monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of Europe’ (p.150). The first published response to Burke came from Mary Wollstonecraft, who declared in her Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790):
The rich and weak, a numerous train, will certainly applaud your system, and loudly celebrate your pious reverence for authority and establishments - they find it pleasanter to enjoy than to think; to justify oppression than correct abuses. (Wollstonecraft, 1993, p.55)
Whereas Burke had claimed that hereditary privilege was the element ‘which tends most to the perpetuation of society itself,’ Wollstonecraft identified such privilege as the very enemy of an enlightened civilization: ‘The civilization which has taken place in Europe has been very partial. . . And what has stopped its progress? - hereditary property - hereditary honours’ (p.9).
If Burke’s argument was, as Audrey Williamson has described it, ‘a Trumpet call to privilege and power’ (1973, p. 124), then the response of the radicals to this challenge was to aim their inquiring spirit directly at the forms and institutions of privilege. To that end, Wollstonecraft’s polemic targeted the propertied classes, as she employed the spirit of inquiry to question the validity of their endowments: ‘Why cannot large estates be divided into small farms?. . . 10 Why are huge forests still allowed to stretch out with idle pomp and all the indolence of Eastern grandeur?’ (1993, p.61) Such needless extravagance immediately struck the egalitarian mind as unjust. It was, in this sense, the perceived excesses of privileged society that raised the ire of the spirit of inquiry in its search for justice. This too was the role for an inquiring spirit like Paine’s, as he began to shed light on the institution of monarchy:
Notwithstanding the taxes of England amount to almost seventeen million a year, said to be for the expenses of government. . . The salaries of the judges are almost the only charge that is paid out of the revenue. (1989, p.127)
The desired result of this account is to expose the monarchy, as Paine’s inquiry uncovers what ‘cannot be accounted for’ (p.127) openly - a perceived injustice for which the monarchy is directly blamed: Considering that all the internal government is executed by the people, the taxes of England ought to be the lightest of any nation in Europe; instead of which, they are the contrary. As this cannot be accounted for on the score of civil government, the subject necessarily extends itself to the monarchical part. (p.127)
By uncovering these unjust imbalances, the new spirit of inquiry had exposed privilege as the very mechanism of oppression in society.
It was, however, William Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) that provided the most convincing and forceful denunciation of privilege. In this work, the spirit of inquiry was taken to its furthest point, as Godwin outlined a systemic structure of oppression as it currently operated in society. His purpose for doing this was one of enlightenment, to awaken the populace to the ‘oppression and iniquity’ to which they had become inured:
This spectacle is the school in which mankind have been educated. They have become accustomed to the sight of injustice, oppression and iniquity, till their feelings are made callous, and their understandings incapable of apprehending the principles of virtue. (Godwin, 1976, p.728)
Through the course of his inquiry, Godwin consistently traced the cause of oppression back to its source - in the forms and institutions of privilege; and whereas Paine had focussed his attack on the 11 monarchy, it was the aristocracy that bore the brunt of Godwin’s interrogation.
Asa Briggs has described the proceedings of the foremost radical society of these years, the London Corresponding Society, as having ‘emphasized the conflicting interests of aristocracy and democracy’ (Briggs,1959, p.133). So, in taking a hard line against aristocracy, Godwin had managed to articulate, in a systematic fashion, the egalitarian concerns of the 1790s radicals. This is not to suggest that Godwin was the author of these radical notions. Rather, he was able to give the most comprehensive expression to the egalitarian ideals which were present at the time. Others drew from this system either consciously or unconsciously as their own social philosophy developed. A writer like Wordsworth, for instance, could develop his own theory for social reform from similar radical views which were current at the time. Shelley, on the other hand, looked very consciously toward Godwin, both to the man and his philosophy, even if Shelley’s own ideas were to diverge considerably from those of his mentor. What Godwin provided for this generation, at the time of an emerging social conscience, was an invaluable insight into the nature of oppression. In achieving this enlightenment he also presented a prospect of society that would continue to resonate with poets and novelists throughout the Romantic Period. The influence of such egalitarianism can be seen, to no small degree, in the construction of the Wanderer figure which this thesis examines, and, in particular, on the development of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden. But it will be necessary, first of all, to outline the nature and purpose of this burden as it initially took shape.
The Guilt-Burden of Privilege
If an apathetic populace was to be awakened to ‘the sight of injustice, oppression and iniquity’ (Godwin, 1976, p.728), then perhaps a burden had to be placed upon its conscience. To that end, Godwin’s strategy for enlightenment, like the strategies of those who followed after, relied to a large degree upon the effective use of guilt - the guilt associated with privilege.
12 “To William Godwin, Author of Political Justice” (1795) is a poem in which the young Coleridge thanks Godwin for uncovering a monster:
Pleas’d I have mark’d OPPRESSION, terror-pale, Since, thro’ the windings of her dark machine, Thy steady eye has shot its glances keen - And bade th’ All - lovely ‘scenes at distance hail.’(1912, p.86 )
For Coleridge, as for many others, the ‘steady eye’ of Godwin had penetrated and exposed the very structure which constitutes society - a ‘dark machine’ of oppression. To better grasp this view of 1790s society, we can represent it as such:
PRIVILEGED FEW ______= OPPRESSION
WRETCHED MANY
Here is the terrible truth which lies behind the ‘All-lovely scenes’: an insidious structure inherent in all forms of privilege, be they material or social. In effect, the privileged few are living on top of and at the expense of the wretched many. Whatever advantages they may enjoy entail a weight of oppression upon the lower orders. In an essay entitled “Of Avarice and Profusion” (1797) Godwin writes:
Every man who invents a new luxury, adds so much to the quantity of labour entailed on the lower orders of society . . . Every new luxury is a new weight thrown into the scale . . . He is adding to the weight of oppression, and the vast accumulation of labour, by which they are already sunk beneath the level of the brutes. (1971, pp.316 - 317)
Oppression here should be considered as a weight or burden, but one which is borne on both sides of the social equation. Of course, only the lower half are physically oppressed as such, but the privileged few entail upon themselves another kind of burden, something like ‘all the weight / Of that injustice which upon ourselves / By composition of society / Ourselves entail’ (Wordsworth, 1970, pp. 220- 221). It is perhaps a form of guilt-burden which Wordsworth mentions here in The Prelude (1805), a sense of shared responsibility for the unjust imbalance of society. 13
It is relatively easy, first of all, to appreciate with Coleridge how the lower half might bear the weight of oppression:
Ah! far remov’d all that glads the sense, From all that softens or ennobles man, The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads They gape at PAGEANT POWER, nor recognize Their Cot’s transmuted plunder! (Coleridge,1970-2001, v.2, p.64) This is “The Present State of Society” (1796). The poem expresses a concern, shared by the likes of Paine and Wollstonecraft, that the labouring poor do not benefit from the fruits of their labour, their ‘Cot’s transmuted plunder.’ In a society where ‘the man who lives by the sweat of his brow has no asylum from oppression’ (Wollstonecraft, 1993, p.14), the question of justice should be ‘whether the fruits of his labour shall be enjoyed by himself’ (Paine,1989, p.200). As things stand, in “The Present State of Society,” the answer is clear:
O ye numberless Whom foul OPPRESSION’s ruffian gluttony Drives from Life’s plenteous feast! (Coleridge,1970-2001, v.2, p.64)
‘Bent beneath their loads,’ the wretched many are bearing the weight of an unjust imbalance. They produce, yet do not partake of ‘Life’s plenteous feast.’
Those however who do enjoy this repast, take upon themselves another kind of burden, as they indulge in what is effectively a guilty meal. To that end, Godwin identifies a ‘third degree of property,’ by which he means unnecessary and superfluous commodities. This involves ‘a system, in whatever manner established, by which one man enters into the faculty of disposing of the produce of another man’s industry’ (1976, p.711). Accordingly, nowhere is the structure of oppression more visible than in the consumption of luxury goods:
Every man may calculate, in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament he annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual hardships, 14 deplorable ignorance, and brutal insensibility, that he may be supplied with these luxuries. (1976, p.711-712)
The onus here is on the privileged individual to ‘calculate’ just how much they are adding to the weight of oppression, by considering ‘how many individuals’ they have implicitly ‘condemned.’ In other words, they are being persuaded to feel guilty - responsible, that is, for the injustice which their excess entails.
Godwin suggests that if ‘superfluity were banished, the necessity for the greater part of the manual industry of mankind would be superseded’ (1976, p.730). So, to some degree, the burden of ‘sweat and labour’ which the privileged few do not themselves bear, is being returned to them as a guilt-burden; or at least that is the desired effect. Whether or not they actually feel guilty, Godwin is telling them that they are. And in pointing directly at the consumer, the intention is to burden their conscience, in order that ‘Life’s plenteous feast’ may become a guilty meal.
We see the strategy at work in Coleridge’s contribution to the abolition debate where, in his “Lecture on the Slave-Trade” (1795), the consumption of sugar (the most superfluous of commodities) exemplifies the kind of implicit guilt which luxury entails:
Gracious Heaven! at your meals you rise up and pressing your hands to your bosom ye lift up your eyes to God and say O Lord bless the food which thou hast given us! A part of that food among most of you is sweetened with the Blood of the Murdered. Bless the food which thou hast given us! O Blasphemy! Did God give Food mingled with Brother’s blood! Will the Father of all men bless the Food of Cannibals - the food which is polluted with the blood of his own innocent children? (1970-2001, v.1, p.248 )
A meal sprinkled with sugar then, is one which rises to accuse and condemn the consumer. For behind the production of sugar, indeed behind the production and importation of all West Indian goods, lies a shameful history:
Perhaps from the beginning of the world the evils arising from the formation of imaginary wants have been in no instance so dreadfully exemplified as in the Slave Trade & the West India Commerce! (p.236) 15
Why? Because the market for these ‘imaginary wants’ entails a whole system of exploitative labour which exemplifies the notion of oppression: that of the privileged few living on top of and at the expense of the wretched many; the many here being both the West Indian slaves and the labouring poor of Britain:
Not one of these articles are necessary; indeed with the exception of Cotton and Mahogany we cannot truly call them even useful: and not one of them is at present attainable by the poor and labouring part of Society. In return we export vast quantities of necessary Tools, Raiment, and defensive Weapons, with great stores of Provision. So that in this Trade as in most others the Poor are employed with unceasing toil first to raise, and then to send away the Comforts, which they themselves absolutely want, in order to procure idle superfluities for their Masters. (1970-2001, v.2, pp.132-133)
Elsewhere, in his “Conciones ad Populum” (1795), Coleridge points out: ‘Oppression is grievous - the oppressed feel and are restless’ (1970- 2001,v.1, p.48). He now wants those who oppress to feel something as well, albeit another kind of burden:
And does not then the guilt rest on the consumers? And is it not an allowed axiom in morality, that wickedness may be multiplied, but cannot be divided; and that the guilt of all, attaches to each one who is knowingly an accomplice? (1970- 2001, v.2, p.138)
Thus, the oppressors are made to feel the weight of responsibility as a weight upon their consciences. In this way, the oppression borne by the lower level is being offered back to the upper level as a guilt- burden.
To whom exactly though is this burden being offered? Although in the polemics of 1790s radicalism, aristocracy is often a prime focus for the attack upon privilege, the privileged few here are by no means an aristocracy. Rather, the upper-level are all of those whom we might call the relatively privileged; privileged enough, it seems, to take sugar with their tea; the kind of audience addressed by the lectures of John Thelwall:
16 You who listen to me are most of you persons who are raised, in some degree, above the misery which I have been condemned to view: but do not suppose, because you are a few steps higher on the ladder of society, that the lower steps can be broken away without securing your destruction. (1984, p.207)
The privileged may not of course feel guilty for their ‘higher’ position ‘on the ladder of society.’ They must at least however be awakened, even threatened, as to their complicity in this unjust arrangement:
Oh citizens, reflect, I conjure you, that the common class of mankind and you are one! that you are one in nature! that you are one in interest! and that those who seek to oppress the lower, seek to annihilate the intermediate orders. (p.209; Thelwall’s italics)
With revolutionary fervour, Thelwall warns that one’s privileged position in ‘the intermediate orders’ will not last long, ‘for oppression, though it begins with the poor and helpless mounts upwards from class to class till it devours the whole’ (p.209). Make sure then that ‘you’ are not feeding the monster, remembering that, in Godwin’s terms, ‘every new luxury is a new weight thrown into the scale.’ If you, in like manner, should ‘seek to oppress the lower’ you will be adding to the weight of oppression and will yourself be devoured. While normally, according to Thelwall, ‘we are apt to feel disgust at abject misery and wretchedness, and the sickly imagination turns away from such objects of contemplation’ (p.209), it is time to start feeling something for ‘the common class of mankind.’
To most like-minded radicals of the time, there should only be one common class of mankind. In the ideal egalitarian worlds of Paine, Wollstonecraft, and Godwin, privilege should not exist in any form, be that material or social. For when equality is the ideal, then privilege necessarily spoils the balance. Of this ‘unnatural’ disturbance, Godwin writes:
Privilege entitles a favoured few to engross to themselves gratifications, which the system of the universe left at large to all her sons; it puts into the hands of these few, the means of oppression against the rest of their species; it fills them with vainglory, and affords them every incitement to insolence and a lofty disregard to the feelings and interests of others. (1976, p.473)
17 In a ‘universe left at large to all her sons’ privilege is ‘the means of oppression’ by which society is divided between the haves and the have-nots. As such, it is an unnatural addition for which the ‘favoured few’ are responsible. It is not something to be indulged in, but to feel guilty for, as it constitutes the present unjust state of society. To this end, Paine points to privilege as it pervades the political sphere, with its resulting unequal representation: ‘Every chartered town is an aristocratic monopoly in itself, and the qualification of electors proceeds out of those chartered monopolies’ (Paine, 1989, p.84). In this particular system of oppression, freedom itself is a privilege from which the many are barred:
An Englishman is not free in his own country; every one of those places presents a barrier in his way, and tells him he is not a freeman - that he has no rights. (1989, pp.84-85)
When Paine laments that an Englishman is not free in his own country, the sentiment is echoed by others as well. Southey, in his Letters from England (1807), describes how the many must forfeit their freedom for the sake of a few:
A happy country indeed it is for the higher orders; no where have the rich so many enjoyments, no where have the ambitious so fair a field, no where have the ingenious such encouragement, no where have the intellectual such advantages; but to talk of English happiness is like talking of Spartan freedom, the Helots are overlooked. (Southey,1951, p.209)
Here, behind the all-lovely scenes of English freedom lies that same system of oppression, inherent in all forms of privilege. The ‘higher orders’ with their ‘many enjoyments’ and ‘advantages’ are living on top of and at the expense of the wretched many. It is an ‘English happiness’ built upon the sweat and labour of ‘the Helots.’
So it is, that wherever one employs the steady eye of justice to enquire into privilege, a similar imbalance in the social equation will be revealed. ‘Let not then the happiness of one half of mankind be built on the misery of the other,’ writes Wollstonecraft (1993, p.332). Or, if it is, let the imbalance be returned to the top half as a weight upon their conscience - a guilt-burden.
18 There are two parts to this guilt-burden. The top half are guilty, first of all, in the sense of being responsible for the unjust imbalance of society. This is guilt understood as an assignation of responsibility. But secondly, and more importantly, they are being persuaded to recognize their complicity in this arrangement, and thus to feel their guilt:
PRIVILEGED FEW
______WRETCHED MANY
The downward arrow conveys the weight of oppression which is entailed upon the lower orders, a burden of labour and exploitation; whereas the upward arrow points to those responsible for the injustice, conveying the weight of guilt which is entailed upon them. This is more than just an assignation of responsibility, as it is intended to be felt as a real burden of conscience.
Toward the end of the 1790’s there was, however, another voice, persuading the top half not to accept this burden. ‘Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All cannot share alike the bounties of nature’ (1992, p.58), writes Thomas Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). This was a sober response to those proposed systems of equality (particularly Godwin’s) which might purport to spell the end of oppression against the poor:
The whole is little better than a dream - a phantom of the imagination. These ‘gorgeous palaces’ of happiness and immortality, these ‘solemn temples’ of truth and virtue, will dissolve, ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision,’ when we awaken to real life and contemplate the genuine situation of man on earth. (Malthus, 1992, p.56)
As for the arguments of Paine: ‘Nothing would so effectually counteract the mischiefs occasioned by Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man as a general knowledge of the real rights of man’(p.248). In other words, the structure of oppression which these writers had exposed as unjust, was little more than ‘the genuine situation of man on earth.’
19 To demonstrate the impossibility of an equal distribution of resources, Malthus employed a somewhat crude mathematical argument: If, then, we were to take the period of doubling at fifteen years instead of twenty- five years, and reflect upon the labour necessary to double the produce in so short a time, even if we allow it possible; we may venture to pronounce with certainty that, if Mr. Godwin’s system of society were established in its utmost perfection, instead of myriads of centuries, not thirty years could elapse before its utter destruction from the simple principle of population. (p.67)
The point is perhaps a legitimate one, but it was the unfeeling way in which Malthus stated his case that upset people like William Hazlitt:
Our author luxuriates in the dearth of nature: he cannot contain his triumph: he frolics with his subject in the gaiety of his heart, and his tongue grows wanton in praise of famine. (Hazlitt ,1998 , p.48)
What Hazlitt suggests, in “A Reply to the Essay on Population”(1807), is that ‘Our author’ should be ashamed of having proposed such a guiltless argument; for Malthus, in the second edition of his work (1803), went so far as to address the plight of the poor man in these terms:
At nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will execute her own orders, if he do not work upon the compassion of some of her guests. If these guests get up and make room for him, other intruders immediately appear demanding the same favour. (1992, p.249)
One should not worry too much about the ‘numberless’ being driven from ‘Life’s plenteous feast’ (Coleridge, 1970-2001, v.2, p.64) for, as Malthus urges, there are only so many places at the table. Furthermore, one should not allow ‘compassion’ to upset this arrangement. There is an imbalance here, but such is the natural rather than unjust state of affairs. Those who miss out are simply ‘the unhappy persons who in the great lottery of life have drawn a blank’ (Malthus, 1992, p.66). In this sense, ‘nature’s mighty feast’ need not be a guilty meal for those privileged enough to partake of it.
The Principle of Population was a work which, according to Hazlitt, the privileged ‘should have bound in morocco, and constantly lying by them as a text-book to refer to in all difficult cases’ because: 20
Thus armed with ‘metaphysical aid’, and conscience-proof, the rich will I should think be able very successfully to resist the unjust claims of the poor - to a subsistence! (p.50)
To Hazlitt, Malthus is only justifying the apathy of the rich. It is their guilt-free ‘conscience-proof’ response to the ‘claims of the poor’ that is being shamed: ‘As to the right of the rich, in a moral point of view, wantonly to starve the poor, it is I think best to say nothing about’ (p.49). For Hazlitt, as for many others, the imbalance of society remained an injustice for which some kind of guilt should be felt. There should, in that sense, be a burden placed upon one’s conscience, not an argument to render one ‘conscience-proof.’
If the members of society were to be awakened to the oppression which, as Godwin believed, they had ‘become accustomed to’(1976, p.728), then the argument against privilege had to be made directly relevant to them. By placing a burden on the conscience of an apathetic populace, it was hoped they might expand their sympathy to include those less fortunate and to recognize, to some degree perhaps, the oppression to which they contributed. In this sense, the guilt-burden of privilege played a formative role in the shaping of a wider social conscience; and, thanks to one literary figure in particular - the Wanderer - this burden would be carried throughout the Romantic Period. Remembering that there are two parts to the guilt-burden of privilege - guilt as an assignation of responsibility, and guilt as a weight upon the conscience - we find the Wanderer, in different ways and for different reasons, taking up this burden.
The Wanderer
In both his natural and supernatural guise the Wanderer of the Romantic Period is, above all else, a privileged being. He is endowed with advantages which set him apart from, or raise him above, the rest of mankind. To that end he is generally, though not always, an aristocrat. In supernatural portrayals of the Wanderer his endowment is amplified in order to make his advantages appear all the more obvious. This advantageous elevation is a source of guilt for the 21 Wanderer of the Romantic Period, as it jars with the egalitarian social views which were popular at the time - and usually subscribed to by the author. As an expression or embodiment of privilege, the Wanderer is created to suffer beneath the weight of this emerging social conscience.
It is not necessary, however, for the Wanderer to share the social conscience of his creator. Rather, or instead, he may be given a guilt-burden. Guilt, in that sense, should be understood as an assignation of responsibility. This strategy is seen most clearly in William Godwin’s novel St Leon (1799), where a guilt-free aristocrat is created in order that he be made to suffer, however unwillingly, for the social injustice which Godwin attributes to him. On the other hand, Wordsworth’s Wanderer is one who feels deeply for the oppressed; so much so, that he must atone for his privileges. He does this by becoming a voice for the wretched many - the Poet-Wanderer. By telling the stories of the oppressed, through the course of a Wanderer’s Excursion (1814), Wordsworth hopes to bring the injustice of oppression home to the reader.
In Charles Maturin’s novel, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), similar strategies to these are effectively combined and enlarged upon. Maturin’s Wanderer feels deeply the guilt-burden associated with his endowment; but not only does Melmoth feel this guilt intensely, he also attempts to make other ‘privileged’ characters suffer for the advantages which they enjoy. This complex scenario involves the Wanderer not only in a recognition of his own guilt, but also a merciless condemnation of others. Added to this, Melmoth becomes, like Wordsworth’s Wanderer, a voice for the oppressed. And so, while he is ultimately condemned by the egalitarian author, he is also used by that same author as a vehicle through which to stir the social conscience of others. The attempt to incorporate these various roles into a new construction of the Wanderer figure led Maturin to create a novel of impressive, yet awkward, dimensions.
In the case of Byron’s Wanderer the guilt-burden of privilege becomes emptied of its usual weight and significance. The Wanderer in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818) displays little more than a faint remorse for his life of privilege; it is a burden of ennui rather than 22 guilt which he bears. As Byron increasingly adopts the persona of this fictional personage, presenting himself to the public over some six years as Childe Harold, the Wanderer’s guilt-burden is emptied of its social significance, to become instead a marketable trait of Byron’s self-image. One may regard this construction as a notable exception to the egalitarian rule, a notorious mis-use of the Wanderer’s guilt which succeeded, nonetheless, in establishing the author as an ‘immortal’ Wanderer in the minds of readers.
Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) cynically betrays this shallow, fashionable guilt; it builds upon a Wanderer’s tale proposed by Byron, yet quite ingeniously develops along un-Byronic lines. By presenting readers with an immortal Wanderer who deliberately off-loads his guilt- burden - a feat achieved through the mechanics of the plot - The Vampyre effectively suggests how disposable and hollow the Wanderer’s guilt had become. As we shall see, when Polidori is accused, either directly or indirectly, of stealing The Vampyre from Byron, the ironic twist in his construction of the immortal Wanderer remains unappreciated. However, in terms of a discussion which here questions the significance of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden, the irony of Polidori’s portrayal may reveal something about the genuineness of that guilt, and the danger, perhaps, of the figure becoming unconvincing.
There was no doubting for a time, though, the persuasive power of the Wanderer. Both Byron and Wordsworth were captured by the egocentric appeal of the image; and that appeal was not lost on the young Shelley who, inspired by Godwin’s supernatural Wanderer, self- consciously aspired to become the immortal Wanderer of his own imagination. Shelley’s real-life exploits in Ireland provide us with an interesting parallel to the failed quest of the immortal Wanderer in St. Leon.Yet, even as Shelley aspires to this ‘type’, he remains somewhat blind to the message of Godwin’s ‘conscience-proof’ aristocrat. While he is motivated by the egalitarian philosophy of Godwin, the anxiety which Shelley feels over his own privileged background leads him on a quest for atonement which is doomed from the outset.
However differently the writers of the Romantic Period may have conceived of the Wanderer, his guilt-burden remains as a testament to the aspiring social conscience of the time. As an expression or embodiment of privilege, the Wanderer was created to suffer beneath 23 the weight of an emerging egalitarianism. It was a purpose for which, in different ways, both Wordsworth and Godwin had created the figure- a purpose which Byron had neglected and Shelley misunderstood, but which, some twenty years on, was still being attempted by Maturin’s Wanderer. Whether or not the figure was always successful in shouldering the guilt-burden of privilege is something which the course of this discussion should reveal; even as, in each of these texts, one finds that the strategies employed by the authors vary considerably in their effectiveness. 24 Chapter 1
Godwin’s St Leon : The Supernatural Wanderer
A thousand copies of the Travels of St Leon were sold out when it was first published in 1799, with a second edition appearing two months later. But William Godwin’s Wanderer is all but forgotten these days, thanks to the more lasting and deserved reputation of his first novel, Caleb Williams (1794); and it has to be said that St Leon does not measure up stylistically to that standard. Nevertheless, in terms of Godwin’s social philosophy, it is just as close to the spirit of his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1794) as that more impressive work. To appreciate this, one should consider the character construction of St. Leon in light of Godwin’s overall strategy. Indeed, Godwin could not have created a character who is more opposed to the principles of his Political Justice - and he did so for a reason which is often overlooked.
For Godwin, there is guilt attached to participation in all luxury; particularly to the kind of excessive advantages embraced by St. Leon. As an immortal aristocrat, he stands for all that Godwin despises. With unbounded access to limitless wealth, he can partake of ‘that luxury, which unnerves and debases the men that practise it, and is the principal source of all the oppression, ignorance and guilt which infest the face of earth’ (Godwin, “Of Avarice and Profusion” [1797], 1971, p.318). To that end, St. Leon is created by his author to be an illustrative failure, a moral illustration of the pernicious effects of privilege.
If privilege itself is understood to be unnatural in the ‘system of the universe left at large to all her sons’ (Godwin, 1976, p.473), then how much more so the supernatural privileges which St. Leon holds. To this end, Godwin’s aristocrat is amplified in order to become a more impressive representation of social elitism:
There was a greater distance between me and the best constructed and most consummate of the human species, than there is between him and an ant or a 25 muskito, crushed by the first accidental tread, or consumed by the first spark wafted by the wind. (Godwin, 1994, p.356)
When St. Leon exalts in his supernatural status, he offends against his author’s principles. In this way, the supernatural is an amplification of what is already unnatural to the egalitarian world of Godwin - privilege.
In the supernatural character of St. Leon, Godwin is able to embody those aspects of an aristocratic institution which he seeks to criticize. In his Political Justice he writes:
The features of an aristocratical institution are principally two; privilege, and an aggravated monopoly of wealth. The first of these is the essence of aristocracy; the second, that without which aristocracy can rarely be supported. They are both of them in direct opposition to all sound morality, and all generous independence of character. (1976, p.471-472)
As an immortal aristocrat St. Leon is an amplification of this pernicious institution. He is the very embodiment of privilege. Being in sole possession of the philosopher’s stone, he holds ‘an aggravated monopoly of wealth,’ and enjoys the unbounded privileges of the opus magnum: ‘Exhaustless wealth and eternal youth are the attributes by which I am distinguished from the rest of mankind’ (1994 , p.2).
The advantage that St. Leon holds over ‘the rest of mankind’ is a portrayal of the unnatural advantage which, according to Godwin, aristocracy holds over society at large:
Privilege entitles a favoured few to engross to themselves gratifications, which the system of the universe left at large to all her sons; it puts into the hands of these few, the means of oppression against the rest of their species; it fills them with vainglory, and affords them every incitement to insolence and a lofty disregard to the feelings and interests of others. (1976, p.473)
What in Political Justice he calls the ‘Moral Effects of Aristocracy’ (p.471), ‘insolence and a lofty disregard to the feelings and interests of others,’ are displayed by St. Leon, who proudly announces: My wealth, boy, is unlimited, and can buy silence from the malicious, and shouts and applause from all the world. A golden key unlocks the career of glory, which the mean and the pennyless are never allowed to enter. (p.191) 26
What the aristocrat shamelessly espouses here is akin to vice, because it ‘entitles a favoured few to engross to themselves gratifications’ (1976, p.473). Thus, St. Leon’s son responds with Godwin-like disdain: ‘I am not such a novice, as not to have heard the language of vice, though I never expected to hear it from a father’ (p.191). This type of moral rebuke forms an important part of Godwin’s strategy - to awaken an egalitarian conscience.
On that level, the voice of Godwin is not to be found in the first-person narrative of St. Leon, but in the many other enlightened voices of the text. These supporting characters function as mouth- pieces for the philosophy of the author. They interrogate the aristocrat in regard to his unjustifiable advantages. In this schema, St. Leon is continually confronted and defeated by the voice of Godwin, an ‘immutable voice of reason and justice’ (Political Justice, 1976, p.194). If we read St Leon in the light of Godwin’s egalitarian views, then the effect of the first-person narrative is to make this opposition all the more blatant. To that extent, I would like to offer an essentially negative reading of St. Leon’s character, not to over-simplify matters, but to appreciate a dimension of Godwin’s strategy which for various reasons has not always been seen.
Both Locke and Marshall identify the simple message of the novel: that great wealth does not bring happiness. And relatedly, they are right to suggest that Godwin is proposing alternatives. For Marshall it is ‘the simple , independent , and natural life ’ (1984, p.208), while for Locke it is ‘a life of simplicity, the fulfilment of marriage’ with ‘private and domestic affections’ (1980, p.149). We should not, however, see this kind of proposal as a major concern of the author. It remains on balance a subsidiary and minor theme. Furthermore, we may miss the point of Godwin’s essentially negative portrayal of the aristocrat - which is to illustrate the evils of privilege, and the oppression and guilt which it entails. Locke cites St. Leon’s positive views on marriage as indicative of the author’s own recently reformed sentiments (Locke, 1980, p.205), pointing to the undeniable influence of Godwin’s real-life relationship with Wollstonecraft (Locke, 1980, p.149). Despite the fact that St. Leon’s views are generally, even blatantly, not the views of his author, they do however coincide on this point. But again, we should not read too 27 much into this, as it does not change the major focus of Godwin’s strategy. In his Preface to the novel, the author pre-empts our concern:
Some readers of my graver productions will perhaps, in perusing these little volumes, accuse me of inconsistency; the affections and charities of private life being every where in this publication a topic of the warmest eulogium, while in the Enquiry concerning Political Justice they seemed to be treated with no great degree of indulgence and favour. In answer to this objection, all I think it necessary to say on the present occasion is, that, for more than four years, I have been anxious for opportunity and leisure to modify some of the earlier chapters of that work in conformity to the sentiments inculcated in this. Not that I see cause to make any change respecting the principle of justice, or any thing else fundamental to the system there delivered. (1994, pp. xxxiii-xxxiv)
With this new work, Godwin is anxious for us to know that the spirit of his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice is alive and well, there being no ‘cause to make any change respecting’ that egalitarian ‘system.’ It is an important point to make, because while St Leon may provide the ‘warmest eulogium’ of domestic life, on virtually every other point the central character is in direct opposition to his author’s principles. Godwin, then, does not want us to side with the aristocrat, no matter how much his novel may extol ‘the affections and charities of private life.’
Reflecting Pamela Clemit’s sympathetic view of St. Leon (which will be addressed shortly), is the back-cover promotion for her Oxford ‘World Classics’ edition (1994) of the text. While this is perhaps a fair summary of the novel overall, it is less accurate in regard to St. Leon’s character:
Set during the Protestant Reformation, St Leon tells the harrowing tale of an exiled French aristocrat who is given the secrets of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. His attempts to use these gifts to benefit humanity lead only to disaster. Plunged into self-destructive isolation, he wanders through the centres of European religious controversy, arousing fascination, suspicion, and social unrest wherever he goes.
We are positioned here to side with St. Leon as one who ‘attempts to use’ his ‘gifts to benefit humanity.’ However, a reader who is expecting such a universally benevolent character is sure to be disappointed; for 28 St. Leon employs his supernatural endowment primarily to benefit himself and his own family. Furthermore, a sympathetic reading of St. Leon’s character tends to cloud the focus of Godwin’s strategy - which is an inquisitorial attack upon privilege. I have attempted therefore, in my reading, to redress the imbalance created by this popular appraisal of St. Leon, in order to illustrate more fully what Godwin had intended with his supernatural Wanderer.
In this novel, the virtue of family life is portrayed unashamedly, but it is not allowed to detract from the author’s major concern: the criticism of privilege. St. Leon’s domestic affections are used primarily to serve this greater purpose. In effect, the greater St. Leon’s love for his family, the greater the guilt he must bear for having destroyed them:
I felt as truly haunted with the ghosts of those I had murdered, as Nero or Caligula might have been; my wife, my son, my faithful negro; and now, in addition to these, the tender Julia and her unalterable admirer. (1994, p.363)
By leading his family into ‘the most tremendous ruin and disgrace’ (p.43), St. Leon offers a more poignant illustration of the pernicious effects of privilege. The personal tragedy of St. Leon is intended to highlight a fatal blind-spot in this regard.
Importantly, as a proud aristocrat, St. Leon remains to a large extent quite remorseless over his advantages. While St. Leon may not himself see the guilt which is attached to his privileged status, he will be made to suffer by the author for the advantages he has enjoyed, regardless of whether or not he actually feels guilty. For this is guilt understood primarily as an assignation of responsibility. It seems appropriate that Godwin, whose ideas are central to the strategy we have been tracing, should himself create a guilt-free character, one upon whom he can enact his enlightened principles with the hope of stirring his conscience. To that end, St. Leon has to be made to suffer for his thoughtless indulgence in privilege, not just once, but twice over: firstly, as a natural true-born aristocrat, and then as a supernatural Wanderer.
29 Step One
The first volume of the novel contains a portrayal of St. Leon as a mortal or natural aristocrat; that is, before he comes into possession of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. But he is, even at this stage, a guilty character in more ways than one. In Godwin’s eyes, he is guilty simply because he is an aristocrat. As such, the privileges which he partakes of are unjust and entail a wider system of oppression.
Among other characters in the novel, St. Leon’s wife, Marguerite, functions as the voice of conscience and a mouthpiece for Godwin’s philosophy:
“Alas, Reginald! it is, I fear, too true, that the splendour in which we lately lived has its basis in oppression; and that the superfluities of the rich are a boon extorted from the hunger and misery of the poor!” ( p.85 )
Marguerite has, it would seem, found the conscience that Godwin would awaken, reminding us of his words on superfluity and luxury:
Every man may calculate, in every glass of wine he drinks, and every ornament he annexes to his person, how many individuals have been condemned to slavery and sweat, incessant drudgery, unwholesome food, continual hardships, deplorable ignorance, and brutal insensibility, that he may be supplied with these luxuries. (1976, p.711-712)
The St. Leons then, as members of the aristocracy, are guilty as charged. Note, however, that St. Leon himself does not feel guilty for this injustice. Rather, the voice of conscience belongs to his wife:
The expostulations of Marguerite often excited my attention, and often my respect, and sometimes produced a sort of imperfect conviction. But the conviction was transient, and the feelings I have already described as properly my own returned, when the fresh and vivid impression of what I had heard was gone. (p.87)
30 In retrospect St. Leon can curse himself: ‘. . . why was I deaf to the soundness of your exhortations, and the generosity of your sentiments? Deaf, indeed, I was !’ (p.79)
St. Leon’s narrative contains further instances of self-reproach, in which he chides himself for, effectively, not having heeded the wise voice of Godwin. For example, he describes the carefree, guilt-free life of a young aristocrat in sixteenth century Paris:
I lived in the midst of all that Paris could at that time furnish of splendid and luxurious. This system of living was calculated to lull me in pleasing dreams, and to waste away existence in delirious softness . . . I and my companions were young; we were made fearless and presuming by fortune and by rank; we had laid aside those more rigorous restraints which render the soberer part of mankind plausible and decent, by making them timid and trite. (p.32)
With, at this time, no mind for Godwin’s enlightened views on property, St. Leon ‘considered wealth as an accident, the attendant on his birth, to be dispensed with dignity, not to be adverted to with minuteness of attention’ (pp. 28-29). But he is soon made to pay for this apathy.
In his Political Justice, Godwin deplores ‘the insolence and usurpation of the rich’ and ‘the pageantry and magnificence, with which enormous wealth is usually accompanied.’ And, in an essay entitled “Of Avarice and Profusion” (1797), he writes:
Such is the real tendency of the conduct of that so frequently applauded character, the rich man who lives up to his fortune. His houses, his equipages, his horses, the luxury of his table, and the number of his servants, are so many articles that may assume the name of munificence, but that in reality are but added expedients for grinding the poor, and filling up the measure of human calamity. (1971, p.317)
Likewise, St. Leon succumbs to the very superfluity which Godwin sees as typical of privileged society:
One thing it is necessary to remark, as essential to the main thread of my story. My expenses of all kinds, during this period of self-desertion, drained my resources, but did not tarnish my good name. My excesses were regarded by some as ornamental and becoming, but by all were admitted as venial. (p.32) 31
This young aristocrat exemplifies the ideals of a privileged society which not only condones excess but thoughtlessly encourages it, regarding as ‘venial,’ even ‘ornamental and becoming,’ what ‘in reality are but added expedients for grinding the poor.’ And because the aristocrat is so apathetic in regard to his advantages, he must be made to suffer.
St. Leon learns a hard Godwin-type lesson. This occurs through the most pernicious of his ‘excesses,’ his gambling. It is through this particular form of extravagance that the young aristocrat is made to suffer for his privileges. The teacher is Godwin, as again his voice is heard through a supporting character; this time it is St. Leon’s father-in- law:
I regard you, if not as a ruined man, at least as a man in the high road to ruin. Your present habits are of the most dangerous sort; they appear to you perfectly conformable to principles of the strictest honour; nay, they come recommended to you by a certain eclat and dignity with which they seem to be surrounded. I could say to you, Recollect yourself. Be not misled by delusive appearances. (p.35)
Gambling itself is not the sole focus of Godwin’s attack, as we are warned also of the extravagant lifestyle with which it is ‘surrounded.’ Godwin does not want us to be ‘misled by delusive appearances’ of what we may ‘regard as indifferent and innocent, if not as graceful and becoming.’ Gambling is simply the vice which best exemplifies the careless extravagance of the rich, a ‘monstrous deformity’:
Piece together the sum of actions, which, piece by piece, you have been willing to regard as indifferent and innocent, if not as graceful and becoming. You cannot but be struck with their monstrous deformity. (pp.35-36)
Of course, St. Leon is awakened to this truth all too late:
Years roll on in vain; ages themselves are useless here; looking forward, as I do, to an existence that shall endure till time shall be no more; no time can wipe away the remembrance of the bitter anguish that I have endured, the consequence of gaming. (p.29)
32 The ‘consequence of gaming,’ or the justice of Godwin? ‘My heart weeps blood, while I record the admonitions of this noble and generous man’ (p.38). So it is, that a once carefree aristocrat has been made to suffer for his thoughtless indulgence in privilege:
Adversity, without consolation, - adversity, when its sting is remorse, self- abhorrence and self-contempt, - hell has no misery by which it can be thrown into shade or exceeded! (p.30)
This sounds more like the guilt that St. Leon should be feeling. Reduced to poverty, he is now made to suffer for his excesses; a just retribution, perhaps, for the role the aristocrat has played in a wider system of oppression. Having dealt a hand of harsh reform to the natural true-born aristocrat, Godwin is ready, in Volume Two, to increase his assault on perpetual privilege.
Step Two
Volume One provides an unflattering history of a young aristocrat who typifies the kind of excess, pomp and superfluity that Godwin associates with privilege in general. St. Leon involves not only himself, but his whole family ‘in the most tremendous ruin and disgrace’ (p.43). Forced into exile, he does however attain to a degree of honourable poverty, during which time he begins to appreciate his author’s sentiments:
What are rank and station? - the homage of the multitude and the applause of fools. Let me judge for myself! The value of a man is in his intrinsic qualities; in that of which power cannot strip him, and which adverse fortune cannot take away. That for which he is indebted to circumstances, is mere trapping and tinsel. I should love these precious and ingenuous creatures before me better, though in rags, than the children of kings in all the pomp of ornament. (p.93)
But St. Leon’s relative innocence does not last for long. In Volume Two, a mysterious wanderer arrives to disturb this egalitarian ‘state of peace and tranquillity’ (p.124).
33 The stranger offers St. Leon a chance to restore his fortunes, and beyond this, to multiply them; and thus, in Godwin’s eyes, to heap guilt upon guilt:
“You are degraded from the rank you once held among mankind; your children are destined to live in the inglorious condition of peasants. This day you might have redeemed all your misfortunes, and raised yourself to a station more illustrious than that to which you were born. Farewell! Destiny has marked out you and yours for obscurity and oblivion, and you do well to reject magnificence and distinction when they proffer themselves for your acceptance.” (p.128)
The temptation is all too much for St. Leon, and he accepts the endowment of the dying stranger. In doing so, he becomes the sole beneficiary of the opus magnum, containing both the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; supernatural, even unnatural, advantages which will raise him forever above his species and give him a perpetually privileged existence.
In Godwin’s system of equality, there is some degree of guilt attached to any form of private aggrandizement:
We have in reality nothing that is strictly speaking our own. We have nothing that has not a destination prescribed to it by the immutable voice of reason and justice; and respecting which, if we supersede that destination, we do not entail upon ourselves a certain portion of guilt. (1976, p.194) With ‘nothing that is strictly speaking our own,’ there is then ‘a certain portion of guilt’ attached to all property. What we may feel entitled to regard as ‘our own’ is, in actual fact, a contribution to the weight of oppression. Furthermore, if we are listening to ‘the immutable voice of reason and justice’ then our conscience should be awakened as to the injustice of our ‘supposition’:
Few things have contributed more to undermine the energy and virtue of the human species, than the supposition that we have a right, as it has been phrased, to do what we will with our own. (p.194)
But what does St. Leon do? The first use he makes of his supernatural endowment is to buy back what he regards as properly his own; and beyond this, to over-reach his initial social status and thus, in Godwin’s eyes, to increase his guilt: 34
I would immediately repurchase the property of my ancestors, which had been so distressfully resigned. The exile should return from his seven years’ banishment in triumph and splendour.
. . . I would then set out upon my travels. I would travel with such splendour and profusion of expense . . . as should supersede the necessity of letters of recommendation, and secure me a favourable reception wherever I appeared. (pp. 166-167)
Worse still, his meditation upon ‘Wealth!’ (p.162) does not bode well for the future:
The man that possesses thee, finds every path level before him, and every creature burning to anticipate his wishes: but if these are the advantages that wealth imparts to such as possess only those scanty portions which states and nations allow to the richest, how enviable must his condition be, whose wealth is literally exhaustless and infinite! (p.162)
Enviable? Not according to Godwin, who speaks again through St. Leon’s wife:
“A generous spirit, Reginald, delights to live upon equal terms with his associates and fellows. He would disdain, when offered to him, excessive and clandestine advantages. Equality is the soul of real and cordial society . . . How unhappy this wretch! How weak and ignoble the man that voluntarily accepts these laws of existence!” (pp.210-211)
The ‘laws of existence’ which St. Leon accepts are unnatural and unjust, because they are ‘excessive and clandestine.’ Now, as an immortal aristocrat, he becomes privilege personified. As such, he stands in direct opposition to Godwin’s notion that ‘Equality is the soul of real and cordial society.’ In this way, the supernatural element of the tale functions to amplify what St. Leon, in essence, already once was.
Marshall sees the supernatural machinery in Godwin’s novel as Gothic paraphernalia, used largely for effect (Marshall, 1984, p.210). However, it serves a much more specific function - to amplify the guilt associated with unnatural and unjustifiable advantages. Of course, one can read this as purely Gothic melodrama: ‘Let no man, after me, pant 35 for the acquisition of the philosopher’s stone!’ (Godwin, 1994, p.466) But Godwin was pointing to a more substantial reality, suggesting, like Coleridge, that the present state of society was far from ideal. By doing away with the philosopher’s stone we would be removing the institutions of privilege and thus the means of oppression against the rest of our species. ‘Let no man, after me, pant for the acquisition of the philosopher’s stone!’ is another way of saying: Let there be equality, without unjust advantages.
The opus magnum is used to represent all that Godwin most disdains about privilege. This goes somewhat beyond the simple moral of wealth failing to bring happiness. Indeed, Godwin is saying much more, as he points implicitly to institutions of privilege, particularly the aristocracy, and declares them guilty:
Privilege is a regulation, rendering a few men, and those only, by the accident of their birth, eligible to certain situations. It kills all liberal ambition in the rest of mankind, by opposing to it an apparently insurmountable bar. (1976, p.472-473)
Now if natural privilege benefits ‘a few men , and those only,’ how much more pernicious must that privilege be when concentrated in the hands of one? To that end, St. Leon literally embodies the exclusivity which Godwin rails against, as his endowment is not just ‘excessive,’ it is also ‘clandestine.’
The singularity of Godwin’s immortal aristocrat is significant in this respect. With the philosopher’s stone, St. Leon does indeed hold an ‘aggravated monopoly of wealth,’ as there is a clause of exclusivity attached to the dying wanderer’s estate:
Know I would not if I could, and cannot if I would, repose the secrets that press upon me in more than a single bosom. It was upon this condition I received the communication; upon this condition only can I impart it. (p.128)
The ‘apparently insurmountable bar’ of privilege is seen in this condition of secrecy - a clause which not only bars enquiry, but also ensures that such advantages can only be enjoyed by the favoured one. Accordingly, upon his death-bed, he may only impart his privileges to one other - something like an hereditary transfer of wealth and title:
36 Having determined therefore to withdraw myself from the powers committed to me, I am at liberty to impart them; upon the same condition, and no other, you may one day, if you desire it, seek the relief of confidence. (p.128)
Thus St. Leon is the sole beneficiary of boundless privileges, an advantage which cannot be openly accounted for, at least not to the mind of a rational enquirer. The ‘immutable voice of reason and justice’ may seek to penetrate the sanctum of privilege, but it is refused access by ‘an apparently insurmountable bar’ - the irrational defense of aristocracy. As such, for Godwin, the hereditary transfer of title is an institution to be disdained:
. . . that another should revel in luxury, because his ancestor three centuries ago bled in the quarrel of Lancaster or York; do we imagine that these iniquities can be practised without injury. (1976, p.474)
The obscurantism which justifies aristocratic privilege can be seen in the guilty silence which surrounds the perpetual aristocrat. As St. Leon notes of the mysterious stranger: ‘There was nothing about which he was so solicitous as concealment; the most atrocious criminal could not be more alarmed at the idea of being discovered’ (p.139). Furthermore, the clause which protects this unnatural endowment represents the unwillingness of the privileged few to part with their privileges: ‘The condition upon which I hold my privileges is, that they must never be imparted’ (p.2). It is through this drama of guilty secrecy that we witness ‘the duplicity and impenetrableness of human actions’ which Godwin so deplores, as he points to the dubious foundations of aristocratic wealth and privilege.
Penetrating the Sanctum of Privilege
When, like Godwin, Thomas Paine attacks the institutions of privilege, he points to their shameful secrecy: ‘Nations can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like those of individuals, are always their defects’ (Paine, 1989, p.173). In Paine’s ‘representative system,’ as in the system of Godwin, ‘the reason for everything must publicly appear’ (p.173). If it does not bear scrutiny, then it must be unjust: ‘The obscurity in which the origin of all the present old governments is 37 buried, implies the iniquity and disgrace with which they began.’ (1989, p.159) The shameful obscurity of the old order, with its guilt-ridden foundations, would be swept aside by a new system of uncompromising accountability. And with the death of the old-order would come the demise of those institutions of privilege which cannot themselves be reasonably accounted for, like monarchy, which ‘is all a bubble, a mere court artifice to procure money’ (Paine, 1989, p.172), and ‘the monster aristocracy,’ of which ‘nature herself calls for its destruction’ (p.91).
This notion, that behind unjustifiable privileges lie dark machinations, is taken up by others at the time as well. William Cobbett, in his pamphlet “The Soldier’s Friend” (1792) attacks what he calls the ‘Aristocracy of the Army,’ suggesting that ‘the secrets of the Army are something like those of Free Masonry; it is absolutely necessary to become a brother of the blade before you can become at all acquainted with the “arcana” of the profession’ (1984, p.133). Cobbett then exposes a scheme of pay-extortion whereby only one class of soldier benefits:
The world is often deceived in those jovial, honest looking fellows, the Officers of the Army: I have known very few of them but perfectly well know how to take care of themselves in peace or war . . . (p.133)
The army then is not what it appears. Behind the honest facade lies a clandestine monopoly over privileges. To Cobbett, ‘the Officers of the Army’ are an aristocracy whose accounts do not bear scrutiny.
What applies to the army could apply equally well to the clergy. In his “Conciones ad Populum,” Coleridge points a finger at ‘the Eighteen-Thousand-Pound-a-Year Religion of Episcopacy’ (Coleridge, 1970-2001, v.1, p.67). He reminds us:
Wherever Men’s temporal interests depend on the general belief of disputed tenets, we must expect to find hypocrisy and a persecuting Spirit, a jealousy of investigation, and an endeavour to hold the minds of the people in submissive ignorance. (p.67)
A ‘jealousy of investigation’ points to the dubious foundations of the clergy’s privileges. Their ‘temporal interests’ are protected by a dark 38 obscurantism. Theirs is ‘not the Religion of the meek and lowly Jesus . . . but the Religion of Mitres and Mysteries . . .’ (p.66). In this sense the clergy, like all institutions of privilege, are guiltily clandestine, as they cannot reasonably and openly account for the advantages they hold.
In the open universe of Godwin and Paine, everything must be accounted for, ‘the reason for everything must publicly appear’ (Paine, 1989, p.173). The sanctum of privilege, on the other hand, is bound by a dark silence. It is this guilty obscurantism against which ‘the immutable voice of reason and justice’ must speak. ‘It strikes at the root of a deception that has long been continued, and long proved a curse to all the civilized nations of the earth,’ writes Godwin in “Of Avarice and Profusion” (1971, p.319); and through the course of St Leon, he is able to provide an inquisition to this effect. A dialogical drama is constructed, through which ‘the immutable voice of reason and justice’ comes up against the defiant voice of aristocratic privilege. Within this schema, the voice of Godwin is to be found in the surrounding characters who interrogate the obscurantism of St. Leon. Opposed to the values and principles of the central character, they function as mouth-pieces for the philosophy of the author. These Godwin-like voices, with their relentless espousal of reason and justice, interrogate St. Leon’s clandestine advantages and attempt to penetrate the sanctum of his privilege.
In Switzerland he is brought before a very Godwin-like magistrate, who enquires thus:
“You appear to have suddenly grown rich, and here, and in other parts of Germany, have actually dispersed considerable sums. Whence comes this change ?” (p.219)
St. Leon stands firm in defence of his privileged silence:
“I am a man of generous birth and honourable sentiments. To myself and my own conscience only am I accountable for my expenditure and my income. I disdain to answer to any tribunal on earth an enquiry of this sort.” (pp.219-220)
But the inquiry continues nonetheless:
39 “Unless you answer my enquiries , and give me a clear and satisfactory account of your wealth, I am bound to believe that there is something in the business that will not bear the light.” (p.220)
St. Leon cannot give a ‘clear and satisfactory account’ of his wealth, as indeed ‘there is something in the business that will not bear the light.’ He can however assert his innocence, an innocence based upon privilege which, in Godwin’s eyes, is no innocence at all:
“I am descended from a race of heroes, knights of the cross, and champions of France; and their blood has not degenerated in my veins. I feel myself animated by the soul of honour, and incapable of crime. I know my innocence, and I rest upon it with confidence” (p.221) Thus, St. Leon’s defense rests solely on the very notions of privilege which, according to Godwin’s Political Justice, condemn him. But to St. Leon, the relation between truth and privilege is already so self-evident, that when one’s endowment is amplified, one becomes even more innocent:
The gift of the philosopher’s stone, the moment a man possesses it, purifies his mind from sordid and ignoble inducements. The endowment which raises him so much above his species, makes him glory in his superiority, and cherish his innocence. He cannot, if he would, mingle in the low passions and pursuits of the generality of mankind. (p.420)
In other words, the further one is raised ‘above his species,’ the more blameless one becomes. Now this really is St. Leon’s fatal blind-spot. In the hands of Godwin, the ‘endowment which raises him so much above his species’ serves to amplify his guilt, not his innocence. To this Godwin-style tribunal, he offers an assertion of aristocratic grace, rather than a ‘clear and satisfactory account’ of his wealth:
“Your vulgar citizens, habituated to none but the grovelling notions of traffic and barter, are not the peers of St. Leon, nor able to comprehend the views and sentiments by which he is guided.” (p.221)
Accordingly, the Godwin-like magistrate responds to this obscurantism with the scorn it deserves:
40 “In conclusion, you boast of your blood and heroic sentiments, and rail at our citizens as shopkeepers and merchants. Let me tell you, sir, shopkeepers and merchants though we are, we should scorn to conduct ourselves in the obscure and suspicious manner that you have done. And, now I have taken the trouble to refute your flimsy pretences, which it was wholly unnecessary for me to do, I have done with you.” (p.222)
It is perhaps just as Godwin himself would have done with the aristocracy and its ‘flimsy pretences.’ That ‘another should revel in luxury, because his ancestor three centuries ago bled in the quarrel of Lancaster or York’ is a most contemptible justification for the excesses of aristocracy. The inquiry however does not stop here. The most rigorous inquisition is provided by St. Leon’s own family; and leading the cross- examination is his wife, Marguerite. She is the foremost of St. Leon’s inquisitors, relentless in her quest for an account of his unnatural endowment:
“What is this stranger? Whence came he? Why did he hide himself, and why was he pursued by the officers of justice? Had he no relations? Was his bequest of the sum he had about him his own act, and who is the witness to its deliberateness or its freedom?” (p.175)
Marguerite embodies the new spirit of inquiry, demanding that St. Leon account precisely for his wealth:
“Nor, Reginald, must you think me credulous enough to imagine that you have now disclosed the whole or the precise truth. Three thousand crowns is not a sum sufficient to account for what you propose, for the long agitation of your thoughts, or for the change of character you have sustained. You must either be totally deprived of rational judgment, or there must be something behind, that you have not communicated.” (p.175)
Again, there is ‘something behind’ St. Leon’s new-found wealth, and something which will not satisfy the ‘rational judgment’ of a Godwin- styled enquirer. Marguerite can only lament: “I no longer expect truth from you” (p.204); and St. Leon can only respond:
41 “I have wealth; I am forbidden by the most solemn obligations to discover the source of that wealth. This only I may not communicate; in all things else govern me despotically!” (p.207)
Convinced of his relative innocence, he continues to believe there is nothing wrong with holding this ‘excessive and clandestine’ advantage; but he must defend himself against another Godwin-like interrogator, his son, Charles:
“Alas, my father!” rejoined Charles, mournfully, “what am I to believe? What secret can be involved in so strange a reverse of fortune, that is not dishonourable? You have given utterance to different fictions on the subject, fictions that you now confess to be such; how am I to be convinced that what you say at this moment is not dictated more by a regard for my tranquillity, than by the simplicity of conscious truth?” (p.193)
St. Leon admits to having been insincere, yet pleads his innocence nonetheless:
“I swear then, by every thing that is sacred, that I am innocent. Whatever interpretation the world may put upon my sudden wealth, there is no shadow of dishonesty or guilt connected with its acquisition. The circumstances of the story are such that they must never be disclosed; I am bound to secrecy by the most inviolable obligations, and this has led me to utter a forged and inconsistent tale. But my conscience has nothing with which to reproach me.” (p.193)
Unable to account for his exorbitance, St. Leon is forced to practise obscurantism, ‘compelled to account for appearances.’ This introduces ‘a permanent difference and separation between’ him and his family. As Charles notes: “In how many obscurities and fabulous inconsistencies have you entangled yourself?” (p.192) Yet, of St. Leon’s supernatural acquisition we are to accept that ‘there is no shadow of dishonesty or guilt connected . . .’ and that his ‘conscience has nothing with which to reproach’ him (p.193). Really?
The notion of sincerity, which can be understood broadly as openness, is central to Godwin’s philosophy. Truth, ‘as it relates to the incidents and commerce of ordinary life, under which form it is known 42 by the denomination of sincerity’ (Godwin, 1976, p.311), is indispensable to the machinations of justice:
The powerful recommendations attendant upon sincerity are obvious. It is intimately connected with the general dissemination of innocence, energy, intellectual improvement, and philanthropy.(1976, p.311)
On the other hand, the dark machinations which lie behind oppression and injustice will not bear the light of day. Of a world of ‘priestcraft, tests, bribery, war, cabal, and whatever else excites the disapprobation of the honest and enlightened mind,’ Godwin asks the question: ‘How would the whole of this be reversed by the practice of sincerity?’ And the answer:
We could not be indifferent, to men whose custom it was to tell us the truth. Hatred would perish, from a failure in its principal ingredient, the duplicity and impenetrableness of human actions. (1976, p.317)
Of ‘the duplicity and impenetrableness of human actions’ St. Leon is guilty as charged. The only way he can justify his unnatural acquisition, both to the outside world and his own family, is through ‘a forged and inconsistent tale.’ Yet he remains proudly defiant in his aristocratic assertion of innocence, an innocence based upon the dubious notions of privilege which, in Godwin’s eyes, condemn him.
Pamela Clemit offers a positive reading of St. Leon’s character through a more sympathetic account of his persecution. She highlights ‘Godwin’s focus on the individual’s experience of historical change,’ suggesting that ‘his subjective narrative technique allows him to present historical pressures on the individual with an unparalleled intensity’ (1993, p.86). This is certainly true of Godwin’s first novel, Caleb Williams (1794), a work which deals more specifically with persecution and its psychological effects upon the victim. In that text, our sympathy is firmly with the protagonist because we know he is innocent. Godwin’s narrative does, in that case, achieve the intense effect which Clemit identifies. St Leon, on the other hand, presents a different scenario, as there could be no-one guiltier in Godwin’s universe than an aristocrat whose advantages are multiplied. To that end, the kind of persecution St. Leon faces is an enlightened and welcome interrogation of his obscurantism. If the first person narrative 43 creates a level of sympathy for the protagonist this does not, on balance, outweigh the opposition which is being constructed, nor does it disturb the author’s overall inquisitorial scheme.
For Clemit, the supernatural elements of the novel serve ‘to convey the unprecedented nature of St. Leon’s historical dilemma,’ with the ‘alchemical theme’ linking him to ‘the figure of the revolutionary extremist’ (p.91). In this light, St. Leon becomes a progressive and revolutionary figure, the unfortunate victim of an old world which is quickly fading. On the other hand, my reading would suggest that St. Leon is anything but progressive. The problem is not so much with the art of alchemy, nor with St. Leon being an alchemist as such. Indeed, Godwin could have chosen to portray alchemy as a progressive science and St. Leon as a benefactor of mankind. But in this novel the secrets of the opus magnum represent privilege, with all of its negative connotations; and St. Leon, as the sole beneficiary of this endowment , is effectively privilege personified. As a supernatural aristocrat, it is St. Leon’s unaccountable status which is at issue, his unnatural and unjust elevation above the rest of mankind.
Infuriated by a world that will not recognize aristocratic grace, St. Leon is forced to flee across Europe in a state of perpetual exile. Railing against ‘shopkeepers and merchants’ with their ‘grovelling notions,’ St. Leon is the last of a dying breed. It is the world through which St. Leon wanders that is becoming enlightened, whereas he, with his monopoly on privileges, belongs to the old-guard of aristocracy. The text presents an historical world (sixteenth century Europe), but that does not prevent the modern enlightened voice of Godwin from speaking through its inhabitants.
Godwin’s awakening world will not accept aristocracy upon its own dubious merits; rather, it will use ‘rational judgment’ to ‘strike at the root of a deception that has long been continued, and long proved a curse to all the civilized nations of the earth’ (1971, p.319). A background of religious reformation points to this new spirit of enquiry:
Nothing could more clearly prove, that the heretical followers of Luther and Calvin, who had lately sprung up for the plague of mankind, whatever they might pretend, were in reality the determined enemies of all revelation, than their continual demand, that the cause should be tried by discussion, and that 44 every man should be defended in the exercise of his private judgment. (1994, p.315)
Godwin is not concerned with religious reformation as such; rather, his interest is with the accompanying social reformation, a product, it seems, of the same spirit:
The present was the most important crisis that ever occurred in the history of the world. There was a spirit at work, that aimed at dissolving all the bonds of civil society, and converting mankind into beasts and savages. (p.316)
Such is the view of the Holy Inquisition that St. Leon is brought before; and well might he share their concern, as ironically he is as much a target for the new spirit of inquiry as the old religion itself. The Holy Inquisition is just one more cross-examination from which he must flee. Throughout the course of the novel as a whole, however, he is persecuted by a more pervasive spirit - a new spirit of inquiry, ‘the immutable voice of reason and justice,’ which will not allow him a moment’s respite. The world of Godwin’s St Leon is an enlightened world, one which calls the aristocrat to account for his obscurantism.
St. Leon’s unaccountable status inevitably brings suspicion. For example, when he tries to establish his son at the ‘court of Dresden,’ through a young French nobleman, he cannot sufficiently account for his regained status:
“You retired into voluntary exile; I heard, with great grief, of some subsequent calamities that have overtaken you. But, here in Saxony, I see you resuming all your former splendour, and coming forward with the magnificence of a prince. Others of your countrymen have remarked it, as well as myself, and feel themselves at a loss to account for what they see.” (pp.182-183)
Furthermore, believing himself to have established his daughters comfortably in their ancestral home, he returns years later to find that his tainted name has wreaked more havoc. As he learns from their matron:
“The manner in which the ladies had entered into the repossession of their paternal estate, when minutely investigated, was thought to have something in it of an ambiguous and unpleasant nature. It was well known that monsieur St. 45 Leon had left the country in consequence of his having ruined himself by the vice of gambling.” (p.362)
This unaccountability prevents the marriage of his daughter Julia, and both she and her lover perish in their disappointment. Furthermore, ‘the circumstance of this story having become a subject of public animadversion, it had a most unfavourable effect on the prospects of the surviving sisters’ (p.362).
Likewise, the major part of St. Leon’s narrative records the failed attempt to amplify his aristocratic standing, and to restore his family to what he regards as rightfully theirs. This then is how Godwin makes the aristocrat suffer remorse - by holding him responsible for the loss of what is closest to him. That is not to say that he is being punished for his domestic affections. Rather, the strength of that affection is used by Godwin to heighten the personal tragedy of St. Leon . The burden of guilt which he now bears is a just retribution, perhaps, for his contribution to the weight of oppression. By involving both himself and his family ‘in the most tremendous ruin and disgrace’ (p.43), St. Leon provides a poignant example of the evils of privilege. To this end, St. Leon is intended by Godwin to be an illustrative failure, one who learns the hard lessons of his creator and is made to suffer guiltily for his supernatural advantages.
Failure of a Grander and More Exalted Cast
St. Leon’s love of privilege is his fatal blind-spot. For well over three quarters of the novel his primary concern is with his own privileged status and that of his family; what Godwin would regard as the ‘flimsy pretences’ of aristocracy. At the end of a three volume inquisition he is found guilty as charged. Only when St. Leon has failed dismally at his selfish endeavours does he turn to a more universally benevolent cause. It is not until this point, in Volume Four, that his ruminations take a philanthropic turn - when the war-torn and oppressed nation of Hungary stirs St. Leon to thoughts ‘of a grander and more exalted cast’:
46 I ruminated on all the calamities of Hungary, from the battle of Warna in 1444, to the battle of Mohacz in 1526; in both of which this generous nation had unsuccessfully achieved prodigies of valour, and, even by their defeats, had protracted the date of their own independence, and co-operated for the defence of the population and arts of Europe against a barbarous and blood- delighting foe. (p.368)
One might in this episode find some justification for the positive ‘World Classics’ appraisal of this ‘exiled French aristocrat who is given the secrets of the philosopher’s stone . . .’ For here only could it be said of St. Leon that he ‘attempts to use these gifts to benefit humanity . . .’:
Determined as I was to open at once all the stores of my wealth, I thought I could not find a nobler scene for its display. I resolved to pour the entire stream of my riches, like a mighty river, to fertilise these wasted plains, and revive their fainting inhabitants. (p.369)
But St. Leon’s benevolence is not motivated by anything like Godwin’s egalitarian principles, nor could it be described as an effort to benefit humanity; rather, Hungary provides St. Leon with an opportunity to ‘display’ his wealth, and to satisfy a desire for public esteem:
Thus proceeding, should I not have a right to expect to find myself guarded by the faithful love of a people who would be indebted to my beneficence for every breath they drew? This was the proper scene in which for the possessor of the philosopher’s stone to take up his abode. (p.369)
Here indeed is the ‘proper scene’ in which a fallen aristocrat may reclaim his ascendancy. It also provides, in effect, another scenario through which Godwin can restate his moral: ‘Let no man after me pant for the acquisition of the philosopher’s stone!’ And thus we are prepared for St. Leon’s downfall.
When St. Leon fails in Hungary, he will fail for the same reason he has failed everywhere else; that is because he cannot adequately account for his unnatural advantage. If it has no precedent in his native France, where aristocracy had previously thrived, then how much more dubious must it appear ‘in the present distressed and depopulated condition of Hungary’ (p.372), where he takes up residence ‘in a spacious and beautiful mansion’: 47
The conduct I pursued necessarily fixed upon me a considerable portion of public attention. I was a foreigner, destitute of connections, and having no previous acquaintance with any individual in the country . . . These things tended to increase the public wonder, and to render the mystery of my proceedings more perplexing and obscure. (p.375)
From his newly found position of ascendancy, St. Leon demands the respect which he believes due to him as ‘their generous benefactor, who never refused anything, but what it would be improper and injurious to grant’ (p.376):
Here it may be thought I had ascended to that sphere which it was fit the possessor of the philosopher’s stone should fill, and reaped the rewards to which a man thus endowed ought to be forward to entitle himself. Nor will I affirm that I was insensible to the gratifications of my present situation. (p.377)
To St. Leon, who has once again ‘ascended to that sphere’ of social superiority to which he lays claim, a ‘man thus endowed’ has a right to the innate respect of his inferiors; and, for a while, his noble demands are satisfied:
Wherever I appeared, the people followed me with their gratitude and blessings; ballads were written in my praise; the very children were taught with their infant tongues to lisp the virtues of the saviour of Hungary. My doors were besieged; my steps were watched; I could move nowhere without public observation. (p.376)
St. Leon’s honourable intentions have so far borne promising results: ‘My proceedings, as I have already said, bore in the commencement the most benignant face, and seemed a revival of this despairing and unfortunate nation little less than miraculous’ (p.378). But we are all the while being prepared for his downfall, as behind this ‘most benignant face’ of philanthropy lies the ‘perplexing and obscure’ means by which St. Leon is dubiously empowered:
Not understanding the powers by which I acted, they blindly ascribed to me the faculty of doing whatever I pleased. As long as every thing went on prosperously, they were grateful; the moment a reverse occurred, they were inclined to murmur. They made no allowance for the limited capacities of a 48 human creature: they imputed whatever was unpleasing to indifference or ill will. (p.379)
Incredulous that his ‘proceedings’ should be questioned thus, particularly by those who should be ‘grateful,’ St. Leon has retained his fatal blind- spot. While he acknowledges the populace ‘not understanding the powers’ by which he acts, he still wants to be regarded as a ‘human creature.’ Of course, this will not be possible in the natural universe of Godwin, with supernatural advantages so ‘excessive and clandestine.’
An Inquisitorial Schema
In line with the enlightened suspicion of the populace, ‘the aspersions to which my character became generally exposed,’ St. Leon faces yet another inquisition - this time at the hands of a Turkish governor , who cannot ‘be sufficiently vigilant respecting a man , whose expenditure is immense , and whose wealth can neither be traced to its source, nor ascertained in its amount ?’ (p.390). St. Leon has heard this voice before, as the style is all too reminiscent of his Godwin-like wife:
“I have been at pains to procure an account of your expenditure during the three months you have resided among us; much of that expenditure has been obscure, clandestine, and indirect; but I believe you will find my estimate, which you are at liberty to inspect and remark upon, tolerably correct. Your disbursements for three months, exceed the amount of two years’ income of the richest subject that even the credulous monarchs of Christendom suffer within their dominions. What am I to think of this ?” (p.390)
There is a lack of subtlety in Godwin’s style apparent here, as the voices of his minor characters show little independence; for the reader too remembers Marguerite and the manner she shares with the other inquirers:
“. . . Reginald, must you think me credulous enough to imagine that you have now disclosed the whole or the precise truth. Three thousand crowns is not a sum sufficient to account for what you propose, for the long agitation of your 49 thoughts, or for the change of character you have sustained. You must either be totally deprived of rational judgement, or there must be something behind, that you have not communicated.” (p.175)
But this stylistic fault - a lack of subtlety - does at least betray the author’s own inquisitorial voice, revealing his attack upon privilege as a primary concern of the novel. While St. Leon could accept this harangue as coming from the ‘most virtuous of women,’ he is less appreciative of the ‘silver-tongued, oily, copious and insinuating’ (p.385) manner of the Turkish governor, whose ‘single object . . . in the present circumstance, was to make the mysteriousness of my circumstances a pretext for extorting money’ (p.391).
St. Leon might be correct in his assessment of the bashaw, but he is hardly an “up-front” character himself. Thus, we witness these two bastions of privilege come to a shadowy arrangement with each other:
We now perfectly understood one another; and it was apparent that I had to do with a man, who, for what he deemed an adequate consideration, would willingly lend me the authority and countenance of his office, and suffer me to guide him in any of the functions I might conceive necessary for the execution of my projects. (p.392)
St. Leon is, of course, bound to lose from this dubious deal, as the author wants us to note not only the pernicious effects of these granted privileges, but the underhanded operations which necessarily accompany such excess:
I knew that, however dearly I purchased his friendship and patronage, I should still have to purchase them again and again. His extortions upon me admitted of no limits, except from his own modesty, or the estimate he might form of my invisible resources. (p.393)
While his advantages enable him to buy the favour of the bashaw he, and the populace who depend on his philanthropy, will remain at the mercy of a corrupt arrangement. It is an episode which illustrates John Thelwall’s observation that ‘oppression, though it begins with the poor and helpless mounts upwards from class to class till it devours the whole’ (1984, p.209). Likewise, St. Leon is exploited by the rulers of 50 Hungary, even as he unwittingly contributes to the oppression of those below him:
Bribery itself afforded me no complete security; and, now that I had become an object of curiosity and remark, he had sufficiently shown me I was at the mercy of his caprice, or that of his master, for my liberty, or even for my life. (p.393)
No longer the ‘saviour of Hungary,’ despite his intention to ‘relieve and assist,’ St. Leon has brought further extortion and corruption to this already oppressed nation. There is no place here for the perpetual aristocrat, any more than there would be in 1790s Britain:
It would be idle to imagine that, in any country on earth, a stranger would be permitted to launch into such expenses as those in which I was engaged, without becoming an object of suspicion, and being made liable to continual interruption in his measures. (p.394)
There is no place in this awakening world for the old guard of aristocracy. Through the course of his travels, the ‘continual interruption’ to St. Leon’s expenditure comes from Godwin himself - an ‘immutable voice of reason and justice’ which speaks through the inquisitorial schema of the novel.
In the figure of the supernatural Wanderer, then, Godwin is able to embody the privileges he seeks to condemn, as the perpetual aristocrat will not find rest in this ‘system of the universe left at large to all her sons’ (1976, p.473). To that end, one should view Godwin’s Travels of St Leon as a continuation of his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, with the character of St. Leon playing a central role in this enquiry, providing the focus for the author’s interrogation of privilege. The danger in siding with St. Leon is that we may remain apathetic toward Godwin’s message, and to the voice of an emerging social conscience. 51 Chapter 2
Shelley as St Leon: A Real-Life Wanderer
No aristocrat, supernatural or otherwise, can be a hero in the world of Godwin, because privilege has no place in a ‘universe left at large to all her sons.’ With St. Leon, then, Godwin had created a character who was in all ways opposed to his own egalitarian philosophy. As such, he was created to be an illustrative failure: one who offends against the ‘universal voice of reason and justice.’ To that end, St. Leon is not just an aristocrat; for in his supernatural person he is privilege personified, and then multiplied. Furthermore, because he cannot adequately account for his elevated status, he is condemned by Godwin’s new spirit of enquiry - an inquisitorial voice which speaks through an enlightened world of reformation.
But to some degree, this negative reading of St. Leon’s character requires a knowledge of Godwin’s views on privilege and aristocracy, which can best be gleaned from his Political Justice. We could, on the other hand, read St. Leon in a more sympathetic light, as being persecuted and misunderstood by the world around him. That is, if we do not see the supernatural elements of the tale as being representative of institutions of privilege. And so, a more sympathetic reading of St. Leon is possible if we do not see the insidious nature of privilege as Godwin sees it. However, as I have suggested, this reading would be hard to maintain once we became aware of Godwin’s denunciatory views on such. But the reasons for St. Leon’s failure may not have been so apparent to the young Shelley.
However Godwin may have intended his character to be read, it would appear that Shelley had seen St. Leon in something of an heroic light. In particular, that episode of the novel in which St. Leon tries to use his privileges to benefit the oppressed nation of Hungary appears to have inspired him; for we can see shadows of St. Leon’s ill-fated quest in Shelley’s so-called Irish campaign of 1812. St Leon had taken hold of Shelley’s imagination before he had read Godwin’s Political Justice. There are traces of St Leon in Shelley’s own novel, Saint Irvyne (1811), but the philosophical basis which lies 52 behind Godwin’s production is missing. Shelley admits as much in a letter to Godwin (Jan. 10, 1812), where he apologizes for his youthful oversight:
From a reader, I became a writer of romances; before the age of seventeen I had published two, “St Irvyne” and “Zastrozzi,” each of which, though quite uncharacteristic of me as now I am, yet serves to mark the state of my mind at the period of their composition . . . It is now a period of more than two years since first I saw your inestimable book on “Political Justice”; it opened to my mind fresh and more extensive views; it materially influenced my character, and I rose from its perusal a wiser and better man. (Shelley, 1965, v.8, pp.239 - 240)
No doubt, after having read the Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Shelley became aware of the extent of Godwin’s denunciatory views on the institution of aristocracy; which is why perhaps, in the same letter, he feels he must apologize for his own heritage:
My principles have induced me to regard the law of primogeniture an evil of primary magnitude. My father’s notions of family honour are incoincident with my knowledge of public good. I will never sacrifice the latter to any consideration. My father has ever regarded me as a blot, a defilement of his honour. (p.241)
Shelley’s anxiety in acknowledging his privileged background is more than apparent.Though now he would disown his own lineage to take up Godwin’s cause, this could hardly have been the case when he first read St Leon and was inspired to write Saint Irvyne.
In his next letter (Jan.16,1812), responding to Godwin’s curiosity, he writes: ‘I had, indeed, read “St. Leon” before I wrote “St. Irvyne,” but the reasonings had then made little impression’ (p.244). Indeed, a perusal of Saint Irvyne reveals this to be the case, as the novel is devoid of Godwin’s philosophy. It should be said, though, that St. Irvyne is not the story of a Wanderer, and the title of Shelley’s novel names a place, not a character. Still, from Saint Irvyne we can gather what the appeal of St Leon may have been to the young Shelley; or at least we can see that it had nothing to do with Godwin’s egalitarian views. The identification of Shelley with St. Leon lies in his real-life exploits rather than his fiction.
53 We have already seen how Godwin uses the supernatural to convey a particularly negative message about privilege. In St Leon, the opus magnum is used as a representation of the estates of aristocracy and as an amplification of perpetual privilege. Furthermore, the condition of secrecy, or guilty silence, which surrounds the opus magnum, points to the obscurantism that protects such privilege. In Shelley’s novel, these same elements are used, but without the attached significance. Again, it would not have been obvious to Shelley what Godwin was trying to convey because the ‘reasonings’ which lay behind St Leon had, as he admits, ‘made little impression’ upon him. One result of this is that when he tries to incorporate the supernatural elements of Godwin’s tale into his own story, he is not quite sure how to make sense of them.
A deal of confusion is created by the hasty conclusion of Saint Irvyne which tries, without success, to incorporate the mechanics of a secret pact revolving around the opus magnum. Shelley tries to explain this ending in a letter (Nov.14,1810) to his publisher, John Stockdale, who was not quite satisfied:
Ginotti, as you will see, did not die by Wolfstein’s hand, but by the influence of that natural magic which, when the secret was imparted to the latter, destroyed him. Mountfort being a character of inferior import, I did not think it necessary to state the catastrophe of him, as at best it could be but uninteresting. Eloise and Fitzeustace are married and happy, I suppose, and Megalena dies by the same means as Wolfstein. I do not myself see any other explanation that is required. (Shelley,1965, v.8, p.18)
A further explanation was required, however, in which Shelley represented this muddled ending as though it were a deliberate ploy:
What I mean as “Rosicrucian” is the elixir of eternal life which Ginotti has obtained, Mr. Godwin’s romance of “St. Leon” turns upon that superstition; I enveloped it in mystery for the greater excitement of interest, and on a re- examination, you will perceive that Mountfort physically did kill Ginotti, which must appear from the latter’s paleness. [Nov.19, 1810] (p.19)
Clearly the author has some difficulty in explaining the details of this arrangement.
54 Shelley’s haphazard use of this supernatural schema does however reveal much. It is interesting, for instance, that he sees ‘the elixir of eternal life’ as being central to Godwin’s novel. According to Shelley, it is this half of the opus magnum which ‘Mr. Godwin’s romance of “St. Leon” turns upon,’ and not the philosopher’s stone; whereas, in fact, Godwin never really develops St. Leon’s preternatural longevity to any impressive length. At the conclusion of the novel, St. Leon has not yet out-lived his own son Charles. And taken as a whole, the novel is far more concerned with St. Leon’s dubious wealth, as it takes the shape of a relentless inquiry into the source of that wealth. Clearly then, what appeals most to Shelley about the figure of St. Leon is his preternatural longevity; and this is consistent with Shelley’s attraction to the myth of the Wandering Jew, a figure with whom he identifies sympathetically throughout his writings.
The development of this egocentric image can be traced throughout Shelley’s ouvre. By this stage, Shelley had already composed a long poem with Thomas Medwin entitled “The Wandering Jew” (1810) that was inspired by a translation of Schubart’s poem from the German. A fragment of this translation is included in Shelley’s notes to “Queen Mab” (1813), his first major work, in which the Wandering Jew makes a brief appearance as a character. The figure also features in “Ghasta” (1810), a shorter poem from the same early period. In subsequent works the figure would reappear briefly in various guises, though not as a major character - most notably in “The Assassins” (1814) and “Hellas” (1822). He is also alluded to in “Alastor” (1816) [ll.675-681]. It is a list of cameo appearances which demonstrates the lasting influence of Ahasuerus on Shelley’s imagination. Writing in 1839, Mary Shelley would remember him as ‘Shelley’s old favourite, the Wandering Jew’ (in Shelley,1965, vol. 5, p.ix).
The appeal of this myth to the young revolutionary perhaps lay in the notion of an immortal yet persecuted existence. While finding ‘no direct verbal parallel,’ Baker has demonstrated how Shelley’s conception of Ahasuerus in “The Wandering Jew” owes much to Milton’s Satan from Paradise Lost (1948, pp.277-278). And Shelley’s own view of Satan’s ‘courage, and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force’ (1912, p.201) is attested to in his Preface to “Prometheus Unbound” (1820) - a work which further celebrates a model of eternal rebelliousness. 55
Shelley may have had reason to view himself as persecuted, after having been expelled from Oxford for distributing his pamphlet, “The Necessity of Atheism” (1811). This would no doubt, in his mind, constitute intellectual persecution. On top of this, as White suggests, there may have been the added dimension of his having failed in his first love-affair because of unorthodox opinions (White, 1965, v.2, p.425). Whatever the case, if the youthful Shelley saw himself as misunderstood and persecuted, the Wandering Jew was a type with which he could identify. So Godwin’s St. Leon, at this early stage, provided a significant extra element to an already burgeoning identification.
Shelley would have read St. Leon in this light; only, the identification with Godwin’s Wanderer would have been even stronger. For while St. Leon is not the Wandering Jew, he is, like Shelley, a born aristocrat. Furthermore, he is persecuted for what he views as progressive ideas: with St. Leon it was alchemy, whereas with Shelley it might have been atheism. So if Shelley viewed himself as a persecuted revolutionary, then the tendency would have been for him to read St. Leon as being misunderstood, like himself.
The significance of this identification lies in the fact that Shelley, a true-born aristocrat, would have identified with the character to a degree that Godwin himself could not have appreciated. What Godwin then intended as an inquiry or interrogation, Shelley would have read as persecution. In this sympathetic light, St. Leon becomes grand because of his privileges, and misunderstood by the world around him rather than condemned by a new spirit of inquiry. Shelley, then, really does belong to the old guard that Godwin’s fiction is trying to do away with.
The idea of a preternaturally prolonged existence, in which one is persecuted, appealed so much to the young Shelley that he saw himself and, rather oddly, St. Leon’s author in this light as well. During this initial period of correspondence with Godwin, Shelley writes to his friend, Elizabeth Hitchener, offering her an account of this immortal rebel:
56 Godwin yet lives: if Government, at one time, could have destroyed any man, Godwin would have ceased to be. Thomas Paine died a natural death: his writings were far more violently in opposition to Government than mine perhaps ever will be. [Jan.7, 1812] (1965, v.8, p.234)
Having not ‘died a natural death’ . . . ‘Godwin yet lives’; and Shelley has unearthed the sublime being of his imagination - the supernatural Wanderer. Shelley’s enthusiasm for the figure is such that he sees the author of St Leon in the same preternatural light. Again he writes to Hitchener (Jan. 20, 1812):
It is with awe and veneration that I read the letters of this veteran in persecution and independence. He remains unchanged. I have no soul-chilling alteration to record of his character . . . Like Southey he has not change[d.]. The age of the body has [not] induced the age of the soul: tho’ his shell is mouldering, the spirit within seems in no wise to participate in the decay. (p.245)
Godwin, it would seem, has imbibed the elixir of eternal life which so impressed the young Shelley from his reading of St Leon. The physical description betrays an obvious enthusiasm, as Shelley had not as yet met Godwin in person. It is almost as if Shelley wants Godwin to be just like St. Leon, quite regardless of the fact that St. Leon (an immortal aristocrat) is a virtual anti-type of Godwin (an avowed enemy of privilege).
Somewhere in Shelley’s imagination both he and Godwin have become types of the eternal Wanderer, made immortal through ‘persecution and independence.’ Which is why, when he addresses Godwin for the first time (Jan.3,1812), he appeals to one who he is sure will understand him:
I have but just entered on the scene of human operations; yet my feelings and my reasonings correspond with what yours were. My course has been short, but eventful. I have seen much of human prejudice, suffered much from human persecution, yet I see no reason hence inferable which should alter my wishes for their renovation. The ill-treatment I have met with has more than ever impressed the truth of my principles on my judgment. I am young, I am ardent in the cause of philanthropy and truth; do not suppose that this is vanity; I am not conscious that it influences this portraiture. I imagine myself dispassionately 57 describing the state of my mind. I am young; you have gone before me, I doubt not are a veteran to me in the years of persecution. (p.233)
Godwin is, to Shelley, a model of the misunderstood revolutionary, a ‘veteran’ to him ‘in the years of persecution.’ Not so much aspiring to this level of persecution as having already attained it, Shelley claims to have ‘seen much of human prejudice, and suffered much . . .’ On this point, Locke has suggested:
. . . Shelley, an indulged child, had sufficient intelligence, or sufficient imagination, to represent the petty restrictions of boarding school, the taunts of his fellow pupils, the rigid incomprehension of his father, as all of a piece with the social tyrannies and political impositions attacked in Political Justice. (1980, p.246)
This being the case, the young Shelley could even now boldly approach the grand old figure of Godwin: ‘Is it strange that, defying prejudice as I have done, I should outstep the limits of custom’s prescription, and endeavour to make my desire useful by a friendship with William Godwin?’ (p.233)
Shelley’s identification with Godwin-St.Leon goes even further. His enthusiasm for the character of St. Leon is such that his exploits begin to mirror those of Godwin’s fictional character. The hastily arranged Irish campaign of 1812 takes shape at the same time that Shelley is courting the attention of Godwin for the first time.
Having previously ‘existed in an ideal world’ as ‘the votary of romance,’ Shelley describes to Godwin (Jan.10, 1812) the maturing effect which his ‘inestimable book on “Political Justice”’ has had upon him:
Conceive the effect which the “Political Justice” would have upon a mind before jealous of its independence and participating somewhat singularly in a peculiar susceptibility . . . No sooner had I formed the principles which I now profess, than I was anxious to disseminate their benefits. (p.240)
More than just a philosophy as such, Political Justice provides Shelley with an injunction, as he sees it, and a spur to action:
58 . . . now I found that in this universe of ours was enough to excite the interest of the heart, enough to employ the discussions of reason; I beheld, in short, that I had duties to perform. (p.240)
Of the new-found principles which Shelley adopted, there must have been something of Godwin’s enlightened distaste for aristocracy, for on this point the young aristocrat is more than anxious to prove himself worthy of egalitarian views: ‘My father’s notions of family honour are incoincident with my knowledge of public good.’ And, as he now regards ‘the law of primogeniture an evil of primary magnitude,’ there is much to atone for in Godwin’s eyes.
Now, it is for you to judge whether, by permitting me to cultivate your friendship, you are exhibiting yourself more really useful than by the pursuance of those avocations, of which the time spent in allowing this cultivation would deprive you. I am now earnestly pursuing studious habits. I am writing “An inquiry into the causes of the failure of the French Revolution to benefit mankind.” My plan is that of resolving to lose no opportunity to disseminate truth and happiness. (p.241)
Here, Shelley is eager to show how his privileges will not prevent him from pursuing a course of universal benevolence. Indeed, Shelley’s eagerness to pursue this universal cause often sounds like an attempt to prove his personal worth to Godwin.
To that end, it is with like enthusiasm that he portrays his upcoming Irish campaign: I shall devote myself with unremitting zeal, as far as an uncertain state of health will permit, towards forwarding the great ends of virtue and happiness in Ireland, regarding as I do the present state of that country’s affairs as an opportunity which if I, being thus disengaged, permit to pass unoccupied, I am unworthy of the character which I have assumed. (p.258)
It is almost as though the zeal with which Shelley pursues this end will render him worthy in Godwin’s eyes, perhaps as a kind of atonement for being an aristocrat. The pursuit of such worthiness is perhaps, in part, an attempt to shed the guilt-burden of a privileged background; and Ireland is the cause on which Shelley has settled, devoting himself with ‘unremitting zeal.’
59 Would not the author of St Leon be impressed by this resolve? In Godwin’s novel, the aristocrat had settled upon Hungary as the site for his bottomless philanthropy. And similarly, this was an effort to prove himself worthy of the privileges of which he partook:
I resolved to pour the entire stream of my riches, like a mighty river, to fertilise these wasted plains, and revive their fainting inhabitants . . . This was the proper scene in which for the possessor of the philosopher’s stone to take up his abode. He who could feel his ambition satisfied in a more straitened field would, by so doing, prove himself unworthy of the mighty blessing. (Godwin, 1994, p.369)
Determined, like St. Leon, to do something worthwhile, Shelley turns his attention to Ireland, with resolve and enthusiasm which surely rivals that of Godwin’s Wanderer. In the same letter to Hitchener (Jan.20,1812), after having described Godwin as though he were St. Leon, Shelley announces:
I hasten to go to Ireland. I am now writing an “Address” to the poor Irish Catholics . . . I consider the state of Ireland [as] constituting a part of a great crisis in opinions. You shall see the pamphlet when it comes out: it will be cheaply printed, and printed in large sheets to be stuck about the walls of Dublin. I am eager and earnest to be there . . . (pp.246-247)
“An Address To The Irish People” (1812) is to be the centre-piece of Shelley’s forthcoming crusade. Though Godwin could not be aware of the content of Shelley’s Address, he was already advising caution. Even as the Irish campaign began to take shape, Shelley was sounding increasingly like St. Leon, threatening to pour his benevolence out ‘like a mighty river.’ And so, Godwin quietly admonishes him with an appropriate metaphor:
He that would benefit mankind on a comprehensive scale, by changing the principles and elements of society, must learn the hard lesson - to put off self, and to contribute by a quiet, but incessant activity, like a rill of water, to irrigate and fertilize the intellectual soil. (Godwin,1992, v.1, p.75)
In order for this flash-flood of enthusiasm to become fertile, Shelley must be taught ‘the hard lesson - to put off self.’ Perhaps Godwin saw his own contribution to radicalism in this increasingly placid light. 60 Whatever the case, the poignancy of these injunctions does not escape the young Shelley, who responds in kind (Jan.28,1812): ‘You regard early authorship [as] detrimental to the cause of general happiness. I confess this has not been my opinion, even when I have bestowed deep, and I hope, disinterested thought upon the subject’ (pp.257-258).
Shelley, it seems, would rather put Godwin’s lesson ‘to put off self’ to one side for the moment. In Ireland, he would be as infamous in the eyes of government as the late Tom Paine and yet adored by the masses, as his correspondence with Elizabeth Hitchener continues to reveal (Jan.26,1812):
All is prepared. I have been busily engaged in an “Address to the Irish,” which will be printed as Paine’s works were, and pasted on the walls of Dublin. (p.253)
Shelley’s self-promotion shows little restraint as, writing from Dublin two weeks later (Feb.14,1812), he confirms these plans:
Well - my “Address” will soon come out. It will be instantly followed by another, with downright proposals for instituting associations for bettering the condition of human-kind. I - even I, weak, young, poor, as I am - will attempt to organize them, the society of peace and love. Oh! that I [may] be a successful apostle of this only true religion, the religion of Philanthropy. (p.274)
Now, in the midst of his campaign, Shelley feels the need to assure Godwin (Feb.24,1812) of the selflessness of these endeavours: ‘I hope that the motives which induce me to publish thus early in life do not arise from any desire of distinguishing myself any more than is consistent with and subordinate to usefulness’ (p.280).
To allay any further concerns, Godwin is forwarded the material concerned, and duly reminded of the inspiration behind its production (Mar.8,1812):
I have at length proposed a Philanthropic Association, which I conceive not to be contradictory, but strictly compatible with the principles of “Political Justice” . . . I send you with this the proposals, which will be followed by the “suggestions.” (pp.288-289)
Godwin’s displeasure over these plans is unambiguous (Mar.14, 1812): 61
Shelley, you are preparing a scene of blood! If your associations take effect to any extensive degree, tremendous consequences will follow, and hundreds, by their calamities and premature fate, will expiate your error . . . Do not be restrained by a false shame from retracting your steps . . . I wish to my heart you would come immediately to London. (Godwin,1992, v.1, p.75-76)
Perhaps Godwin had already said this in St Leon. There, the aristocrat had arrived in Hungary with benevolent intentions: ‘I came to relieve and assist, to the utmost of my power, the inhabitants of the country in the extremity of their distress’ (Godwin,1994,p.372). But his efforts had ended in disaster: ‘The whole was a scene of anguish and calamity; the passions of those who composed it, mingled with the distress, and rendered it too heavy to be borne’ (p.379).
Godwin’s alarm at Shelley’s having actually arrived in Dublin to implement his schemes is equally unambiguous:
I have a friend who has contrived a tube to convey passengers sixty miles an hour: be youth your tube. I have a thousand things I could say, really more than I could say in a letter on this important subject. (Godwin, 1992, v.1, p.76)
It is too late now however to dissuade Shelley from his avowed mission. Of course, Shelley thanks Godwin for his concern (Mar.8,1812): ‘Your letter affords me much food for thought; guide thou and direct me’ (p.287). Clearly though, he is not listening, as Godwin’s words are kindly returned to him:
“A preponderance of resulting good is imagined in every action.” I certainly believe that the line of conduct which I am now pursuing will produce a preponderance of good; when I get rid of this conviction, my conduct shall be changed. (p.287)
This Wanderer is not going anywhere until he achieves the ‘preponderance of good’ or, one might suspect, the level of notoriety he is searching for. Enough to say, Shelley will not be coming to London, regardless of Godwin’s admonitions.
In regard to Shelley’s Irish campaign, Dawson has suggested that ‘the real point at issue between him [Godwin] and Shelley 62 concerns the status and necessity of direct political action’(1980, p.142). He advises that ‘we should not be too hasty to take his [Godwin’s] part against Shelley’ (p.143). But Dawson’s sympathy for Shelley lies largely in the fact that Shelley had been genuinely inspired by the principles of Political Justice. While there can be no denial of this influence, such an account does not leave room for Shelley’s egocentric role play. Shelley needed, I think, both to see himself and to be seen in the role of a persecuted revolutionary - as a type of the immortal Wanderer. It was perhaps this desire for notoriety as much as an ideological compulsion that over-rode Godwin’s wishes.
Why else does Shelley persist, even when Godwin is so against his plans? He writes from Dublin (Mar.8,1812), assuring Godwin that whatever happens there will be viewed through the steady-eye of his philosophy:
I have not read your writings slightly; they have made a deep impression on my mind; their arguments are fresh in my memory; I have daily occasion to recur to them, as allies in the cause which I am here engaged in vindicating. To them, to you, I owe the inestimable boon of granted power, of arising from the state of intellectual sickliness and lethargy into which I was plunged two years ago, and of which “St. Irvyne” and “Zastrozzi” were the distempered, although unoriginal visions. (p.287)
In Ireland he may well have had ‘daily occasion to recur’ to the quest of St. Leon . According to Shelley, it was Political Justice which awakened him from a ‘state of intellectual sickness and lethargy.’ Yet even before he had read this work he had been inspired by the story of St Leon. ‘I had, indeed, read “St. Leon” before I wrote “St. Irvyne”. Even if ‘the reasonings had then made little impression,’ his imagination had surely been captured. So perhaps Shelley’s romantic identification with this character, when coupled with a reading of Political Justice, is what kept him on his fiery course.
Shelley had been genuinely inspired by Godwin’s egalitarian ideals. He went to Ireland in search of oppression, and what he saw there only confirmed Godwin’s views on the unjust structure of society. He writes to Godwin (Mar.8,1812), confirmed in his choice of a worthy cause:
63 I had no conception of the depth of human misery until now. The poor of Dublin are assuredly the meanest and most miserable of all. In their narrow streets thousands seem huddled together, - one mass of animated filth. With what eagerness do such scenes as these inspire me! How self confident, too, do I feel in my assumption to teach the lessons of virtue to those who grind their fellow beings into worse than annihilation. (p.289)
To Shelley, Dublin is a bastion of oppression, and the poor of Dublin epitomize the plight of the oppressed. As a disciple of Godwin, then, he could not help but feel duty-bound.
Shelley thus arrives in Ireland on a mission of reform, ready- armed with the philosophy of Godwin. His “Address To The Irish People” was prepared before he had arrived. In the Postscript to that work he adds:
I have now been a week in Dublin, during which time I have endeavoured to make myself more accurately acquainted with the state of the public mind on those great topics of grievances which induced me to select Ireland as a theatre, the widest and fairest, for the operations of the determined friend of religious and political freedom. (Shelley,1965, v.5, p.246)
Although, admittedly, he has little experience of the society he would reform, this matters little because the system of oppression, as exposed by Godwin, is the same wherever it appears. And so, in his Address he can proclaim his disgust at the present state of Irish society: ‘It is horrible that the lower classes must waste their lives and liberty to furnish means for their oppressors to oppress them yet more terribly’ (1965, v.5, p.239).
In effect, it was Godwin who had taught Shelley to see the systemic structure of oppression - the mechanics of which are the same in Ireland as anywhere else, where the privileged few are living on top of and at the expense of the wretched many. Here indeed is a land in which ‘the very poor people are most infamously oppressed by the weight of burden which the superior ranks lay upon their shoulders’ (p.224). And Shelley is ready to fight the same monster of oppression wherever it should rear its head. Indeed, Ireland is but the first stage in a world-wide crusade for emancipation from this unjust arrangement: 64
I write now not only with a view for Catholic Emancipation, but for universal emancipation; and this emancipation complete and unconditional, that shall comprehend every individual of whatever nation or principles, that shall fold in its embrace all that think and all that feel, the Catholic cause is subordinate, and its success preparatory to this great cause, which adheres to no sect but society, to no cause but that of universal happiness, to no party but the people. (p.237)
As a disciple of Godwin, Shelley sees his task as one of enlightenment, to be a mouthpiece for ‘the universal voice of reason and justice.’ He would lead a wave of rational enquiry into the present unjust state of affairs, and offer to the Irish people a ‘rational means of remedy’ to their current plight - as the ‘Advertisement’ for his pamphlet declares:
The lowest possible price is set on this publication, because it is the intention of the Author to awaken in the minds of the Irish poor, a knowledge of their real state, summarily pointing out the evils of that state, and suggesting rational means of remedy. (p.213)
As an apostle of Godwin’s new order, Shelley has a prophecy to deliver to the people of Ireland:
You are not blind to your present situation, you are villainously treated, you are badly used. That this slavery shall cease, I will venture to prophesy. Your enemies dare not to persecute you longer, the spirit of Ireland is bent, but it is not broken, and that they very well know. (p.219)
While reform is inevitable and oppression will be defeated, it is Shelley’s task to hasten the day. So even while the ‘universal voice of reason and justice’ is sweeping the world, the time is ripe for reform in Ireland now:
Irishmen; knowledge is more extended than in the early period of your religion, people have learned to think, and the more thought there is in the world, the more happiness and liberty will there be: - men begin now to think less of idle ceremonies and more of realities. From a long night they have risen, and they can perceive its darkness. (p.223)
65 Religion is, to Shelley, a bastion of obscurantism that ‘will not bear the touch-stone of reason’ (p.246). In a somewhat condescending manner, he presents himself as being above religion of any form:
. . . I am not a Protestant nor am I a Catholic, and therefore not being a follower of either of these religions, I am better able to judge between them. A Protestant is my brother, and a Catholic is my brother. I am happy when I can do either of them a service, and no pleasure is so great to me than that which I should feel if my advice could make men of any professions of faith, wiser, better, and happier. (p.216)
The advice which Shelley offers would improve upon or, rather, transcend the old order with its inherent divisions. But just what is the ‘rational means of remedy’ that Shelley is proposing to the Irish people?
In the midst of his Address, Shelley declares himself a champion of the oppressed: ‘But there are men who, wherever they find a tendency to freedom, go there to increase, support, and regulate that tendency’ (p.228). It is to men such as he, those who can ‘feel for the unfortunate’, that the Irish poor should look:
These men who join to a rational disdain of danger, a practice of speaking the truth, and defending the cause of the oppressed against the oppressor; these men see what is right and will pursue it. On such as these you may safely rely: They love you as they love their brothers; they feel for the unfortunate, and never ask whether a man is an Englishman or an Irishman, a catholic, a heretic, a christian, or a heathen, before their hearts and their purses are opened to feel with their misfortunes and relieve their necessities: such are the men who will stand by you forever. (p.228)
However, in ‘defending the cause of the oppressed,’ Shelley’s ‘practice of speaking the truth’ is strangely misdirected. While he wants ‘to teach the lessons of virtue to those who grind their fellow beings into worse than annihilation,’ it is really only the oppressed to whom he speaks, and in a manner which is terribly condescending. For if only the Irish cared for themselves as much as Shelley does:
I wish you, O Irishmen, to be as careful and thoughtful of your interests as are your real friends. Do not drink, do not play, do not spend any idle time, do not 66 take everything that other people say for granted - there are numbers who will tell you lies to make their own fortunes, you cannot more certainly do good to your own cause, than by defeating the intentions of these men. (p.229)
This then is the ‘rational means of remedy’ that Shelley offers the Irish poor: that ‘habits of SOBRIETY, REGULARITY, and THOUGHT must be entered into, and firmly resolved upon ’:
My warm-hearted friends who meet together to talk of the distresses of your countrymen, until social chat induces you to drink rather freely; as ye have felt passionately, so reason coolly. Nothing hasty can be lasting; lay up the money with which you usually purchase drunkenness and ill-health, to relieve the pains of your fellow-sufferers. (p.226)
In short, they are to reform themselves if they are to shake off the oppressor. Indeed, through the course of the Address, the oppressor gets off rather easily, as Shelley aims instead ‘to teach the lessons of virtue’ to the oppressed: Be free and be happy, but first be wise and good. For you are not all wise or good. You are a great and a brave nation, but you cannot yet be all wise or good. You may be at some time, and then Ireland will be an earthly Paradise. (pp.224- 225)
One wonders how these arguments were received by the “wretched many” to whom they were addressed - apparently so dissipated they were unaware of their own condition. If we are to believe Shelley, writing to Hitchener (Feb.27,1812), then the first four hundred of his ‘little pamphlets’ had ‘excited a sensation of wonder in Dublin’ (1965, v.8, p.283)
In ‘defending the cause of the oppressed’ we have seen Shelley’s ‘practice of speaking the truth.’ But what of his ‘rational disdain for danger?’ Well, there is plenty of that too, as Shelley is not averse to representing himself in a somewhat heroic light. To Hitchener (Mar.10,1812), he relates some heroic episodes from his war against oppression:
A poor boy, whom I found starving with his mother in a hiding-place of unutterable filth and misery, whom I rescued, and was about to teach to read, - has been snatched, on a charge of false and villainous effrontery, to a 67 magistrate of Hell, who gave him the alternative of the tender or of military servitude. He preferred neither, yet was compelled to be a soldier. This has come to my knowledge this morning. I am resolved to prosecute this business to the very jaws of Government, snatching ( if possible ) the poison from its fangs. (pp.290-291)
An air of danger surrounds these proceedings as Shelley becomes a first-hand champion of the oppressed. He is one of those who can ‘see what is right and will pursue it’:
A widow-woman with three infants were taken up by two constables. I remonstrated, I pleaded: I was everything my powers could make me. The landlady was overcome. The constable relented: and, when I asked him if he had a heart, he said - “To be sure he had, as well as another man, but - that he was called out to business of this nature sometimes twenty times in a night.” The woman’s crime was stealing a penny loaf. She is, however, drunken, and nothing that I or anyone can do can save her from ultimate ruin and starvation. (p.291)
Quick to lose patience with this wretched state of affairs, in the same letter, Shelley concludes:
I am sick of this city . . . The rich grind the poor into abjectness, and then complain that they are abject. They goad them to famine, and hang them if they steal a loaf. - Well, adieu to this! (p.291)
What then of Shelley’s plan to rescue the ‘poor boy’ from military service, ‘resolved,’ as he was, ‘to prosecute this business to the very jaws of Government . . . ’? Despite his claim to be of those ‘men who will stand by you forever,’ Shelley has, in just over a month, reached the limit of what he can bear on behalf of the Irish poor. Soon after, he writes to Hitchener (April. 16, 1812):
We left Dublin because I had done all that I could do; if its effects were beneficial, they were not greatly so. I am dissatisfied with my success, but not with the attempt. (p.308)
When Shelley says, ‘I am dissatisfied with my success,’ one wonders where the disillusionment lies. Is it that he has failed to benefit the Irish poor to any noticeable extent? Or is it that he has failed to 68 cause the stir he had initially hoped for? In this sense, there would appear to be two sides to Shelley’s rapid disillusionment.
While Shelley did not deliver his Address as such, he did make a speech at Dublin’s Fishamble Street Theatre (Feb.28, 1812). This public appearance managed to raise the ire of only two conservatives - perhaps not quite the stir he was hoping for. Both wrote letters to The Dublin Journal. The first is from ‘An Englishman’ (Mar.7, 1812), who describes Shelley’s speech as ‘a most disgusting harangue from a stripling’ (in Shelley, 1965, v.7, p.321). In Godwin’s novel, St. Leon had met with a similar response:
They could not hear with patience of an upstart, a boy, a stranger, one universally unknown, elbowing out the influence of all that was most illustrious and venerable in the community, and robbing them daily of their adherents and retainers. (Godwin,1994,p.381)
Of the young Shelley, this Englishman writes:
This young gentleman, after stating that he had been only a fortnight in Ireland, expatiated on the miseries which this country endured in consequence of its connexion with his own, and asserted ( from the knowledge, I presume, which his peculiar sagacity enabled him to acquire in so short a period ) that its cities were depopulated, its fields laid waste, and its inhabitants degraded and enslaved; and all this by its union with England. (pp.321-322)
Even before he had delivered his speech, Shelley had complained to Hitchener (Feb.27,1812): ‘My youth is much against me here. Strange that truth should not be judged by its inherent excellence, independent of any reference to the utterer!’ (p.285)
It was not just Shelley’s youth that counted against him however. The second letter to The Dublin Journal (Mar.21,1812) contains a more incisive criticism. It accuses Shelley of chasing notoriety at any cost. The writer is responding not just to Shelley’s speech, but to his literature as well, when he mocks the words of “An Address To The Irish People.” Instead of ‘men who join to a rational disdain of danger, a practice of speaking the truth,’ we find the following:
69 Men there are who, preferring distinction procured by infamy to inglorious obscurity, do not hesitate at the violation of any law, civil or sacred, in order to attain it: swimming at the surface by their own putrescence, these merit not our attention; silence and contempt are all we owe to the individual whose sole ambition is to become the idol of a mob, and who like Herostratus, could fire a temple the wonder of the world, merely for the sake of transmitting to posterity a name which might otherwise rot. (in Shelley, 1965, vol.7, p.323)
Needless to say, Shelley is incredulous at this reception. He writes to Hitchener (Mar.14,1812):
My speech was misinterpreted. I spoke for more than an hour. The hisses with which they greeted me when I spoke of religion, though in terms of respect, were mixed with applause when I avowed my mission. The newspapers have only noted that which did not excite disapprobation. As to an Association, my hopes grow daily fainter on that subject, as my perceptions of its necessity gain strength. (1965, vol.8, p.297)
In all of this, there is perhaps a shadow of St. Leon’s disillusionment:
My interference was spoken of with contempt and execration. For what purpose had I, a foreigner, come into their country, and intruded myself into their affairs? . . . They imputed to me the basest personal motives for what I had done. Under the hypocritical pretence, they cried, of being their benefactor and saviour, I was using them only for my private ends. (Godwin,1994, p.380)
If Shelley was chasing after fame, we can understand his disappointment. Apart from these two letters to The Dublin Journal, his “Address” received only four cursory accounts in the Dublin papers. While they acknowledged his arrival, these reports hardly constitute a memorial. The most flattering was The Weekly Messenger (Mar.7, 1812), which describes the ‘highly interesting appearance of this young gentleman’ as having ‘set curiosity on the wing to ascertain who he is, from whence he comes, and what his pretensions are to the confidence he solicits, and the character he assumes.’ They are pleased to have discovered from a ‘respectable authority’ that ‘his father is a member of the Imperial Parliament, and that this young gentleman, whom we have seen, is the immediate heir of one of the first fortunes in England’ (in Shelley,1965, v.7, p.319). It is an introduction which Shelley, at least to Godwin, would have claimed 70 meant nothing to him, regarding ‘the law of primogeniture an evil of primary magnitude.’
More flattering, perhaps, to Shelley would have been the paper’s acknowledgement of his revolutionary zeal, of ‘the publications which he has circulated with such uncommon industry, through the Metropolis . . . ’ (p.319) Of this activity, Shelley writes to Hitchener (Feb.27,1812):
Congratulate me, my friend, for everything proceeds well; I could not expect more rapid success . . . I send a man out every day to distribute copies, with instructions how and where to give them. His accounts correspond with the multitudes of people who possess them. I stand at the balcony of our window, and watch till I see a man who looks likely . . . I throw a book to him. (1965, v.8, pp.283-284)
While The Weekly Messenger is aware of this activity (perhaps from the same ‘respectable authority’), the literature made next to no impression, despite the ‘uncommon industry’ with which it was distributed.
Shelley’s wife at the time, Harriet, provides another perspective on the episode, including her version of events in the same letter:
I’m sure you would laugh were you to see us give the pamphlets. We throw them out of our window, and give them to men that we pass in the streets. For myself I am ready to die of laughter when it is done, but Percy looks so grave, yesterday he put one into a woman’s hood of a cloak. She knew nothing of it, and we passed her. I could hardly get on, my muscles were so irritated. (p.286)
The gravity of Shelley, in the midst of his own whirlwind, betrays the extent to which he had become the persecuted Wanderer of his imagination. It was, however, indifference rather than persecution that Shelley found in Ireland.
In the end, it was easier for Shelley to move on, and to represent his retreat, to Godwin, as the result of righteous indignation: ‘I have seen and heard enough to make me doubt the omnipotence of truth in a society so constituted as that wherein we live’ (p.302). Neither Godwin nor the concerned correspondent to The Dublin 71 Journal need have feared the bloodbath which this ‘Herostratus’ might have caused. An air of indifference from his audience is enough to see Shelley retreating from his hastily arranged campaign.
To Godwin, it seems, he owes an apology (Mar.18,1812): ‘My schemes of organizing the ignorant I confess to be ill-timed.’ But the apology is not devoid of an impassioned qualification:
It is indescribably painful to contemplate beings capable of soaring to the heights of science, with Newton and Locke, without attempting to awaken them from a state of lethargy so opposite. The part of this city called the Liberty, exhibits a spectacle of squalidness and misery, such as might reasonably excite impatience in a cooler temperament than mine. But I submit; I shall address myself no more to the illiterate. (p.301)
While Shelley may have selected ‘Ireland as a theatre, the widest and fairest, for the operations of the determined friend of religious and political freedom,’ his appearance upon that stage was barely noticed, least of all by the ‘illiterate’ and “ignorant” to whom he was appealing.
In Godwin’s novel, St. Leon had been faced with a similar dilemma: ‘What if those I served and saved did not show themselves sufficiently sensible to the exertions I made for them?’ (1994, p.383) Shelley’s real-life response is to withdraw from the situation, disheartened, disillusioned, yet still wanting to see himself in the grand light of the Wanderer’s immortality:
I will look to events in which it will be impossible that I can share, and make myself the cause of an effect which will take place ages after I have mouldered in the dust; I need not observe that this resolve requires stoicism. (p.301)
This was, perhaps, the kind of ‘stoicism’ which St. Leon had learnt in Hungary:
He that would assist mankind in their adversity, must harden his heart to be the spectator of the distress that he can, and that he cannot, relieve. (Godwin,1994, p.393)
Indeed, Shelley became a ‘spectator of the distress’ that he could not relieve. His real disappointment however, springs from the fact that he 72 would rather be seen than be a spectator of anything. An ‘inglorious obscurity’ was not the immortality this Wanderer was searching for.
Even still, as a type of the immortal Wanderer, to which he seems to have aspired, the young Shelley is somewhat low on staying power. While he may ‘feel for the unfortunate,’ he is unable or unwilling to sustain the burden for too long. Upon leaving Ireland, Shelley may even have shared the lament of St. Leon:
Sometimes, in the bitterness of my heart, hating myself, hating the endowments of the stranger, hating a race of beings who denied all credit to the most unheard of exertions for their advantage, I determined to withdraw unobserved from my attendants and clients, and bid adieu to Hungary for ever. (p.383) Ireland was a stage upon which Shelley could make his public debut, the ‘proper scene’ in which a young aristocrat could prove his worthiness to Godwin. Thankfully, when the applause was not forthcoming, he could withdraw from the stage, barely observed, to pursue a more lasting notoriety. But the pursuit of this worthiness, egocentric as it may have been, was perhaps in part an attempt to shed the guilt-burden of a privileged background. Mary Shelley, remembering her husband, wrote in 1839:
‘Many advantages attended his birth; he spurned them all when balanced with what he considered his duties.’ (in Shelley,1912, p.x)
73 Chapter 3
Wordsworth’s “Poet-Wanderer”
If there is a burden of guilt to be borne by the relatively privileged, then Wordsworth is one writer of the period who gives his own personal expression of this weight; and he does so through the figure of the Wanderer. Though no aristocrat himself, Wordsworth views his privilege primarily in terms of the poetic vocation: a task which he persuades himself is different from yet no less worthy than physical labour. The Poet feels privileged in this role and yet, as we shall see, it is a position which entails a certain degree of guilt. Wordsworth’s poetic vocation remains a source of some anxiety, so long as he postpones or does not perform his solemn duty.
It is from what could be called a “nagging sense of privilege” that Wordsworth’s Poet-Wanderer is born. We can trace the development of this figure as it emerges, first of all, from The Prelude, in response to the weight of conscience that Wordsworth feels. (I have chosen the 1805 text of The Prelude as being representative of Wordsworth’s views during this period.) As a poet, Wordsworth does not suffer beneath the burden of physical labour, but he is more than willing, in the guise of a wanderer to shoulder his share of ‘the weight / Of that injustice which upon ourselves / By composition of society / Ourselves entail’ (Wordsworth, 1970, pp.220-221). By joining the two roles, and imaging himself as a Poet-Wanderer, he creates a character who responds dutifully to the voice of conscience, transforming his guilt-burden into worthy labour.
A Nagging Sense of Privilege
In the 1800 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth is anxious to ‘be protected from the most dishonorable accusation which can be brought against any Author, namely:
74 . . . that of an indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to ascertain what is his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained prevents him from performing it.’ (Wordsworth,1963, p.244 )
Before the Poet can perform ‘his duty’, he must first ‘ascertain’ or invent what ‘his duty is.’ To this end, The Prelude may be read as Wordsworth himself describes it in the Preface to The Excursion (1814), as ‘the history of the Author’s mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself’ (1949, v. 5, p.2). As an autobiographical work, The Prelude emerges from Wordsworth’s own deep sense of duty - from a burden of conscience which is associated with privilege. It is through this work that he finds his ‘arduous labour,’ a burden which can only be sustained by one figure - the Wanderer.
Searching for inspiration, in Book 1 of The Prelude, Wordsworth is ‘Like a false steward who hath much received / And renders nothing back’ (1970, p.8, ll.270-271). This nagging sense of privilege, a sense of being favoured by Nature, will ultimately provide him with an impetus to create. Correspondingly, the failure to undertake his self-proposed employment is viewed as a failure to fulfil the terms of a social obligation:
Thus from day to day I live, a mockery of the brotherhood Of vice and virtue, with no skill to part . . . (ll. 238-240)
Because the Poet’s ‘pursuits and labours lay / Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even / perhaps to necessary maintenance,’ (Book 13, ll.355- 356) he is a burden to others unless he creates a useful product - poetry with purpose. Of Wordsworth’s poems in the Lyrical Ballads, we are told ‘that each of them has a worthy purpose.’ And furthermore: ‘If in this opinion I am mistaken I can have little right to the name of a Poet’ (1963, p.246 ). Self-consciously addressing himself to Nature, Wordsworth cries: ‘. . . can I think / A vulgar hope was yours when Ye employ’d / Such ministry . . .’ (Book 1, ll. 492-494) Gratitude itself is not an adequate response to such a blessing, ‘Such ministry.’ But this humble self- reproach is largely rhetorical, as much an attempt to justify his poetic 75 vocation to the reader as to himself. To that end, the Poet must appear anxious to serve. Recoiling, however, from his responsibility, ‘this awful burthen ’(l.235), he describes the following temptation:
- Ah! better far than this, to stray about Voluptuously through fields and rural walks, And ask no record of the hours, given up To vacant musing, unreprov’d neglect Of all things, and deliberate holiday. (ll. 252-256)
Having in vain examined himself for more worthy excuses, Wordsworth is led to confess:
Humility and modest awe themselves Betray me, serving often for a cloak To a more subtle selfishness, that now Doth lock my functions up in blank reserve . . . (ll. 245-248)
It is a rhetoric of guilt and confession, here used to portray the Poet’s struggle to create ‘honorable toil’ for himself. The indolence which Wordsworth describes as ‘subtle selfishness’ is clearly a source of guilt, a guilt which spurs him to the completion of a task which is self- proposed.
With this half-guilty awareness of himself as a ‘favor’d Being’ Wordsworth is prompted, in Book Twelve, to reflect: ‘What one is, / Why may not many be? What bars are thrown / By Nature in the way of such a hope?’ (ll. 91-93) He feels his apartness from those who live ‘By bodily labour, labour far exceeding / Their due proportion . . . ’ (ll. 101-102) For this he can be duly thankful: ‘But doubly fortunate my lot . . . that something of a better life / Perhaps was round me than it is the privilege / Of most to move in . . .’ (Book 8, ll. 447-450) And yet, being aware of this separateness, he cannot comfortably accept his position of relative privilege. It may be, from his perspective, naturally endowed, but it remains an ‘injustice’ nonetheless, that the many should labour so ‘under all the weight / Of that injustice which upon ourselves / By composition of society / Ourselves entail’ (Book 12, ll. 102-105).
There is, in this sense, a larger social injustice for which privileged society is collectively responsible. But how is that 76 responsibility to be felt, as such, by the seemingly innocent individual? Wordsworth is able to feel the weight of oppression as a kind of guilt-burden, a nagging sense of his own privilege. He points to social inequality through an imbalance of labour and recognizes ‘that injustice which’ [we] ‘upon ourselves’ entail. Of course, one need not be an aristocrat to have an awareness of one’s relative privilege. In his “Conciones ad Populum” Coleridge observes:
Society as at present constituted does not resemble a chain that ascends in a continuity of Links. - There are three ranks possessing an intercourse with each other: these are well comprized in the superscription of a Perfumer’s advertisement, which I lately saw - “the Nobility, Gentry, and People of Dress.” But alas! between the Parlour and the Kitchen, the Tap and the Coffee-Room - there is a gulph that may not be passed. (1970-2001, v.1, p.43)
For Coleridge, as for Wordsworth, there is a sharp divide between the genteel and the wretched; and it is enough to know which side of the ‘gulph that may not be passed’ one is on. Implicitly then, the ‘Ourselves’ to whom Wordsworth attributes the injustice of society are the privileged few - the genteel with whom he, not without some unease, innocently belongs.
In the depiction of his sojourn in revolutionary France, Wordsworth betrays this unsettling sense of difference, an awareness of the ‘gulph that may not be passed.’ There, he is drawn toward ‘the formal haunts of Men / Whom in the City privilege of birth / Sequestr’d from the rest’ (Book 9, ll. 116-118). His sympathy may be ‘Given to the People’ (l.126) but his genteelness isolates him from them. He finds that he naturally falls in with the Royalist camp because of ‘that indulgence which a half-learn’d speech / Wins from the courteous . . .’ Furthermore, he must acknowledge that ‘I who had been else / Shunn’d and not tolerated freely lived / With these Defenders of the Crown . . .’ ( ll.195- 198) To be ‘Shunn’d and not tolerated’ by the many with whom his sympathy lies is like a reproach from the other side of the social divide.
The Poet knows all too well on which side of the ‘gulf’ he belongs. Being apart from the ‘action and suffering’ of the many gives him an anxious sense of his own privileged difference. In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads we are reminded of this “separateness”: 77
However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of a Poet it is obvious, that, while he describes and imitates passions, his situation is altogether slavish and mechanical, compared with the freedom and power of real and substantial action and suffering. (1963, p.256 )
There is, of course, a rhetoric of humility operating here. Nevertheless, the sense of being apart from ‘real and substantial action and suffering’ may be a genuinely humbling rather than elevating experience, even perhaps a source of some guilt. The complexity of this feeling can be traced in the poetry of Coleridge as well. Like Wordsworth, the sympathy of Coleridge is with the people, the wretched man, but he is constrained in an actual sense by his difference from them.
In this light, I would like to consider “The Pains of Sleep” (1803), a poem which can be read in the context of widespread rioting - perhaps the most immediate manifestation of social injustice and unrest visible to the relatively privileged individual of the time. Pointing to the occurrence of ‘more than a thousand riots in England and Wales between 1790 and 1810,’ Bohstedt has suggested that rioting was ‘so common as to be commonplace’ (1983, p.5). Coleridge’s poem can be read as an ambiguous personal expression of the Poet’s own sympathetic, rather than actual, role in this widespread social phenomenon. He remains apart from the real ‘action and suffering’ of the riot, but in his troubled social conscience he is right there in the midst of it, guiltily complicit in acts of public outrage.
The Pains of Sleep or the Pains of Conscience?
For the Poet in “The Pains of Sleep,” there is a substantial uneasiness, an obscure unsettling feeling which troubles him. His awakening is described as ‘Up-starting from the fiendish crowd . . .’ (l.16) In his dreaming he has been part of a riotous mob, ‘a trampling throng’ (l.18). He has shared the ‘sense of intolerable wrong’ (l.19) felt by the crowd. But the degree to which he has been with them is disturbingly unclear. It is the ambiguity surrounding his role within the ‘maddening brawl’ that troubles him:
78 Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which all confused I could not know Whether I suffered or I did . . . (Coleridge,1912, p.389, ll.27-29)
The ‘I’ remains ‘all confused’, uncertain of its own participatory status. It is neither wholly sure of itself as a perpetrator, ‘I did’, or as having been acted upon, ‘I suffered.’ Nevertheless, simply by having been involved, it is left to feel strangely complicit and clearly ashamed:
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame. (ll.30-32)
It is an obscure though substantial burden of conscience to bear; for the seemingly innocent individual has entailed upon himself the weight of a much wider social injustice. Whether it is ‘My own or others’ it is ‘still the same . . . soul-stifling shame.’ In other words, it is a collective guilt-burden which the innocent individual cannot disown or shun.
This sounds very much like ‘the weight / Of that injustice which upon ourselves / By composition of society / Ourselves entail.’ In the case of Coleridge’s poem, the allusion is to rioting. As this was a common form of social unrest during the period, it may have provided Coleridge, a relatively privileged individual, with an identifiable role through which he could wrestle with a personal sense of complicity - not in rioting as such, but in the wider injustice ‘which upon ourselves’ we entail.
What Coleridge would appear to have taken from Godwin, among other things, is an enlightened distaste for luxurious wealth. In his “Conciones ad Populum” he saw that ‘Oppression is grievous,’ and furthermore, that ‘the oppressed feel and are restless’; where Godwin had earlier identified, in his Political Justice, the motivations that lay behind that restlessness:
A perpetual struggle with the evils of poverty, if frequently ineffectual, must necessarily render many of the sufferers desperate. A painful feeling of their oppressed situation will itself deprive them of the power of surmounting it. The superiority of the rich, being thus unmercifully exercised, must inevitably expose them to reprisals; and the poor man will be reduced to regard the state of 79 society as a state of war, an unjust combination, not for protecting every man in his rights and securing to him the means of existence, but for engrossing all its advantages to a few favoured individuals, and reserving for the portion of the rest want, dependence and misery. (1976, p.90)
Godwin depicts the constant frustration of the oppressed in their ‘perpetual struggle’ against poverty - a fermenting restlessness which threatens violence. The more they are frustrated by their material circumstances, the more they will resent the ‘superiority of the rich’ and focus their scorn upon those ‘few favoured individuals.’
In “The Pains of Sleep,” Coleridge convincingly portrays this ‘painful feeling’ of powerlessness and the desperate violence which it threatens to unleash:
And whom I scorned, those only strong! Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still! (ll.20-22)
The trigger which will unleash the rioters’ violence is the hateful sight of luxury: ‘Desire with loathing strangely mixed / On wild or hateful objects fixed.’ In his Political Justice, Godwin had made this resentment of property more than understandable:
. . . it is a bitter aggravation of their own calamity, to have the privileges of others forced on their observation, and, while they are perpetually and vainly endeavouring to secure for themselves and their families the poorest conveniences, to find others revelling in the fruits of their labours. (1971, p.91)
To a sympathetic observer like Coleridge, this feeling of resentment may be understandable, but what view should he adopt in regard to the actual violence which results from it? Perhaps on a subconscious level, “The Pains of Sleep” deals with this dilemma.
On the wider question of social upheaval the position of Coleridge is reasonably clear, illustrated here in his half-way attitude toward the French Revolution:
The Example of France is indeed a “Warning to Britain.” A Nation wading to their Rights through Blood, and marking the track of Freedom by Devastation! . . . 80 French Freedom is the Beacon, which while it guides to Equality, should show us the Dangers that throng the road. (1970-2001, v.1, pp.33-34 )
In his “Conciones ad Populum” he supports the abstract cause of ‘Equality’ through ‘Freedom,’ but the adoption of violent means to bring about that equality is denounced. However, this is revolution: a form of social upheaval with an ideological motivation. What of rioting though, in which the people’s motives may be less profound though no less justified?
There is no explicit denunciation of rioting in Coleridge’s early work. However, we can trace a marked empathy with the resentment of property. For example, in the Introductory Address to his “Conciones ad Populum” he quotes the following passage from “Brissot’s Travels in America”:
Let me penetrate into the interior of your House. What! . . . I penetrate a little further; - your ceilings are gilded - magnificent Vases adorn your Chimney-Pieces - I walk upon the richest Carpets - the most costly Wines, the most exquisite Dishes, cover your Table - a crowd of Servants surround it - you treat them with haughtiness; - No! you are not a Patriot. (1970-2001, v.1, p.47 )
To this charge, Coleridge anticipates a self-justificatory reply, a liberal voice of privilege, to which he then responds:
But you plead, it seems, for equalization, of Rights , not of Condition . O mockery! All that can delight the poor man’s senses or strengthen his understanding, you preclude; yet with generous condescension you would bid him exclaim “LIBERTY and EQUALITY!” because, forsooth, he should possess the same Right to an Hovel which you claim to a Palace. (p.48)
The target here is the intellectual egalitarian, one who would espouse abstract notions of equality without surrendering his substantial material advantages.
This radical denunciation of privilege sits rather ambiguously in the context of an address where violence is deplored as a means of enacting social change. For, Coleridge is calling for an actual dispersal of material wealth, and in his desire for an immediate equality of material conditions he reveals himself as a leveller: 81
Oppression is grievous - the oppressed feel and are restless. Such things may happen. We cannot therefore inculcate on the minds of each other too often or with too great earnestness the necessity of cultivating benevolent affections. (1971, p.48 )
In other words, if the ‘benevolent affections’ of the privileged classes do not materialize, so to speak, then something like revolution or rioting will occur. One way or another, actual levelling will take place.
The sleeper in Coleridge’s poem may feel guilty for having acted on his resentment of property; understandable, if he is one like Coleridge, for whom violence is deplored as a means of enacting social equality. But Coleridge also charged the privileged classes with the duty of an actual dispersal of their material advantages. And here, in “The Pains of Sleep,” he is guiltily complicit in the desecration of property. Of course, a desire for equality and a resentment of property are not the same thing. So perhaps it is the half-guilt born from being a leveller-at-heart, accusing him of complicity in acts of public outrage, that is surfacing now in his troubled dreams.
At the end of the poem, despite having shirked any direct responsibility, the Poet is left feeling just as guilty and shameful as if he had been directly responsible. That Coleridge himself has some difficulty in accepting this guilt may be seen in the ambiguity of his role as a rioter, a role which he ultimately rejects. The dilemma, then, is how to account for this feeling which cannot be removed, only shunned or repressed, as it is at the poem’s conclusion.
In a defensive response to the dilemma, Coleridge portrays himself as a suffering innocent. The dream recurs and intensifies until:
The third night, when my own loud scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O’ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child. (ll.37-40)
Weeping now, as though he ‘had been a child,’ the Poet has become relatively innocent. That he should be burdened with ‘sufferings strange and wild’ seems rather unfair. It is a weight upon his conscience that 82 is unjustly disproportionate to whatever role he may have played in the collective wrong-doing:
Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin . . . But wherefore, wherefore fall on me? (ll.43-50)
In doubly protesting his innocence - ‘wherefore, wherefore fall on me?’ - the Poet perhaps betrays an anxious sense that he is not so innocent after all. It is the unsettled response of a seemingly innocent individual to the collective guilt-burden.
The intensity with which the ‘I’ felt its complicity in the second stanza is hereby shunned, as the poem concludes with a protest of unmistakable innocence: Such griefs with such men well agree But wherefore, wherefore fall on me? To be beloved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed. (ll.49-52)
Here, the Poet retires into a privileged circle, an exclusive arrangement in which he knows and is known by the beloved. And, as love covers over a multitude of sins - ‘I love, I love indeed’ - he is more than anxious not to be ‘stained with sin’ for the guilt and ‘griefs’ which plague others. Finally, the Poet turns away from the faceless many with their ‘sufferings strange and wild.’
After a brief excursion into the world of the wretched many, Coleridge returns to the world of the privileged few. However, due to his rhetorical insistence it all sounds rather forced, as though conscience were being placed to one side for the moment, with the Poet not entirely convinced of his innocence. In other words, the question, ‘But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?’ still lingers, and the nagging sense of privilege remains. Although in “The Pains of Sleep” Coleridge remains uneasy with this weight upon his conscience, he ultimately rejects the guilt-burden associated with his privilege. He does not, like Wordsworth, go on to become the Poet-Wanderer - a figure who can, in theory at least, sustain this burden.
83 Creating the Poet-Wanderer
The Prelude is where Wordsworth formulates a role for himself as the Poet-Wanderer, an ‘arduous labour’ which he regards as his calling. Firstly, he recognizes even from his youth a wandering propensity which he has carried with him into young adulthood: ‘A favourite pleasure hath it been with me, / From time of earliest youth, to walk alone / Along the public Way . . . ’(Book 4, ll. 363-365) This favourite pleasure of the young Wordsworth provides an inkling of what the maturing Poet will become. So it is that he describes the lure of the ‘public Way,’ with its irresistible calling upon his life: I love a public road: few sights there are That please me more; such object hath had power O’er my imagination since the dawn Of childhood, when its disappearing line, Seen daily afar off, on one bare steep Beyond the limits which my feet had trod Was like a guide into eternity, At least to things unknown and without bound. (Book 12, ll.145-152)
In this prophetic vision of his own self-development, the ‘public road’ points to greater things for the Poet. It is here along this ‘guide into eternity’ that Wordsworth is to meet with types of the figure whom he is to become - the Wanderer who has always possessed his imagination. He speaks of ‘the grandeur which invests’ the ‘Wanderers of the Earth’:
Grandeur as much, and loveliness far more; Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites, From many other uncouth Vagrants pass’d In fear, have walk’d with quicker step; but why Take note of this? (Book 12, ll.153-160)
The ‘Wanderers of the Earth’, in whatever guise, are sublime beings - a privileged class to whom Wordsworth, with his own wandering propensity, would appear to belong. But ‘why take note of this (ll.160- 161)?’ he asks, before elucidating here in Book 12 the type he is to become.
84 As a Poet, Wordsworth is to be a special type of Wanderer, one with a solemn duty to perform. The Poet, in Wordsworth’s conception of that role, is one who must employ his talents to a worthy end. No longer then may he ‘stray about . . . Voluptuously through fields . . . given up / To vacant musing . . . and deliberate holiday’ (Book 1, ll. 252-256). Rather, his meanderings should take an honourable and purposeful direction. Even still, Wordsworth must fulfil the prophetic vision given to him during one of these youthful jaunts:
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit. On I walk’d In blessedness, which even yet remains. ( Book 4, ll.341-345 )
As long as he walks with purpose, as a ‘dedicated Spirit’, the Poet may employ his ‘favourite pleasure’ in ‘blessedness.’ However, if he meanders self-indulgently and does not pursue his calling he will be ‘sinning greatly.’ And so, after making this poignant resolution, on he ‘walk’d / In blessedness’ to become the Poet-Wanderer, a ‘dedicated Spirit.’
It is through his ‘wanderings’ that Wordsworth discovers the terms of his employment. To better understand what his ‘sinning greatly’ might be, we can trace the task which is given to him or, rather, which he defines for himself:
When I began to inquire, To watch and question those I met, and held Familiar talk with them, the lonely roads Were schools to me in which I daily read With most delight the passions of mankind, There saw into the depth of human souls, Souls that appear to have no depth at all To vulgar eyes. (Book 12,ll. 161-168)
It is on ‘the lonely roads’ that Wordsworth discovers his poetic sensibility, a depth of perception which is unavailable ‘To vulgar eyes.’ On one level, this confirms Wordsworth in the sense of himself as a ‘favor’d being’, but it also reveals the direction that his calling is to 85 take. For it is ‘the depth of human souls,’ the stories of those whom he meets, tales ‘From mouths of lowly men and of obscure ’(l.182), that will provide him with the necessary materials for his labour.
To this end, an excursion along ‘the public Way’ is a chance for Wordsworth to reflect upon what he has heard - stories ‘to make / The imagination restless’ - and to collect new materials to brood upon:
But images of danger and distress, And suffering, these took deepest hold of me, Man suffering among awful Powers, and Forms; Of this I saw and heard enough to make The imagination restless; nor was free Myself from frequent perils; nor were tales Wanting, the tragedies of former times, Or hazards and escapes, which in my walks I carried with me among crags and woods And mountains . . . ( Book 8, ll.211-220 )
Above all, it is the stories of ‘Man suffering’ which take ‘deepest hold’ of Wordsworth. In these he finds a source of feeling which, as a Poet, he would try to communicate. Deeply affected by what he hears, the Poet-Wanderer is to become a collator and relator of stories.
In Book 7, Wordsworth portrays the power of the individual story of suffering, and how its significance is first revealed to him. During a first visit to London, he is ‘smitten with the view / Of a blind Beggar, who, with upright face, Stood propp’d against a wall . . .’ (ll.612-613) It is not, however, the wretchedness of the figure that strikes him so much as the story that lies behind. For the Poet sees ‘upon his Chest’ that he is ‘Wearing a written paper, to explain / The story of the Man, and who he was.’ Wordsworth then describes the affecting power of this scenario:
My mind did at this spectacle turn round As with the might of waters, and it seemed To me that in this label was a type, Or emblem, of the utmost that we know, Both of ourselves and of the universe; 86 And, on the shape of the unmoving man, His fixed face and sightless eyes, I look’d As if admonish’d from another world. (ll.616-623)
To a Poet searching for inspiration, here is the very material with which to shape his endeavours. He has, in a sense, been given a task to perform, ‘As if admonish’d from another world,’ vouchsafed with the highest form of knowledge, ‘the utmost that we know / Both of ourselves and of the universe.’ In a single story, Wordsworth finds ‘a type’ which offers an insight into greater truths. If an individual story of suffering carries this much power, how much greater must the effect be when such tales are multiplied.
To that end, Wordsworth finds the vast metropolis of London, with its history of ongoing suffering, to be quite overwhelming. Here, he is overcome with ‘a sense / Of what had been here done, and suffer’d here / Through ages, and was doing, suffering . . .’ He describes this as a feeling which ‘still / Weigh’d with me, could support the test of thought, / Was like the enduring majesty and power / Of independent nature’ (Book 8, ll.781-786). The weight which Wordsworth describes is not an insupportable burden for the Poet to carry. Rather, it is inspirational because it points to ‘the enduring majesty and power / Of independent nature,’ and how an individual may bear the weight of great suffering.
By wandering through London, Wordsworth becomes laden with the burden of sufferings which are not his own. He movingly describes the moment when this weight comes upon him. After moving through ‘The labyrinth of suburban villages’ with ‘vulgar men about me, vulgar forms / Of houses, pavement, streets, of men and things,’ he comes ‘To enter the great City’ and is suddenly struck upon the ‘threshold’:
A weight of Ages did at once descend Upon my heart; no thought embodied, no Distinct remembrances; but weight and power, Power growing with the weight: alas! I feel That I am trifling: ‘twas a moment’s pause. All that took place within me, came and went As in a moment, and I only now Remember that it was a thing divine. (ll.703-710) 87
If only, then, Wordsworth could harness the ‘weight and power’ of the burden which he feels as a Wanderer, to employ it in the service of his role as a Poet.
It is through his ‘wanderings’ that Wordsworth uncovers the monster of oppression, not from reading Godwin, as Coleridge had done, but by feeling deeply the imbalance of society:
Yes, in those wanderings deeply did I feel How we mislead each other, above all How books mislead us, looking for their fame To judgments of the wealthy Few, who see By artificial lights, how they debase The Many for the pleasure of those few. ( Book 12, ll. 205-210 )
Wordsworth speaks collectively of how as a society we have been misled. In the mechanics of oppression, ‘the Many’ are debased for the pleasure of ‘the wealthy Few.’ But because we ‘mislead each other’ so, oppression is something which we may fail to recognize and fail to see our complicity in, unless we feel it upon our conscience. It is a truth which has to be felt; and the Poet-Wanderer can lead us in this direction.
Sensitive to the suffering of others, he begins to feel the weight of a vast injustice, of an ‘oppression worse than death.’ What Wordsworth would appear to feel above all else, is the imbalance of labour, an imbalance to which he innocently contributes. When he sees the Many living ‘By bodily labour, labour far exceeding / Their due proportion, under all the weight / Of that injustice . . .’ he perceives that here is ‘where oppression worse than death / Salutes the Being at his birth’ (ll.194-195). Why then should he be set apart by Nature as a ‘favor’d Being’?:
Why is this glorious Creature to be found One only in ten thousand? What one is, Why may not many be? What bars are thrown By Nature in the way of such a hope? (Book 12, ll.90-93)
88 We could answer, with Godwin, that privilege itself, in whatever form, is the ‘insurmountable barrier’ which bars equality, not Nature. And Wordsworth is able to feel the guilt of his own privilege in the imbalance of labour which he observes. If Wordsworth can communicate this feeling to us he may be able to burden our conscience, not with a debilitating guilt, but with ‘The hope that justice may be done’ (l.236).
The Poet will draw on the materials he has collected as a Wanderer to give us (the reader) the same insight into oppression that he has received . He knows it is the stories of ‘Man suffering’ which will affect the reader because these, in turn, are what took ‘deepest hold’ of him through his own ‘wanderings.’ To that end, the tales he has heard ‘From mouths of lowly men and of obscure’ (l.182) may serve to illustrate ‘How oft high service is perform’d within, / When all the external man is rude in shew’ (ll.226-227). Only the Poet can offer us this insight, because he sees ‘into the depth of human souls, / Souls that appear to have no depth at all / To vulgar eyes’ (ll.166-168). Thus, Wordsworth can direct our sympathy toward the wretched by telling us their untold story. By giving us an insight into the lives of the lowly he would, in effect, persuade us to feel for them.
The Prelude (1805), then, is where Wordsworth formulates this task for himself as the Poet-Wanderer. He must go on to perform his solemn duty; otherwise he would be ‘sinning greatly.’ But the pledge remains an unpublished promise, so to speak. It is not until the publication of The Excursion (1814) that Wordsworth emerges as the Wanderer to attempt his scheme of enlightenment. When he does so, the strategy takes on epic proportions, even as Wordsworth himself borrows ‘something of the grandeur which invests . . . the Wanderers of the Earth’ (The Prelude, Book 12, ll.153-156).
An Excursion with Wordsworth as the Wanderer
In The Excursion we see a wanderer-figure fulfilling the vows which had been pledged for him in The Prelude:
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows 89 Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated spirit. (The Prelude,Book 4,ll.334-337 )
We have already considered what this ‘sinning greatly’ might be, as in Wordsworth’s conception of the Poet there is a social obligation to perform worthy labour. It is not enough to simply indulge one’s ‘favourite pleasure’ and wander ‘Along the public Way.’ So it is, that the Wanderer in The Excursion commits himself to an honourable task:
“Even,” said the Wanderer, “as that courteous Knight, Bound by his vow to labour for redress Of all who suffer wrong, and to enact By sword and lance the law of gentleness, (If I may venture of myself to speak, Trusting that not incongruously I blend Low things with lofty) I too shall be doomed To outlive the kindly use and fair esteem Of the poor calling which my youth embraced With no unworthy prospect.” (Wordsworth, 1949, Book 7, ll.1041-1050)
The Wanderer is more than anxious - ‘If I may venture of myself to speak’ - to be seen in the same ‘lofty’ light as the champions of old; for theirs was honourable toil, ‘ . . . to labour for redress / Of all who suffer wrong . . . ’ It is ‘not incongruously’ then that Wordsworth persuades us to make this comparison with his own ‘poor calling.’
This recalls, from The Prelude, Wordsworth’s youthful anxiety over the value of his poetic vocation. Here, in The Excursion, the mature Poet remains ‘Bound by his vow’ there given, reminding us self- consciously of the value of his work: ‘Tears wipe away, and pleasant tidings bring; / Could the proud quest of chivalry do more?’ (ll.80-81) And the ‘lofty’ comparison continues, with a reminder of the ‘burthen’ that such a one must bear:
Yet, by the good Knight’s leave, the two estates Are graced with some resemblance. Errant those, Exiles and wanderers - and the like are these; Who, with their burthen, traverse hill and dale, 90 Carrying relief for nature’s simple wants. (Book 8, ll.44-48)
Only ‘Carrying relief for nature’s simple wants,’ Wordsworth’s Wanderer readily accepts the ‘burthen’ of his calling, ‘to labour for redress / Of all who suffer wrong . . . ’ which, as he would persuade us, is no small feat. How then does a wandering poet enact this justice? What the ‘courteous Knight’ performed ‘By sword and lance,’, the Wanderer achieves by words: ‘- By these Itinerants, as experienced men, / Counsel is given; contention they appease / With gentle language . . .’ (ll.77-79). It is important, then, that the champion of Wordsworth’s text is, like Wordsworth himself, a Poet, and not just a Wanderer.
To Wordsworth, the roles of Wanderer and Poet are closely related; so much so in this text, that they converge in the self-image of Wordsworth as the Poet-Wanderer. We read, for instance, how the Wanderer is himself a type of Poet, an unfulfilled one at that:
Oh! many are the Poets that are sown By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, (Which, in the docile season of their youth, It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and the inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe, Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame ) Nor having e’er, as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favoured Beings, All but a scattered few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, And go to the grave, unthought of. (Book 1, ll.77-91)
These ‘favoured Beings’ are all too humble with their ‘nice backwardness of shame.’ They have the souls of poets and, indeed, could have become like Wordsworth. Such is the Wanderer, the central character in The Excursion, of whom we are given an ‘unproclaimed’ eulogy by the Author:
Strongest minds 91 Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this Man had not left his graces unrevealed and unproclaimed. But, as the mind was filled with inward light, So not without distinction had he lived, Beloved and honoured - far as he was known. And some small portion of his eloquent speech, And something that may serve to set in view The feeling pleasures of his loneliness, His observations, and the thoughts his mind Had dealt with - I will here record in verse . . . (ll.91-102)
The overbearing humility of the rhetoric reveals this as a less than modest appraisal of the work and its Author. The Wanderer’s ‘eloquent speech,’ of which ‘some small portion’ the Author ‘will here record in verse,’ is the poetry of Wordsworth, who would rather not ‘go to the grave, unthought of.’
There are four characters in The Excursion, but Wordsworth aligns himself with ‘the principal one, the Wanderer.’ In his Notes to the poem, he writes:
At all events, I am here called upon freely to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances. (1949, p.373)
To that end, The Excursion reveals the self-image of Wordsworth that he was most pleased to adopt and to present to the public in published form. It is also, perhaps, Wordsworth at his most egocentric.
In Book 1, the Author gives us an account of the Wanderer’s ‘education and course of life,’ which recalls the development of the young Wordsworth in The Prelude:
And thus before his eighteenth year was told, Accumulated feelings pressed his heart With still increasing weight; he was o’erpowered By Nature; by the turbulence subdued Of his own mind; by mystery and hope, And the first virgin passion of a soul 92 Communing with the glorious universe. (ll.280-286)
Here, the Wanderer shares with the Poet that sense of being set-apart ‘By Nature’ with a deep-feeling soul, ‘The vision and the faculty divine.’ Likewise, both have been blessed with the same wandering propensity. It is little wonder that the Author then finds his friend ‘alone / And stationed in the public way, with face / Turned toward the sun then setting . . . ’ (ll.38-40)
The Wanderer is the perfect travelling companion for this journey, because he is simply a self-image of the Author :
What wonder, then, if I, whose favourite school Hath been the fields, the roads, and rural lanes, Looked on this guide with reverential love? (Book ll, ll.28-30)
Having exchanged mutual admiration, their excursion begins:
Each with the other pleased, we now pursued Our journey, under favourable skies. Turn wheresoe’er we would, he was a light Unfailing: not a hamlet could we pass, Rarely a house, that did not yield to him Remembrances; or from his tongue call forth Some way-beguiling tale. (Book l, ll.31-37)
Along the way they are joined by two other characters: the Solitary and the Pastor. It is, however, the Wanderer who dominates and guides proceedings. Encouraged by the Author, he indulges his ‘favourite pleasure’ on something of a grand scale for our moral benefit. Of course, he cannot help but perform the role for which ‘by nature tuned’ he has been called. To this end, he gladly shoulders his burden.
It is primarily with the ‘way-beguiling tale’ that the Wanderer enacts his solemn duty. His own life and previous ‘steady course’ are of little consequence to proceedings. Nevertheless, his emptiness is important in terms of the feeling function he performs. He is ripe, so to speak, for carrying a burden. To that end, the Author describes, or rather creates, an ideal empty vessel: 93
In his steady course, No piteous revolutions had he felt, No wild varieties of joy and grief. Unoccupied by sorrow of its own, His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned And constant disposition of his thoughts To sympathy with man, he was alive To all that was enjoyed where’er he went, And all that was endured; for, in himself Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness, He had no painful pressure from within That made him turn aside from wretchedness With coward fears. He could afford to suffer With those whom he saw suffer. (Book 1,ll.358-371)
Having never in the ‘steady course’ of his own life been deeply affected with ‘piteous revolutions’ or ‘wild varieties of joy and grief,’ the Wanderer has a much greater capacity now for sympathetic suffering. This is why ‘He could afford to suffer / With those whom he saw suffer.’ ‘His heart lay open’ like a book, as it were, just waiting to be filled with the stories of others.
The Wanderer is ‘like a Being made / Of many Beings ’(Book 1, ll.430-431); a site through which the stories of others are related. As an empty vessel himself, he provides an excellent storehouse for their tales. Furthermore, with the talents of a Poet, he can relate their untold story of suffering in a pathetic voice for our sympathetic ears. The word ‘afford’ is italicized by Wordsworth, so there can be no mistaking the Wanderer’s vast capacity for suffering. Surely, as ‘he could afford to suffer,’ it would be ‘sinning greatly’ for one like this to not perform what he, as a ‘favoured Being’, could so easily achieve. With the guilt- burden of privilege upon him then, the Wanderer takes up his toil.
The Author, upon first meeting up with the Wanderer, is treated to the story of Margaret - a pathetic tale first conceived by Wordsworth in shorter form as a separate poem, “The Ruined Cottage.” It is this 94 that the Author sees when first he sets out with the Wanderer ‘Upon the public way’:
He, at the word, Pointing towards a sweet-briar, bade me climb The fence where that aspiring shrub looked out Upon the public way. It was a plot Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds Marked with the steps of those . . . (ll.450-455)
The Author sees a ruined cottage and garden, whereas the Wanderer can see much more:
Thus did he speak. “I see around me here Things which you cannot see: we die, my Friend, Nor we alone, but that which each man loved And prized in his peculiar nook of earth Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon Even of the good is no memorial left.” (ll.469-474)
Like the Poet in The Prelude, the Wanderer here sees what is not available ‘To vulgar eyes’. Along these lines, it is the Wanderer’s task to reveal the untold story of suffering, where there is ‘no memorial left’:
“I speak,” continued he, “of One whose stock Of virtues bloomed beneath this lowly roof. She was a Woman of a steady mind, Tender and deep in her excess of love.” (ll.511-514)
Margaret’s humble story is an example of the ‘tale of honour’ which, as we recall from The Prelude, can be gathered ‘From mouths of lowly men and of obscure’ in order to show ‘How oft high service is perform’d within, / When all the external man is rude in shew.’ By recounting her tale in a deeply affecting manner, the Wanderer makes the Author feel something for an obscure personage of whom otherwise there would be ‘no memorial left’:
95 He had rehearsed Her homely tale with such familiar power, With such an active countenance, an eye So busy, that the things of which he spake Seemed present; and, attention now relaxed, A heart-felt chillness crept along my veins. (ll.614-619)
The Author, already deeply affected, begs the Wanderer to ‘resume his story.’ But first we receive a warning:
He replied, “It were a wantonness, and would demand Severe reproof, if we were men whose hearts Could hold vain dalliance with the misery Even of the dead; contented thence to draw A momentary pleasure, never marked By reason, barren of all future good.” (ll.625-631)
We may ask just what is the ‘future good’ to be gained from recounting ‘the misery / Even of the dead’? If we recall that it was the stories of ‘Man suffering’ which ‘took deepest hold’ of the young Wordsworth (The Prelude, Book 8, ll.212-213) we begin to see the point, and are ready to move beyond the Wanderer’s warning.
‘Of these, said I, shall be my song . . .’ (Book 12,l.231) wrote Wordsworth in The Prelude, when he had been inspired toward the honourable task of writing poetry with purpose, ‘That justice may be done.’ (l.236) Likewise, ‘the misery’ of others may inspire ‘A power to virtue friendly’ in those who hear of it:
“But we have known that there is often found In mournful thoughts and always might be found, A power to virtue friendly; wer’t not so, I am a dreamer among men, indeed An idle dreamer (ll.632-636)!”
If nothing else then, the tale of suffering may serve to awaken or broaden our conscience. It may not quite inspire us to ‘labour for redress of all who suffer wrong,’ but it should at least become a 96 burden of thought. To this effect, we see the Author respond accordingly to the Wanderer’s tale:
The old Man ceased: he saw that I was moved; From that low bench, rising instinctively I turned aside in weakness, nor had power To thank him for the tale which he had told. (ll.917-920)
We are, no doubt, as readers intended to respond likewise to the Wanderer’s tales. As we ‘thank him for the tale’ we are to recognize the virtue in being laden with ‘mournful thoughts.’
Just briefly, I would like to consider how this strategy might work, in theory at least, by looking at another Poet-Wanderer in action. Robert Southey’s poem, “The Complaints of the Poor” (1798), provides a simple and succinct illustration of the task at hand. Here, a wandering Poet invites a rich man to ‘Come walk abroad with me’ in order to reveal the misery of the oppressed:
AND wherefore do the Poor complain? The Rich Man ask’d of me;.. Come walk abroad with me, I said, And I will answer thee. (1909, pp.387-388, ll.1-4)
The answer is provided through four succinct pathetic tales, heard from wretched characters they meet along the way. Two examples will suffice:
We met an old bare-headed man, His locks were thin and white; I ask’d him what he did abroad In that cold winter’s night;
The cold was keen indeed, he said, But at home no fire had he, And therefore he had come abroad To ask for charity. (ll. 9-16)
And so on . . . They meet ‘a young bare-footed child . . . sent / Abroad to beg for bread,’ followed by a woman whose ‘husband served, / A 97 soldier, far away, / And therefore to her parish she / Was begging back her way’; until a fourth and final example of wretchedness:
We met a girl, her dress was loose And sunken was her eye, Who with a wanton’s hollow voice Address’d the passers-by;
I ask’d her what there was in guilt That could her heart allure To shame, disease, and late remorse; She answer’d she was poor. (ll.37-44)
In Southey’s poem, the role of the Poet-Wanderer is clear. Through the stories of those he meets on the road, he attempts to awaken the conscience of the rich man and, we may assume, the conscience of the privileged reader as well.
Along the way, we are persuaded to feel more and more for the plight of the poor, until that feeling becomes a weight upon the conscience. As the tales accumulate, so does the pathos, until a definitive conclusion is reached:
I turn’d me to the Rich Man then, For silently stood he,.. You ask’d me why the Poor complain, And these have answer’d thee! (ll.45-48)
Hitherto naive as to the real condition of the poor, the rich man is now clearly troubled, ‘For silently stood he . . .’ As he has contributed to the weight of oppression, so too should he feel this weight upon his conscience. But he has to be led toward feeling this truth - a task which Southey, in “The Complaints of the Poor,” performs quite neatly.
It is the Poet-Wanderer’s role to lead us in this direction, encouraging us to feel something for the wretched many, and thus to recognize the injustice to which we, as members of a privileged society, contribute. Of course, it is all too neatly achieved in Southey’s little poem, but at least the strategy is clear and it allows us to see how Wordsworth, in his more ambitious attempt, may have strayed 98 somewhat from the task which he envisaged for himself as a Poet- Wanderer.
We return then to Wordsworth’s Wanderer and his rendition of Margaret’s tale. Remembering that ‘there is often found / In mournful thoughts, and always might be found, / A power to virtue friendly’ (Book 1, ll.632-634), we see the Author respond appropriately. He is burdened with ‘uneasy thoughts’ and yet inspired by the virtue of Margaret, seen primarily through her religious faith:
Amid the uneasy thoughts which filled my mind, From ruin and from change, and all the grief That passing shows of Being leave behind, Appeared an idle dream, that could maintain, Nowhere, dominion o’er the enlightened spirit Whose meditative sympathies repose Upon the breast of Faith. I turned away, And walked along my road in happiness.” (ll.948-956)
The message of Margaret’s tale is that the burden of great suffering may be sustained with the aid of religion. What inspires the Author above all else is the triumph of the bearer, who ‘learned, with soul / Fixed on the Cross, that consolation springs, / From sources deeper far than deepest pain, / For the meek Sufferer’ (ll.936-939).
This religious theme is developed consistently through The Excursion, though it is noticeably absent from the original version of “The Ruined Cottage.” Indeed, most of the tales in The Excursion present individuals who suffer as examples of humble submission, clearly a Christian imperative: ‘. . . but wherefore murmur or repine? / the memory of the just survives in heaven’ (Book 7, ll.387-388). While the Wanderer remains concerned for the meek, it is their religious faith that provides the focus for his affecting narratives, rather than the oppression they feel.
In Book 2, the Wanderer and the Author meet up with the Solitary, a character who, through a variety of misfortunes, has lost his faith. For the rest of The Excursion, the Wanderer’s counsel is aimed at correcting the unbelief of the Solitary, with the help of a fourth and final character, the Pastor (unsurprisingly), who appears in Book 5. The 99 tales recounted along the way have as their central element the ‘meek sufferer,’ a Christian apologetic. True to his form as a champion of the lowly, the Wanderer points to ‘the humble ranks of society’ for the most poignant examples of this attitude:
A consciousness is yours How feelingly religion may be learned In smoky cabins, from a mother’s tongue - Heard while the dwelling vibrates to the din Of the contiguous torrent, gathering strength At every moment - and, with strength, increase Of fury; or, while snow is at the door, Assaulting and defending, and the wind, A sightless labourer, whistles at his work - Fearful; but resignation tempers fear, And piety is sweet to infant minds. (Book 4, ll.789-799)
In order to coax the Solitary out of his faithless cynicism, the Wanderer implores how ‘feelingly religion may be learned.’ Even the wind becomes an example of humble submission, a ‘sightless labourer’ who ‘whistles at his work.’ We are more than familiar with this aspect of the Wanderer’s strategy, as he attempts to make the Solitary feel something for these humble figures in their wretchedness. We are, however, less familiar with the religious focus of his moral, which seems to leave to one side the social conscience which he should be stirring.
Note, for instance, how one is not to be concerned for the wretched themselves, but for the state of the Solitary’s soul. Our fear should be for this ex-pastor who ‘broke faith with them whom he had laid / In earth’s dark chambers, with a Christian’s hope!’ (Book 2,ll.247- 248) No longer a voice for the oppressed in their plight, the Wanderer is concerned with one’s spiritual well-being, as he functions primarily to correct unbelief. To this end, the wretched are used as examples of religious submission, rather than a trigger for our social conscience.
These stories do not attempt to redress injustice; rather, they promote an acceptance of one’s fate. The ‘labourer’ might be oppressed, but as long as he ‘whistles at his work’ - like the wind - he will endure. The Wanderer, then, is unlikely to upset the established 100 order, despite his ‘vow to labour for redress of all who suffer wrong.’ His spiritual concern is well and good, but by directing the reader toward a religious end, has not Wordsworth’s Wanderer forgotten his ‘solemn duty’? Perhaps the terms of his social obligation have changed. Whatever the case, the Poet-Wanderer is not quite fulfilling the role which Wordsworth envisaged for him in The Prelude.
The characters we meet through The Excursion are not the victims of oppression we might expect to find. Their stories are tales of misfortune rather than anything society could be blamed for. Neither do we feel stirred by the same injustice which Southey could reveal to the rich man in “The Complaints of the Poor.” Wordsworth’s strategy, however, is much the same as Southey’s. For instance, here is part of his synopsis for Book Six:
- He begins his Narratives with an instance of unrequited Love.- Anguish of mind subdued and how. - The lonely Miner. - An instance of perseverance. - Which leads by contrast to an example of abused talents, irresolution, and weakness. - Solitary, applying this covertly to his own case, asks for an instance of some Stranger, whose dispositions may have led him to end his days here . . .
And so on . . .
Instance of an unamiable character, a Female, and why given. - Contrasted with this, a meek sufferer, from unguarded and betrayed love. (1949, p.186)
Needless to say, the ‘meek sufferer’ is applauded. And through this collection of affecting narratives, the Solitary is persuaded toward seeing, or rather feeling, the Wanderer’s religious truth. Just as the Poet in Southey’s poem would reveal the true condition of the poor, by persuading the rich man to feel . . . and feel increasingly, via an accumulation of short pathetic tales.
The operative word is ‘short’ here, as the strategy suffers in Wordsworth’s work - due in part to its ambitious scope, but also to the weak content of the narratives. That is to say, the accumulation of narratives is tiresome because their didactic content becomes increasingly predictable. The best, or should we say the worst, example of this occurs in Book 7. There, after reaching ‘The Churchyard Among the Mountains,’ the excursion continues, and we receive the narrative of 101 a blind man followed by that of a deaf man who lived nearby. The Argument reads:
- Lamentations over mis-directed applause. - Instance of less exalted excellence in a deaf man. - Elevated character of a blind man. - Reflection upon Blindness. (p.230)
This excursion is all too neatly arranged, leaving one with the sense of being dragged along, rather than persuaded. The travellers do not, as the Author says in Book One, ‘Turn wheresoe’er we would . . .’ Instead, they are directed along a pre-ordained path by Wordsworth, with the sense of authorial interference becoming stronger as the narratives accumulate.
If, at the end, we were confronted with an ‘oppression worse than death’ that ‘Salutes the Being at his birth’ (The Prelude, Book 12, ll.194-195), the exercise might be worthwhile. But we are led through the mountains from a lonely miner, to a solitary, to a deaf man, and finally to a less than compelling climax: ‘- Methinks I see him - how his eye-balls rolled, / Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired,-’ (ll.507- 508). While this may earn a sympathetic tear from the reader, it is unlikely to burden their conscience. After all, the burden of a physical disability is not something for which one can feel responsible, unlike the burden of oppression which Wordsworth once felt so keenly as a weight upon his conscience. Perhaps, though, he no longer feels this weight himself, having lost that nagging sense of privilege.
In The Excursion, the Wanderer’s sense of privilege is no longer a source of guilt. Rather, it provides an excuse for personal exultation, as Wordsworth points self-consciously to the virtues of his vocation: ‘Yet, by the good Knight’s leave, the two estates / Are graced with some resemblance’ (Book 8, ll.44-45). It is hard, though, after journeying through this text, to say that Wordsworth’s Wanderer has fulfilled ‘his vow to labour for redress / Of all who suffer wrong ’; which leaves the egocentric humility of the image in Book 7 - ‘If I may venture of myself to speak’ - appearing empty and vain: ‘Even . . . as that courteous Knight . . . I too shall be doomed . . .’ (ll.1041-1048)
This Wanderer comes across as a self-righteous figure who appears to have shed the guilt-burden which once inspired him. There 102 is no anxiety or uneasiness here. Instead, the Poet-Wanderer is calm and flawless in his outlook, with ‘words of heartfelt truth, / Tending to patience when affliction strikes; / To hope and love; to confident repose / In God; and reverence for the dust of Man’(Book 7, ll.1054-1057). While he would never ‘turn aside from wretchedness / With coward fears,’ his counsel is a little too mundane to offer much succour. As such, he may be a suitable voice for the Establishment, but hardly for the wretched many.
In Book 7, we witness the ‘Exultation of the Wanderer, as a patriot . . . ’(p.230) And, in the final Book, the Wanderer assures us that British society can hold its head up high, free from guilt and free from oppression, unlike the Continent:
‘Now, when oppression, like the Egyptian plague Of darkness, stretched o’er guilty Europe, makes The brightness more conspicuous that invests The happy Island where ye think and act; Now, when destruction is a prime pursuit, Show to the wretched nations for what end The powers of civil polity were given.’ (ll.409-415)
The Poet-Wanderer has given up his role of speaking for the oppressed, to become a voice for the Establishment. In a land where ‘slavery is unknown / Among us ’ (Book 9, l.350) there is no oppression, and hence no guilt-burden for the Wanderer to bear.
If Wordsworth no longer sees oppression, it is unlikely too that he feels the nagging sense of privilege he once did. Perhaps, in his own mind, he had already atoned for his privilege through sheer dedication to a poetic vocation, undoubtedly an ‘arduous labour’ (1949, v.5, p.2), as the proportions of The Excursion attest to. Whatever the case, his conscience would now appear to be at ease. Wordsworth’s Poet-Wanderer no longer labours beneath the burden of guilt from which he was born; but in shedding this weight he would appear to have lost his social conscience.
103
Chapter 4
Byron and Childe Harold : Mortal Wanderers Over Eternity
Through the epic course of Childe Harold’s development into an immortal Wanderer, the Wanderer’s burden was, as this chapter reveals, somewhat emptied of its compelling weight. Byron’s Wanderer never lost his guilt-burden however. Indeed, one could say that the Wanderer figure, in Byron’s hands, was made to appear even more guilty. Such guilt, though, was not used to pursue a social agenda, but to construct a particular character and, with this, an image of the author.
With the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) Byron hoped to create a sensation, not just with the text, but also with his own persona. Some months before the work was released he had written of his intention to a friend, Francis Hodgson (Sept. 25, 1811):
I have attacked De Pauw, Thornton, Lord Elgin, Spain, Portugal, the Edinburgh Review, travellers, Painters, Antiquarians, and others, so you see what a dish of Sour Crout Controversy I shall prepare for myself. (Marchand, v.2, 1973, p.106)
Byron’s previous attempt at achieving notoriety, with English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), never quite succeeded in causing the stir he was after. And so, with this new work he would deliberately create for himself a ‘Sour Crout Controversy,’ in the hope of creating a more lasting impression. He did in fact succeed. However, it was not so much his audacious views which achieved this aim.
There was far more to Byron’s strategy than simply attacking everyone and everything, though this tendency was duly noted by one of his targets, The Edinburgh Review (May, 1812):
104 Lord Byron speaks with the most unbounded contempt of the Portuguese - with despondence of Spain - and in a very slighting and sarcastic manner of wars, and victories, and military heroes in general. Neither are his religious opinions more orthodox, we apprehend, than his politics; for he not only speaks without any respect of priests, and creeds, and dogmas of all descriptions, but doubts very freely of the immortality of the soul, and other points as fundamental. (Jeffrey, 1812, p.467)
But to this same reviewer, Francis Jeffrey, there was something of more noteworthy interest in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage than its author’s loud opinions:
There is no story or adventure - and, indeed, no incident of any kind . . . As there are no incidents, there cannot well be any characters; - and accordingly, with the exception of a few national sketches, which form part of the landscape of his pilgrimage, that of the hero himself is the only delineation of the kind that is offered to the reader of this volume; - and this hero, we must say, appears to us as oddly chosen as he is imperfectly employed. (p.466)
Even still, it is ‘the hero himself’ of Byron’s poem, ‘oddly chosen’ and ‘imperfectly employed’ as he is, that captured the attention of the reviewer.
Childe Harold is, it has to be said, a somewhat vague and ill- defined character, so Francis Jeffrey is quite right to point to this awkwardness. He is less accurate, though, when in the same review he gives to Harold the grandeur of Milton’s Satan:
Like Milton’s fiend, however, he ‘sees undelighted all delight,’ and passes on through the great wilderness of the world with a heart shut to all human sympathy, - sullenly despising the stir both of its business and its pleasures - but hating and despising himself most of all, for beholding it with so little emotion. (p.466)
However deep-feeling and dark Childe Harold may become, it is unclear at what point in the text he can be seen ‘hating and despising himself’ to this degree. There is, it would seem, more pathos in Jeffrey’s reading of Harold than there is in Byron’s actual presentation of the character.
105 In filling out the vague lines of Harold by darkening him in this manner, there is one assumption which Jeffrey cannot avoid, an assumption which Byron cleverly encourages:
Lord Byron takes the trouble to caution his readers against supposing that he meant to shadow out his own character under the dark and repulsive traits of that which we have just exhibited; a caution which was surely unnecessary - though it is impossible not to observe, that the mind of the noble author has been so far tinged by his strong conception of this Satanic personage, that the sentiments and reflections which he delivers in his own name, have all received a shade of the same gloomy and misanthropic colouring which invests those of his imaginary hero. (p.466-467)
It is at the level of biographical allusion that the reviewer becomes excited, taken by the idea of ‘the noble author’ being ‘so far tinged by his strong conception of this Satanic personage’ that he may indeed have become his own ‘imaginary hero.’ The reviewer needs little prompting in this direction. It is almost as though he needs to see the author in this light in order to account for the otherwise flimsy notion of a character. By taking ‘the trouble to caution his readers against’ it, Byron does in fact compel the reader to make this identification, or at least to keep it in the back of their minds.
Indeed, the success of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage can be attributed in a large part to this sought-for confusion of Byron, the author, with his fictional persona of Childe Harold, the Wanderer. And it was this work that Byron returned to again and again, encouraging the identification until, with the release of canto four, he decided to dispense with the facade altogether:
With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive . . . it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether - and have done so. (Byron, 1970, p.226)
106 It is not so much that Byron ‘had become weary of drawing a line’ as that his effort was consciously lax. The ‘line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive’ had achieved the effect he was looking for. So despite this protestation, included as a preface to canto four, Byron had deliberately courted the controversy his fictional persona aroused.
It is strange that Gleckner needs to warn us against making this mistake:
Despite Byron’s earnest protestations to the contrary, despite his overt condemnation of Harold as “most unamiable,” readers and critics have deliberately confused Byron’s fictional character with himself; and they have studiously ignored or condemned Byron’s simple explanation for Harold’s presence - “for the sake of giving some connection to the piece.” I see no reason to doubt this. (Gleckner, 1967, p.54)
I would suggest, however, that Byron wants us to doubt this - at least just a little. And taking a sceptical line does not necessarily entail ignoring Byron’s claims to the contrary; rather, one may recognize in those protestations the means by which a deliberate confusion is created. One need not be so naive as to completely erase the boundary between author and character in order to demonstrate how that line is blurred.
It was the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage that established an avid interest in this overlap between the author and his character. And so, I would like briefly to examine Byron’s strategy in achieving this, particularly as it involves a Wanderer figure, but even more so because it requires an on-going construction of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden. For it seems to be the development and emergence of Harold’s guilt which compels the reader’s interest in him as a character and, subsequently, perhaps in Byron himself.
Cantos One and Two
From the outset, Byron is enticing his potential audience with a suggestive preface to the first two cantos. Falsely coy, he presents 107 them with a work, a travel-poem, whose ‘reception will determine whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia’ (Byron, 1970, p.179). Reminding them that ‘these two cantos are merely experimental,’ he also has a reasonable excuse for the introduction of Harold: ‘A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, makes no pretension to regularity’ (p.179). The work is to be a travel-poem, first and foremost, of which Harold is simply the guide. But Byron is somewhat too anxious in preserving this distinction:
It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, ‘Childe Harold,’ I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage: this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim - Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion; but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever. (p.179)
The mistaken assumption, of which ‘there might be grounds for such a notion,’ is hardly being discouraged. So, even before the work begins we have been positioned to expect something more of Harold than his providing mere structural cohesion.
Harold’s introduction, at least initially, is designed to shock the reader. He cuts an impressive figure, but for all the wrong reasons, having ‘spent his days in riot most uncouth . . . Sore given to revel and ungodly glee’ (Canto 1, Stanza 2). He is a heartless rake, self- centred and self-indulgent:
Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. (Stanza 2)
Removing him from our sympathy even further is an aristocratic lineage, to which it is suggested he has morally forfeited his claim. Coming from a ‘lineage long’ who ‘had been glorious in another day’ (Stanza 3), he has brought irreversible shame upon the family name:
However mighty in the olden time; Nor all that heralds rake from coffin’d clay, Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lies of rhyme, 108 Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. (Stanza 3)
For a character who is only supposed to provide cohesion to the piece, Byron has certainly gone to some trouble to shock the reader. A less worthy hero could not be found, but this is all part of Byron’s strategy to fascinate us. There is plenty here to entice the reader, with the mention of ‘evil deeds’ and ‘a crime,’ which cajole an interest in the excess of Harold’s immorality. It is the character of Harold, then, that lures our interest, rather than the notion of a travel-poem or Continental Tour; for he is not the kind of guide one would expect.
After the shock of the introductory stanzas, Byron moves quickly to consolidate a more sympathetic response to his character. We see Harold basking ‘in the noon-tide sun, / Disporting there like any other fly’ (Stanza 4), when suddenly he is struck down with a heavy weight:
Worse than adversity the Childe befell; He felt the fulness of satiety: Then loathed he in his native land to dwell, Which seem’d to him more lone than Eremite’s sad cell. (Stanza 4)
This is not a guilt-burden, as such; nevertheless, it is an awakening of sorts, the predominant feeling of which is an oppressive ennui. We are now persuaded to view Harold, the once ‘shameless wight’ (Stanza 2), in a sympathetic light, as a kind of forlorn figure:
And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart, And from his fellow bacchanals would flee; ‘Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start, But Pride congeal’d the drop within his ee: Apart he stalk’d in joyless reverie, And from his native land resolved to go . . . (Stanza 6)
Here, it is an unrequited love which drives Harold ‘from his native land,’ whereas above it was ‘the fulness of satiety.’ Both are alluded to as the reason for Harold’s self-exile, and for his new burden - which is not, as yet, a guilt-burden.
Of course, a love-sick Harold is the most instantly appealing to the reader, as his suffering can be identified as worthy of our 109 sympathy; unlike the Harold who ‘With pleasure drugg’d’ (Stanza 6) is loathing ‘his native land’ in ‘the fulness of satiety.’ Both exist, however, in a strange combination:
For he through Sin’s long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sigh’d to many though he loved but one, And that loved one, alas! could ne’er be his. Ah, happy she! to ‘scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste . . . (Stanza 5)
Byron thus combines the regret over having exhausted pleasure’s fountain with the regret of a disappointed passion - a curious mix which, according to The Quarterly Review, ‘can only be viewed with unmixed disgust’ (May, 1812):
. . . the boyish libertine whose imagination is chilled by heat sated appetites, whose frightful gloom is only the result of disappointed selfishness; and ‘whose kiss had been pollution,’ cannot surely be expected to excite any tender sympathy . . . (Ellis, 1812, p.196)
However cynically we may view Harold as a lover, it is a necessary addition to what Byron is trying to achieve with this unusual character; for despite the dramatic promise of a dark history filled with ‘evil deeds,’ alluded to in stanza three, Harold is revealed as no worse than the ‘shameless wight’ of the preceding stanza. Beyond this brazen introduction, there is little to maintain our interest in him as a character. And without a real crime under his belt, Harold is not a very strong or compelling figure. Indeed, now that he is fainting with ennui he runs the danger of appearing bloodless.
The inclusion of a ‘disappointed passion’ (Stanza 8) allows Harold the chance to suffer intensely and become a more substantial figure. Only by struggling with his inner turmoil can Harold be seen as heroic or compelling in any sense: ‘Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start, / But Pride congeal’d the drop within his ee (Stanza 6).’ It is his capacity for proud silent suffering which gives Harold substance as a character:
110 For his was not that open, artless soul That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, Whate’er this grief mote be, which he could not control. (Stanza 8)
Here, it is the way in which Harold suffers that recommends him to the reader, the noticeably modest display of a manly soul. Beneath the calm surface of this once ‘shameless wight’ lies a deep passion; and it is the burden of this secret ‘grief’ that Byron brings forward, attempting to persuade the reader that Harold is now genuinely heroic in suffering thus. Of course, he could hardly present satiety in this light, as though it were a genuine form of suffering.
This is all too much for Walter Scott who, in a letter to Joanna Baillie (April 4, 1812), writes:
Now really this is too bad. Vice ought to be a little more modest and it must require impudence at least equal to the noble lord’s other powers to claim sympathy gravely from the ennui arising from his being tired of his wassailers and his paramours. There is a monstrous deal of conceit in it too for it is informing the inferior part of the world that their little old-fashioned scruples and limitation are not worthy of his regard while his fortunes and possessions are such as have put all sorts of gratification too much in his power to afford him any pleasure. (cited in Rutherford, 1970, pp.36-37)
Scott’s unpublished criticism is perceptive in another area as well. He senses the ‘noble lord’s . . . powers’ at work in the creation of a “similar” character:
. . . although there is a caution against it in the preface you cannot for your soul avoid concluding that the author as he gives an account of his own travels is also doing so in his own character. (p.36)
Scott’s response demonstrates the true and desired effect of the ‘caution’ and lays to rest the genuineness of the author’s protest. He is awake to Byron’s strategy to ‘crave sympathy gravely’ for a type of suffering which is surely beyond the reach of most mortals.
The pleasure-seeker, bloated with ‘the fulness of satiety’ (Stanza 4), is bored with his native land and careless of responsibility. ‘His 111 house, his home, his heritage, his lands,’ these raise little more than a stifled yawn as ‘Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine . . .’ But while Harold may be fainting from ennui, the reader is unlikely to be yawning over the description of his estate:
His house, his homes, his heritage, his lands, The laughing dames in whom he did delight, Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands, Might shake the saintship of an anchorite, And long had fed his youthful appetite; His goblets brimm’d with every costly wine, And all that mote to luxury invite, Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine, And traverse Paynim shores, and pass Earth’s central line. (Stanza 11)
Clearly Byron is teasing the reader here, if only with the excess of a lordly and wicked lifestyle, provoking their moral censure whilst also enticing them. The appreciatively described ‘laughing dames’ who ‘Might shake the saintship of an anchorite’ are but a savoury addition to the ‘concubines and carnal companie’ of the introductory stanzas. However, it is an untimely addition as well, because it follows not long after we are persuaded to consider the genuine nature of Harold’s suffering, when ‘Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold’s brow’ (Stanza 8).
What one might view as ‘a monstrous deal of conceit’ in trying to ‘claim sympathy gravely,’ may in fact be an off-shoot of Byron’s attempt to construct Childe Harold as a Wanderer figure, a forlorn character with a heavy burden. In order for the Wanderer’s burden to sound convincing it must be substantial, something beyond that which an ordinary mortal could bear. In this sense, Harold’s suffering transcends, to use Scott’s words, ‘the inferior part of the world’ with ‘their little old-fashioned scruples and limitation.’ Childe Harold’s pain is not our pain; as such, he is fated to bear his mysterious burden heroically and alone. Of course, if this construction is to work, one would expect guilt to enter the equation at some point; as indeed it does. For, the point at which Harold begins to feel guilty is also the point at which he becomes the Wanderer - a significant moment in the text, which is marked by a song.
112 When Harold becomes the Wanderer he also gains a guilt- burden. Inspired by an awareness of this identity, of his tragic destiny, Harold ‘Pour’d forth his unpremeditated lay’ (Stanza 84):
2 And dost thou ask what secret woe I bear, corroding joy and youth? And wilt thou vainly seek to know A pang, ev’n thou must fail to soothe?
We are, however, given an answer of sorts:
4 It is that weariness which springs From all I meet, or hear, or see: To me no pleasure Beauty brings; Thine eyes have scarce a charm to me.
As we ‘vainly seek to know’ of this ‘pang’ which lies beyond our comprehension, we eventually learn that it is indeed a burden of immortal proportion:
5 It is that settled, ceaseless gloom The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before.
While ennui is no substitute for guilt, and Harold could not as yet lay claim to a guilt-burden, this song ‘To Inez’ (9 quatrain verses between stanzas 84 and 85) is where his real guilt-burden begins at least to take shape. Harold’s ‘unpremeditated lay’ is a melodramatic perception of himself as a fated forlorn figure, doomed to wander the earth ‘With many a retrospection curst,’ bearing the same ‘ceaseless gloom / the fabled Hebrew wanderer bore.’
There is something unconvincing about this, as the satiety of a world-weary aristocrat is hardly akin to the eternal guilt-burden of the Wandering Jew. Nevertheless, that is the parallel which Byron wants us 113 to make as canto one draws to a close. This Wanderer’s song is, then, a significant point in the text.
8 Through many a clime ‘tis mine to go, With many a retrospection curst; And all my solace is to know, Whate’er betides, I’ve known the worst.
Up until this point, through the course of the first canto, Harold has undergone something of a moral transformation, developing along the way what we might deem an increasing guilt-consciousness. His guilt- burden does not just appear; it accumulates and develops through the course of the canto.When he finally attains this burden, a consciousness of his own guilt, he also becomes the Wanderer. To demonstrate the significance of this identification, we can trace the development of Harold’s guilt-burden to this point, the stage at which he becomes like ‘the fabled Hebrew wanderer.’ We need briefly then to retrace Harold’s steps.
Developing a Guilt-Burden
From the outset, travel is to be no pleasurable experience for Harold. His journey will be a pilgrimage: not a pilgrimage to a particular site of significance, but a pilgrimage in the penitential sense of making atonement. To that end, he will exchange ‘pleasure’ for ‘woe’:
Apart he stalk’d in joyless reverie, And from his native land resolved to go, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea; With pleasure drugg’d, he almost long’d for woe, And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below. (Stanza 6) What drives Harold on is more a longing for novel sensation, as he ‘almost long’d for woe,’ than any significant feeling of remorse. At this stage, he is quite ignorant as to the soul-changing nature of his up- coming quest, yet as he travels he begins to develop a consciousness of guilt. This occurs as, over a broadening horizon of experience, he reflects upon what he sees abroad. 114
As he approaches Lisbon, the first port-of-call, it is the promise of pure pleasures which first appeals to the eye of this satiated libertine:
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree! What goodly prospects o’er the hills expand! (Stanza 15)
What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold! Her image floating on that noble tide . . . (Stanza 16)
But as he ‘entereth within this town’ (Stanza 17) he receives an awakening:
For hut and palace show like filthily: The dingy denizens are rear’d in dirt; Ne personage of high or mean degree Doth care for cleaness of surtout or shirt; Though shent with Egypt’s plague, unkempt, unwash’d, unhurt. (Stanza 17)
So it is that the appearance of beauty with its promise of pleasure proves empty. It is a simple lesson, but one which Harold has to learn. His subsequent disillusionment with the ‘beauties’ of ‘Lisboa’ provokes a harsh judgement on the Portuguese: ‘Poor, paltry slaves! yet born ‘midst noblest scenes - Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?’ (Stanza 18) Childe Harold may display the rashness of youth in his hastily formed opinions, but he is already endearing himself to the reader. For note how he addresses Nature as the moral standard against which men are measured. The presence of this innate sensibility tells the reader that Harold is not quite the superficial youth he was introduced as; and, with a little more coaxing, he may improve further.
It is the beauty of Nature, without Man, that continues to tenderly impress the sensitive young Harold:
The tender azure of the unruffled deep, The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, The vine on high, the willow branch below, 115 Mix’d in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. (Stanza 19)
As we see him ‘slowly climb the many winding way’ through the mountains of Portugal, the scene is again ruined for Harold by the presence of Man - and, more importantly, the evil deeds of men:
And here and there, as up the crags you spring, Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path: Yet deem not these devotion’s offering - These are memorials frail of murderous wrath: For wheresoe’er the shrieking victim hath Pour’d forth his blood beneath the assassin’s knife, Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath; And grove and glen with thousand such are rife Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life. (Stanza 21)
Harold considers the native injustice of this region and forms a strong moral judgement: Portugal is a ‘purple land, where law secures not life’ - a somewhat self-assured opinion from one who ‘through Sin’s long labyrinth had run, / Nor made atonement when he did amiss’ (Stanza 5). The one-time dissipated Harold is now offended by a lack of moral order. Indeed, the presence of ‘many rude-carved crosses’ is akin to blasphemy, as they appear as ‘devotion’s offering’ but are really ‘memorials frail of murderous wrath.’ And this from one who only recently was ‘Sore given to revel and ungodly glee’ (Stanza 2). Needless to say, Childe Harold is quickly maturing; but his awakening has nothing as yet to do with an awareness of his own guilt. The ‘evil deeds’ and ‘crime’ alluded to complacently in stanza three are all but forgotten. Rather, it is the guilt of others which troubles the young Harold.
Through the course of his travels Harold becomes conscious of himself by reflecting upon the world around him. It is a gradual process which becomes more personal as he continues. In this expanding consciousness of Harold we often glimpse the convergence of the author with his character. When Harold comes across the ‘ruin’d splendour’ of ‘Vathek! England’s wealthiest son’(Stanza 22), he reflects, we take it, upon his own mis-spent youth:
Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how 116 Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; Swept into wrecks anon by Time’s ungentle tide! (Stanza 23)
Here is the first mention of Harold looking inward. He may not as yet feel guilty for his past, but he is at least a ‘thinking bosom’ willing to learn ‘Fresh lessons.’ More often than not, the lessons which Harold learns are styled along the lines of his author’s opinions. Thus, Byron speaks authoritatively on foreign affairs before attributing his views to Harold as a soliloquy: ‘So deem’d the Childe, as o’er the mountains he / Did take his way in solitary guise . . .’ (Stanza 27):
And ever since that martial synod met, Britannia sickens, Cintra! at thy name; And folks in office at the mention fret, And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. How will posterity the deed proclaim! Will not our own and fellow nations sneer, To view these champions cheated of their fame, By foes in fight o’erthrown, yet victors here, Where scorn her finger points through many a coming year? (Stanza 26)
Of course, one would expect an author trying to create a ‘Sour Crout Controversy’ for himself to insert his own views into the reflections of a character. So to that end, Byron’s actual opinions are only incidental to our discussion. What is of more interest is the way in which Harold is portrayed as developing this ability for moral reasoning.
Harold knows what he thinks about the convention of Cintra, but he is yet to really scrutinize himself:
Though here awhile he learn’d to moralize, For Meditation fix’d at times on him; And conscious Reason whisper’d to despise His early youth, misspent in maddest whim; But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim. (Stanza 27)
Portugal, then, has been good for Harold because it was ‘here awhile he learn’d to moralize.’ He does not as yet have a consciousness of his own guilt, for ‘as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim,’ but the initial ingredients have been provided. To that end, as ‘conscious 117 Reason whispered to despise / His early youth, misspent in maddest whim,’ he is almost feeling remorseful. What is here but a whisper of guilt will soon become a fully fledged guilt-burden.
Now, as Harold prepares to enter Spain, his journey really becomes a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage in the sense of making atonement for his previous way of life. Because this is to be a hard road of penance, Harold cannot casually saunter down from the mountains of Portugal, rather;
To horse! To horse! he quits, for ever quits A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul . . . (Stanza 28)
Something new is pursuing Harold, driving him from the ‘peace’ which perhaps he was seeking on his Continental tour:
Again he rouses from his moping fits, But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl . . . (Stanza 28)
Now prone to ‘moping fits,’ Harold rouses himself to action, fleeing, we take it, from inner demons. ‘Onward he flies,’ - and as the language picks up pace it is coupled with pathos - ‘nor fix’d as yet the goal / Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage . . .’ (Stanza 28) By his eagerness to take on this hard road of penance, the ‘toilsome way, and long, long / league to trace’ (Stanza 30), Harold reveals his willingness to ‘learn experience sage’ and become morally chastened:
And o’er him many changing scenes must roll Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage, Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage. (Stanza 28)
What Harold learns in Spain is basically a reiteration of what he picked up in Portugal. In search of ‘lovely Spain! renown’d, romantic land!’ (Stanza 35) he is disillusioned to find that ‘Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong . . .’ (Stanza 36) And with his own conscience just beginning to whisper, he urges the Spanish to take heed of another distant voice:
118 Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance! Lo! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries, But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance, Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies: Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies, And speaks in thunder through yon engine’s roar: In every peal she calls - ‘Awake! arise!’ Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore, When her war-song was heard on Andalusia’s shore? (Stanza 37)
This is further evidence of Harold’s rapid improvement; for it was Harold’s failure to live up to a knightly heritage that made him the scourge and shame of a once great family: ‘But one sad losel soils a name for aye, / However mighty in the olden time’ (Stanza 3). Now, however, he can hear that ancient and honourable voice of ‘Chivalry.’
Thanks to his author, Harold finds plenty of material for reflection in contemporary Spain, delivering the ‘very slighting and sarcastic’ treatment of ‘wars, and victories, and military heroes’ that The Edinburgh Review took exception to:
Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice; Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high; Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies; The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory! The foe, the victim, and the fond ally That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, Are met - as if at home they could not die - To feed the crow on Talavera’s plain, And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. (Stanza 41)
After thus reflecting, ‘Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way. . .’ only to disappear, quite noticeably, for some time. It is a pattern which occurs throughout cantos one and two, with Harold’s absence marked by somewhat complacent reminders: ‘But where is Harold? shall I then forget . . .?’ (Canto 2, Stanza 16) While Harold may be moving ‘Full swiftly’ the narrator seems nevertheless to lose interest in his story, choosing to indulge more and more in the opinions and observations of the poet-author.
119 It would appear from the six stanzas devoted to them (54 - 59) that the most interesting thing about Spain is its women. The narrator revels in an appreciation of their superior beauty, ‘Who round the North for paler dames would seek?’ (Stanza 58), and enticing lack of virtue, ‘. . . form’d for all the witching arts of love’ (Stanza 52) and ‘Skill’d in the ogle of a roguish eye’ (Stanza 72). No wonder The Quarterly Review took exception to the author ‘describing English women’ as ‘Remoter females famed for sickening prate’ in the following comparison:
In softness as in firmness far above Remoter females, famed for sickening prate; Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great. (Stanza 57)
The licentious voice and roguish eye of the narrator cannot here be attributed to Harold. Because Harold is becoming morally chastened he sees Spanish girls ‘With braided tresses bounding o’er the green’ (Stanza 81) yet remains ‘unmoved.’
It is significant that the character of Harold himself re-emerges at this point, and in relation to the topic of sensual indulgence, for it allows the reader to view just how far he has come in his pilgrimage, his moral development. We are duly reminded that Harold was once a libertine:
Oh! many a time and oft, had Harold loved, Or dream’d he loved, since rapture is a dream; But now his wayward bosom was unmoved . . . (Stanza 82)
Our last significant glimpse of Harold was of one who ‘seeks not now the harlot and the bowl’ as ‘Onward he flies,’ chased by a growing yet still whispering conscience, as ‘conscious Reason whisper’d to despise / His early youth, misspent in maddest whim . . .’ Now, at the end of canto one, that whispering conscience is about to become a persecuting one, with Harold’s inner demons finally catching up.
We have retraced Harold’s steps to the point at which he attains a guilt-burden. After a reflection on ‘the beauteous form’ and how ‘now it moved him as it moves the wise,’ Harold is awakened:
120 But Passion raves herself to rest, or flies; And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise: Pleasure’s pall’d victim! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain’s unresting doom. (Stanza 83)
Harold is here struck down with the ‘unresting doom’ of the Wanderer, a burden of biblical proportions. And ‘who may smile that sinks beneath his fate’ (Stanza 84)? Up until this point Harold has not been described in these terms, that is, as a Wanderer.
Here then is where Harold ‘Pour’d forth his unpremeditated lay,’ that song about himself as a Wanderer, inspired, it seems, by the weight of a persecuting conscience-a guilt-burden: 6 What Exile from himself can flee? To zones though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where’er I be, The blight of life - the demon Thought . . .
And so, as ‘Spanish girls were seen . . . bounding o’er the green’ (Stanza 81), Harold ‘sinks beneath his fate: / Nought that he saw his sadness could abate’ (Stanza 84). That ‘sadness’ is nothing less than ‘that settled, ceaseless gloom / The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,’ and Harold’s lay is a melodramatic image of himself in this ‘curst’ role:
8 . . . Through many a clime ‘tis mine to go, With many a retrospection curst; And all my solace is to know, Whate’er betides, I’ve known the worst.
It is only here at the end of canto one, when Harold’s guilt-burden is developed enough, that he can take on this identity. There is, however, in the second canto, someone else jostling for the same part, as the narrator too becomes a Wanderer.
When Harold is re-introduced, in canto two, it is as the Wanderer. Importantly, he now has a fully-fledged guilt-burden. Referred 121 to as a ‘gloomy wanderer’ (Stanza 16), Harold now displays all the signs of a reflective conscience:
Thus bending o’er the vessel’s laving side, To gaze on Dian’s wave-reflected sphere, The soul forgets her schemes of hope and pride, And flies unconscious o’er each backward year. None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess’d A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; A flashing pang! of which the weary breast Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest. (Stanza 24)
As Harold reviews ‘each backward year’ his conscience is stung by a ‘flashing pang,’ a weight ‘of which the weary breast / Would still, albeit in vain / the heavy heart divest,’ a Wanderer’s guilt-burden. And so, when Harold views ‘Sweet Florence! (Stanza 30)’ we can, by this stage, predict his chastened response, ‘as on that lady’s eye / He look’d, and met its beam without a thought / Save admiration glancing harmless by . . .’ For this is the newly reformed Harold, one who has recently travelled a hard road of penance.
Aside from the re-emergence of a chastened Harold, something else of equal significance occurs in canto two. Indeed, it is not until stanza sixteen that Byron remembers where he left his character: ‘But where is Harold? shall I then forget / To urge the gloomy Wanderer o’er the wave?’ In the mean time Byron has been occupied with someone else; for the narrator himself emerges as a character - not just as a voice, but as an embodied persona: ‘Here let me sit upon this massy stone, / The marble column’s yet unshaken base . . .’ (Stanza 10). The narrator is, in a physical sense, well ahead of Harold’s journey at this point. He begins the canto with an evocation of Greece, ‘Ancient of days! august Athena! (Stanza 2)’; and here we find him musing amidst her ruins. Meanwhile, Harold is still on his way from Spain to Italy.
Effectively, the narrator is revealed as a separate character with his own quite individual concerns, the first of which is the pillaging of Greece by ‘British hands, which it had best behoved / To guard these relics ne’er to be restored.’ 122
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatch’d thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr’d! (Stanza 15)
In canto one, such loud contemporary opinions were given as Harold’s reflections; but here that voice is embodied in a separate character. This gives one the awkward sense of another physical presence, engaged on a seemingly disparate journey.
The second canto is framed by the experience of the narrator. At the end, we return to find him still wandering sadly amidst the ruins of Greece: ‘While strangers only not regardless pass / Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh ‘Alas!’ (Stanza 86)’ In effect, the second canto ends neatly where it began, with this Wanderer having all the while been in Greece, awaiting, one imagines, the arrival of Harold - for such was the expectation created at the conclusion of canto one:
Here is one fytte of Harold’s pilgrimage: Ye who of him may further seek to know, Shall find some tidings in a future page ...... Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doom’d to go: Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell’d. (Canto 1, Stanza 93) Harold does not, however, arrive in Greece; and it is clearly the narrator who goes on to tell us the fate of those ‘monuments of Eld.’ Unless, of course, the two Wanderers have become one, merging through the course of a pilgrimage on which they were both ‘doom’d to go.’ If this is the case, then Byron has conflated the narrator with Childe Harold to produce a single Wanderer - a figure with whom he too perhaps identifies.
To that end, it is significant that the closing stanza of canto two, spoken by the narrator, reflects the earlier refrain of Harold. Where Harold had sung, ‘ What is that worst? Nay, do not ask - In pity from the search forbear,’ we find the narrator echoing his sentiments:
123 What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. (Stanza 98)
At the end of this remarkable text (cantos one and two) our sympathy is left with one, solitary Wanderer, ‘alone on earth’ and ‘doom’d to go’ on living:
Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate’er my soul enjoy’d, And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy’d. (Stanza 98)
Thus, the narrator and the character of the poem merge poignantly into a single figure, the Wanderer. Indeed, it is a very heart-felt conclusion, leaving one with the sense of an authorial presence - yet another identity in the Wanderer’s make-up. Of course, one should not make that “uncritical” mistake - even if the mistake is being encouraged.
Byron continued to court the controversy created over Childe Harold, a character who, along with his author, was fast becoming infamous. After the stir created by the first edition of his poem, Byron moved quickly to consolidate the impression he had made by adding a little something to the furore. The ‘Addition to the Preface,’ to be included in subsequent editions, is mostly a direct response to George Ellis’s criticism in The Quarterly Review:
I have now waited till almost all our periodical journals have distributed their usual portion of criticism. To the justice of the generality of their criticisms I have nothing to object: it would ill become me to quarrel with their very slight degree of censure, when, perhaps, if they had been less kind they had been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and each my best thanks for their liberality, on one point alone shall I venture an observation. (Byron,1970, p.179)
The ‘very slight degree of censure’ which followed the first edition was, it would seem, not quite enough. Thus, in responding to Ellis, Byron focusses ‘on one point alone’ in order to create further scandal for himself:
124 Amongst the many objections justly urged to the very indifferent character of the ‘vagrant Childe’ (whom, not withstanding many hints to the contrary, I still maintain to be a fictitious personage), it has been stated, that, besides the anachronism, he is very unknightly, as the times of the Knights were times of Love, Honour, and so forth. (p.179)
In case the ‘many hints to the contrary’ do not achieve the effect which Byron is seeking, he conveniently inserts another one here.
The ‘one point alone’ that Byron takes issue with, or rather claims to take issue with, is Harold’s chastity; which, interestingly enough, was not the point of Ellis’s criticism at all. Ellis writes:
The moral code of chivalry was not, we admit, quite pure and spotless; but its laxity in some points was redeemed by the noble spirit of gallantry which it inspired; a gallantry which courted personal danger in the defence of the sovereign, because he is the fountain of honour; of women because they are often lovely and always helpless; and of the priesthood because they are at once disarmed and sanctified by their profession. (Ellis, 1812, p.194)
In other words, the unchaste Childe could at least have been ‘redeemed’ by performing some kind of heroic action. Harold’s weakness here lies in his lack of heroic valour, not his personal virtue. However, by deliberately missing the point of the original criticism Byron is able to cast a more enticingly wicked light over his character, and himself.
Ellis, in his review, had effectively exposed Byron’s egocentric game. Rightly suspicious of ‘the author’s positive assurance’ to the contrary, he had resisted Byron’s bait:
We are told, however, that ‘friends,’ on whose opinions Lord Byron sets a high value,’ have suggested to him that he might be ‘suspected’ of having sketched in his hero a portrait of real life; a suspicion for which, he says, ‘in some very trivial particulars there might be grounds; but in the main points I hope none whatever.’ Now if he was so anxious to repel a suspicion which had occurred to friends, on whom he set a high value; if he was conscious that the imaginary traveller, whom, from an unwillingness to appear as the hero of his own tale, he had substituted for himself, was so unamiable; we are at a loss to guess at his motives for choosing such a representative. (p.192) 125
Unlike Francis Jeffrey, from The Edinburgh Review, whose appraisal had given Childe Harold the grandeur of Milton’s Satan, Ellis refuses to give Byron’s ego that much ground. Instead, he criticizes the awkwardness of ‘the Childe,’ showing how Byron’s work suffers technically from the insertion of such an ill-defined character:
Of the plan indeed we are unable to speak with perfect confidence, because it has not been at all developed in the two cantos which are now given to the public; but it appears to us that the ‘Childe Harold,’ whom we suppose, in consequence of the author’s positive assurance, to be a creature of the imagination, is so far from effecting the object for which he is introduced, and ‘giving some connection to the piece,’ that he only tends to embarrass and obscure it. (p.192)
Ellis focusses on the temporal disunity of the piece, painting ‘the Childe’ as a ludicrous anachronism - not quite the moral censure Byron was hoping for:
. . . why revert to the rude and simple ages of chivalry in search of a character which can only exist in an age of vicious refinement? Again, if this apparent absurdity was unavoidable; if the ‘Childe,’ and ‘the little page,’ and the ‘staunch yeoman,’ whom the Childe addresses in his farewell to his native land, could not be spared, why is this group of antiques sent on a journey through Portugal and Spain, during the interval between the convention of Cintra and the battle of Talavera? (p.192)
By side-stepping Harold’s wickedness, so to speak, Ellis is not sparring on Byron’s ground; so Byron has to re-position Ellis’s criticism, just a little, in order to bring it into line with the persona he is trying to project:
Now, it so happens that the good old times, when ‘l’amour du bon vieux tems, l’amour antique,’ flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries . . . If the story of the institution of the ‘Garter’ be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indifferent memory. (p.179)
Actually, Ellis does not glorify ‘the good old times,’ as Byron here suggests, but rather questions the author’s need to ‘revert to the 126 simple and rude ages of chivalry. . .’ Byron continues, however, to playfully miss the point:
Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times), few exceptions will be found to this statement; and I fear a little investigation will teach us not to regret these monstrous mummeries of the middle ages. (p.179)
Byron is certainly giving a lot of attention to the ‘one point alone’ that his reviewer never made, cleverly twisting the original stylistic criticism into a moral one. Ellis believed that Byron had ‘capriciously and uselessly degraded’ the character of the hero. So Byron responds by capriciously degrading him even further:
So much for chivalry, Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Marie-Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honour lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed. (p.179)
It is the ‘vagrant Childe’ Byron wants us to see, not the anachronistic one; and by including this argument as an ‘Addition to the Preface’ of his work, he is pointing all subsequent readers in that direction.
Such a pre-emptive move appears, on the face of it, to be a strange one, because it goes against the gist of the text itself. While Byron claims here that, ‘Had I proceeded with the poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close’ (p.180), Harold already has deepened, even before the end of canto one. If we leave to one side the suggestive prefaces, the text itself presents Childe Harold as one who has become morally chastened. Indeed, the purpose of Childe Harold’s pilgrimage seems to be one of atonement, through ‘the ceaseless toil of travel’ (Canto 2, Stanza 43), for his youthful dissipation. What interest, then, could Byron have in reversing this process, of making the reformed Harold wicked again? Unless, of course, the Harold he is rather unsuccessfully defending is not the character from the text, but a different figure altogether.
It is unnecessary for Byron to so rigorously address the moral laxity of Childe Harold. So, Byron’s affected protest at the mis-reading of his character effectively creates another figure - a figure that could only exist outside of the text, and is more than likely to be confused 127 with the author. That ‘vagrant Childe’ provided the self-image which Byron’s ego required, and the enticing means by which an adoring readership were kept enthralled.
Two years later Byron would again call upon the image of his ‘shameless wight’ to promote another work. By this time Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage had run to fifteen editions, so obviously not too many people were bothered by this character, or his alleged semblance to the noble lord. In a preface to The Corsair (1814), a work which sold twenty-five thousand copies and ran to seven editions in just over a month (Marchand, 1971, p.162), Byron again conjures up the spectre of Childe Harold, knowing that the shadow of this ‘very repulsive personage’ still hangs over him:
. . . if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of ‘drawing from self,’ the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable; and if not, those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceivng. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more deserving, I allow) in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than ‘The Giaour,’ and perhaps - but no - I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive personage; and as to his identity, those who like it must give him whatever ‘alias’ they please. (1970, p.277) Obviously readers did ‘like it’ and they chose to give Childe Harold the ‘alias’ Byron. Leaving aside The Corsair and The Giaour (which we will consider shortly), it was Childe Harold who cast a lasting spell on a devouring readership. Unable to resist ‘the gloomy vanity’ of this self-image, Byron would return to his favourite character with a third canto in 1816. In the meantime, there were some developments in the construction of Byron’s hero figures that would have a significant effect upon the re-emergence of Childe Harold.
Expanding Upon Guilt
It may have been the initial success and lasting popularity of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage that allowed Byron to gauge the kind of 128 character his readership wanted; for he spends the next few years developing and expanding upon the idea of a guilt-ridden male protagonist. Childe Harold the Wanderer was not, it would seem,guilty enough for them. They required the much darker lines of Selim in The Bride of Abydos (1813), The Giaour (1812), The Corsair (1814), Lara (1814), or Alp in The Siege of Corinth (1816). Against these swash- buckling soldiers and pirates, Harold comes across as rather bloodless. While these figures struggle with the inner demons of their mysterious pasts, they also act in the traditional sword-wielding, musket-toting manner of the hero. Harold’s heroism, on the other hand, is defined solely through his stoic capacity to bear a guilt-burden. Nevertheless, this ability was the most important characteristic he lent to the progeny that followed. These increasingly dark characters enjoyed a period of immense success with a devouring readership, as the possession of a guilt-burden became an essential feature of Byron’s hero.
Whereas Ann Radcliffe claimed of terror that it ‘expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life’ (cited in Dobree,1966, p.ix), Byron found that guilt could perform much the same function. With Byron’s heroes, it is their awareness of guilt which lends them grandeur, an awareness which lifts them above the common-order of humanity. By feeling intensely guilty they expand their souls. They are but mortal figures in a natural world, but their experience of guilt makes them supernatural - supernatural, that is, in the sense of being above the natural order. However, to make the heroism of the guilt- bearer compelling, or even convincing, Byron would have to persuade his reader that guilt was a genuine and worthy form of suffering.
Through a line of heroic guilt-bearers, Byron could consistently portray guilt as a positive attribute, reiterating its transformative power. “I am not of thine order!” asserts the guilt-ridden Manfred (Act 2, Scene 1, l.38), whose dramatic awareness of his own transgression constitutes his force as an heroic character. But while Manfred illustrates the point, he is also an exception to the rule; for he is a Faustian sinner whose ‘long pursued and superhuman art’ makes him a supernatural figure within what is also a supernatural textual world. On the other hand, the typical hero of Byron’s tales is but a mortal being with a guilty secret, living in a largely realist world. He is not like St. Leon, endowed with supernatural advantages, nor is he like the 129 Wandering Jew, cursed with preternatural longevity. Nevertheless, he is described in unmistakably supernatural terms, with his mortality being placed in a kind of un-dead suspension. To that end, Lara ‘stood a stranger in this breathing world, / An erring spirit from another hurled’ (Canto 1, ll. 315 - 316), like The Giaour who “breathed, / But not the breath of human life” and “shrunk from Nature’s face” (ll. 1192 - 1197), or Alp in The Siege of Corinth who is ‘Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight’ (l. 623). Such figures rely upon their guilt alone to render them supernatural. While they remain essentially human, they attain a kind of preternatural longevity by suffering intensely from guilt.
The Giaour (1813) is where Byron demonstrates most clearly his adeptness at elevating mortal souls. There we see the transformative power of guilt at work. The guilt-bearer, if they are to be considered heroic, must be seen to suffer intensely; to that end, the genuineness of the burden must be established. A vivid way of achieving this is to depict the marked physical effects of a ‘soul wasting woe.’ The withered frame, the ruined mind, The wrack by passion left behind, A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf, Seared by the autumn blast of grief! (Byron,1970, p.263, ll.1253-1256)
We view the ‘withered frame’ of this human figure, fragile and transient as ‘a scattered leaf,’ and are reminded of its suffering mortality. But we are also intended to see this mortal as something more than the common man; and to that effect, Byron knows how to make a mortal look so guilty that they become unmistakably supernatural.
The purpose of this portrayal is to confirm the guilt-bearer’s supernatural status within a natural world. The sensation or drama surrounding his appearance confirms this elevated status, telling us that he is of another and higher order. When the Giaour first appears, he does so dramatically: ‘Who thundering comes on blackest steed / With slackened bit and hoof of speed? (ll.180-181)’ And his passing by leaves one with the unshakeable impression of something unearthly:
On - on he hastened, and he drew My gaze of wonder as he flew: Though like a Demon of the night He passed, and vanished from my sight, 130 His aspect and his air impressed A troubled memory of my breast, And long upon my startled ear Rung his dark courser’s hoofs of fear. (ll.200-207)
Thus, the guilty figure arrives dramatically causing a supernatural sensation, ‘like a Demon of the night.’ The witness to this dark visitation is an anonymous Turk, an involuntary viewer from whom the Giaour draws a ‘gaze of wonder’ and leaves with a ‘troubled memory’:
I know thee not, I loathe thy race, But in thy lineaments I trace What Time shall strengthen, not efface. (ll.191-193)
Although he does not know the Giaour, the viewer cannot help but ‘trace’ the guilt which marks him out, his ‘soul wasting woe’ : ‘Though young and pale, that sallow front / Is scathed by fiery Passion’s brunt’ (ll.194-195). Though only fleeting, this sudden impression of guilt is so startling that it cannot be mistaken:
Though bent on earth thine evil eye, As meteor-like thou glidest by, Right well I view and deem thee one Whom Othman’s sons should slay or shun. (ll.196-199)
While the mortal observer passes judgement - ‘Right well I view and deem’ - it is only as the lesser judging the greater; for the supernatural elevation of the Giaour is such that he remains ‘meteor-like’ above the common observer, ‘thundering’ by on his ‘blackest steed.’And so, it is the one who appears guilty, with his ‘evil eye’ ‘bent on earth,’ that is looking down upon the insignificant world of the viewer.
Even in the eyes of the one who is judging him, the guilt-bearer remains transcendent and of another order: as though the common observer recognizes that whatever the guilt, whatever the inner turmoil which troubles this sufferer is of immense, even eternal significance, being that which ‘Time shall strengthen, not efface.’ When the same observer sees the Giaour years later, the immortal nature of that suffering is confirmed:
131 But once I saw that face, yet then It was so marked with inward pain, I could not pass it by again; It breathes the same dark spirit now, As death were stamped upon his brow. (ll.794-797)
To the extent that it can be vividly traced, the Giaour’s inner hell cannot be denied.
A ‘face so marked with inward pain’ bears witness to the transcendent nature of the guilt-bearer’s torment, a suffering which remains beyond us; and as sure as ‘death were stamped upon his brow,’ the effect of guilt upon the bearer is lasting:
“But look - ‘tis written on my brow! There read of Cain the curse and crime, In characters unworn by Time.” (ll.1057-1059)
Here, the guilt-bearer is self-consciously aware of his unearthly appearance. However, this posture of guilt is a source of pride rather than shame: “I read abhorrence on thy brow, / And this too was I born to bear!” (ll.1161-1162) To be shunned, in this sense, is to be confirmed in one’s apartness from humankind, not shamefully so, but heroically, as one ‘born to bear’ an unfathomable burden. A monk provides another perspective, confirming what the Giaour already knows about himself:
“If ever evil angel bore The form of mortal, such he wore; By all my hope of sins forgiven, Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!” (ll.912-915)
In effect, just by looking guilty one becomes supernatural.
However, while ‘looks’ which are ‘not of earth or heaven’ may give an appearance of unfathomable guilt, Byron also has to take us behind that appearance, to the inner world of the guilt-sufferer. Cooper perceptively notes that ‘the typical pose of the Byronic hero is not one of simple suffering, or of suppressed suffering, but of suffering visibly suppressed’ (1988, p.533). But that posture alone is not enough. That is 132 to say, if we are to be convinced of the hero’s great suffering, we have to be made to understand the nature of his inner-hell:
Dark and unearthly is the scowl That glares beneath his dusky cowl: The flash of that dilating eye Reveals too much of times gone by. (ll.832-835)
What the spectator only receives a glimpse of, Byron goes to some lengths to elucidate, revealing in the process the powerful effects of guilt upon the inner-world of the sufferer. For not only does guilt transform the outer-shell of its bearer, it also expands their soul, leaving them with a powerful sense of being supernaturally apart from the world. Like the eye of the fallen angel, from which ‘Glares forth the immortality of Hell,’ the ‘dilating eye’ of the Giaour reveals ‘too much of ‘times gone by.’
Those ‘times gone by’ which are flashing from the Giaour’s eye point to ‘Winters of Memory’ (l.262) of ‘an age of crime’ (l.264). The incessant recollection of this dark past is a psychological burden which cannot be shed, a ‘Woe without name, or hope, or end’ (l.276). Such ineffable suffering takes on immortal proportions through its focussed intensity, for ‘Though in Time’s record nearly nought, / It was Eternity to Thought!’ (ll.272-273):
But in that instant o’er his soul Winters of Memory seemed to roll, And gather in that drop of time A life of pain, an age of crime. (ll.261-264)
The pain of a suffering conscience, when concentrated into a ‘drop of time,’ is what gives the guilt-bearer a sense of the eternal within:
For infinite as boundless space The thought that Conscience must embrace, Which in itself can comprehend Woe without name, or hope, or end. (ll.273-276)
The burden of an unrelenting conscience is no ordinary form of suffering. The proportions of this psychological burden are as ‘infinite 133 as boundless space,’ yet Byron’s hero bears this infinite pain within.
To house the eternal, in this sense, is no pleasurable experience. The Giaour, like Byron’s other guilt-bearing protagonists, suffers from the ‘tortures of that inward hell!’ (l.754), bearing the burden of a past that cannot be overcome through ‘a life of lingering woes.’ (l.1003) But his perceived distortion of time is also what gives the guilt-bearer a sense of himself as being apart from common humanity. He is effectively dead to the world, but not, it would seem, in the usual negative sense of that phrase:
My memory now is but the tomb Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom: Though better to have died with those Than bear a life of lingering woes. (ll.1000-1003)
While it would have been ‘better to have died,’ the Giaour nevertheless chooses to ‘bear a life of lingering woes.’ In so doing, he demonstrates an heroic capacity for suffering which is beyond that of a mere mortal:
My spirit shrunk not to sustain The searching throes of ceaseless pain; Nor sought the self-accorded grave Of ancient fool and modern knave. (ll.1004-1007)
Thus, the experience of suffering from guilt gives the Giaour a death- in-life existence, through which he becomes suspended above the common-order. It is, after all, no ordinary spirit who could ‘sustain’ such a burden. The common ‘fool’ or ‘knave’ runs away from his conscience and seeks ‘the self-accorded grave.’ So by choosing to live and suffer beneath the ‘searching throes’ of his guilt the Giaour becomes dead to the world, but only in the sense of rising supernaturally above it.
The intense suffering which this transformative experience involves is conveyed in the image of a ‘Scorpion girt by fire’. This is Byron’s most persuasive portrayal of the guilty conscience; whereby, he effectively traces the self-conscious transformation achieved through guilt: 134
The Mind, that broods o’er guilty woes, Is like the Scorpion girt by fire; In circle narrowing as it glows, The flames around their captive close, Till inly searched by thousand throes, And maddening in her ire, One sad and sole relief she knows - The sting she nourished for her foes, Whose venom never yet was vain, Gives but one pang, and cures all pain, And darts into her desperate brain: So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like Scorpion girt by fire; So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death! (ll.422-438)
Byron achieves an almost implosive effect here. In an ever ‘narrowing’ circle of consciousness the guilty brooding of the subject leads to a sickly cloyingness, as they are ‘inly searched by thousand throes.’ A nervous or hectic intensity is achieved by gradually increasing the dramatic tension surrounding the sufferer: ‘The flames around their captive close . . .’ The position of ‘the Mind’ becomes increasingly desperate, ‘maddening in her ire,’ until the suicide of a slow death is sought. I have said slow here, despite the claim that her ‘venom’ ‘Gives but one pang, and cures all pain’; for elsewhere in Byron’s work the ‘scorpion’s sting’ is associated with the ‘ever and anon’ return of ‘griefs subdued.’ Such is the direction the image would take in the later cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:
But ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion’s sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued. (1970, Canto 4, Stanza 23, p.230)
We can see from the way that Byron develops this ‘venom’ that there is ‘a very life in our despair,’ a ‘Vitality of poison’ (canto 3, stanza 34, p.214). To this effect, the ‘fresh bitterness’ of a stinging conscience provides the vitality which keeps the mind alive and writhing in its 135 remorse. Furthermore, as it is only the ‘fool’ or ‘knave’ who seek ‘the self-accorded grave,’ Byron is telling us of those who ‘live like Scorpion girt by fire’ rather than simply ‘expire’ - which is why the image in The Giaour ends with a dramatic transformation:
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death! (ll.435-438)
Thus, the violence and pain of this poignant image ends in the self- conscious drama of a supernatural transformation - a process which leaves the guilt-bearer suspended between life and death, ‘earth’ and ‘heaven.’ So the ‘death!’ which this stanza so emphatically ends with is really the beginning of a new and grander existence. ‘So do the dark in soul expire, / Or live like Scorpion girt by fire’ (ll.433-434) We know of course which option the ‘dark in soul’ hero of Byron’s creation will choose. Because it is his guilt-burden which makes him heroic, he must live to bear this load; and by suffering so, he is lifted above the common mortal.
Perhaps Manfred (1817) provides us with the best illustration of such an immortal elevation for the guilt troubled soul. In this supernatural verse-drama we witness a ‘Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin . . .’ (Act 2, Scene 1, l.31) caught between death and life, struggling with his ‘fatality to live’:
I feel the impulse - yet I do not plunge; I see the peril - yet do not recede; And my brain reels - and yet my foot is firm: There is a power upon me which withholds, And makes it my fatality to live, - If it be life to wear within myself This barrenness of Spirit, and to be My own Soul’s sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself - The last infirmity of evil. (Byron, 1970, p.393, Act 1, Scene 2, ll.21-29)
136 Manfred longs to be free from ‘Space and eternity - and consciousness, / With the fierce thirst of death . . .’ (Act 2, Scene 1, ll.47- 48), but his desire is dramatically frustrated:
You were not meant for me - Earth! take these atoms! [As Manfred is in act to spring from the cliff, the Chamois Hunter seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.] (1970, p.394)
There is a suspended tension achieved by stalling Manfred’s death, by which the reader is made to witness his prolonged mortality and suffering - a supernatural and guilty existence which, in effect, is also held in suspension:
My long pursued and superhuman art, Is mortal here: I dwell in my despair - And live - and live for ever. (Act 2, Scene 2, ll.147-149)
What Manfred describes as ‘my fatality to live,- / If it be life to wear within myself / This barrenness of Spirit, and to be / My own Soul’s sepulchre . . .’ (Act 1, Scene 2, ll.24-27) is the guilt-bearer’s sense of himself as being dead to the world, and yet, of having heroically transcended that world through his suffering. Belonging not ‘to mortals of a dust like thine, - / I am not of thine order’ (Act 2, Scene 1, ll. 37- 38), proclaims Manfred.
We have seen, however, that it is not necessary for Byron’s protagonists to pursue ‘superhuman art’ in order to become heroic. Rather, they may become ‘superhuman’ simply by suffering from guilt. This, then, is all Childe Harold needs in order to continue the line of ‘dark in soul’ heroes that Byron has established. As a ‘gloomy Wanderer,’ he may not satisfy the reader’s taste for danger and romance, but he is more than capable of bearing a guilt-burden. And so, when Harold returns after four years’ absence, we see him well and truly transformed by his experience of guilt.
137 Canto Three
The return of Harold is also, to some extent, a teasing revelation of the author; for this is the character closest to Byron’s heart. Of all his ‘dark in soul’ heroes, it was Childe Harold, the Wanderer, that Byron chose to return to. It was ‘in that Tale’ that he saw himself, rather than in his other creations:
In my youth’s summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; Again I seize the theme, then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O’er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life, - where not a flower appears. (1970, canto 3, stanza 3, pp.209-210)
Of course, Childe Harold really needs no introduction; but this poignant re-introduction serves to remove a little more of that ‘line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive.’ The heartfelt re- emergence of this ‘wandering outlaw’ ensures that his creator is seen as a Wanderer too, bearing ‘heavily the journeying years’ over ‘the last sands of life.’ Byron takes up this guilt-burden, before an eager readership, in order to assume the identity of the Wanderer. While Harold suffers through the course of his pilgrimage, his creator finds ‘in that Tale’ enough of his own suffering, the ‘furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,’ to claim the reader’s sympathy and admiration.
When the Poet and his creation thus merge - ‘Mix’d with thy spirit . . . with thee in my crush’d feelings dearth’ - it will not be in the shape of a mortal figure; for Harold has himself undergone the supernatural transformation enjoyed by his guilt-bearing progeny:
Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth, Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mix’d with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush’d feelings dearth. (canto 3, stanza 6) 138
Harold will eventually become, in canto four, little more than a ghost, ‘all-seeing but unseen’ (Canto 4, Stanza 138). Even here, in canto three, he is already a phantom-like personage, wandering guiltily through Europe, ‘Invisible but gazing, as I glow . . .’ To that end, the expansion of soul which is achieved through intense guilt is making Harold increasingly supernatural.
When ‘Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,’ he does so with ‘The very knowledge that he lived in vain, / That all was over on this side of the tomb,’ and thus takes on a death-in-life existence:
Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, With nought of hope left - but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side of the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though ‘twere wild, - as on the plundered wreck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, - Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. (Stanza 16)
This change, from mortal to immortal, is more of an “upgrade” than anything else, and Harold has to ‘check’ his elation of spirit. Of course, as an heroic figure he is not allowed to become ‘madly’ conceited; rather, he must continue to suffer grandly and silently, as the chastening process of his pilgrimage continues:
Though on his brow were graven lines austere, And tranquil sternness, which had ta’en the place Of feelings fiercer far but less severe - Joy was not always absent from his face, But o’er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace. (Stanza 52)
While ‘on his brow were graven lines austere’ Harold bears the outward signs of the guilt-bearer’s suffering. Importantly, though, he does not attempt to alleviate this burden by searching for sympathy. The heroic stoicism of his self-exile attempts to demonstrate this:
But soon he knew himself the most unfit 139 Of men to herd with Man, with whom he held Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompelled, He would not yield dominion of his mind To Spirits against whom his own rebelled, Proud though in desolation - which could find A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. (Stanza 12)
Not only are we positioned to admire Harold for ungrudgingly accepting his guilt-burden, for knowing ‘himself the most unfit / Of men to herd with Man,’ we are also persuaded to recognize this guilty withdrawal, his rebellion, as the means by which he is lifted above us. Gaining a new ‘life within itself, to breathe without mankind,’ he is elevated above the common ‘herd.’ Thus transcending the natural order, Harold attains the supernatural grandeur of no less than Milton’s Satan, ‘Proud though in desolation’; or at least that is how Byron would have us view his and the narrator’s shadow companion.
We are assured by Byron that these supernatural beings do in fact exist, that there really ‘are’ such heroic mortals who have become immortal Wanderers:
The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness: on the sea The boldest steer but where their ports invite; But there are wanderers o’er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor’d ne’er shall be. (Stanza 70)
We are to admire, with a sympathetic eye, these worthy sufferers; for such is the guilt-tinged ‘darkness’ of a death-in-life that ‘drives on and on.’ Furthermore, they are to be considered worthy of our sympathy because of their heroic self-exile, for the way they, as ‘the most unfit / Of men to herd with Man,’ ungrudgingly withdraw themselves from society because of their awareness that ‘All are not fit with them to stir and toil . . .’
This endearing shame is, however, to be balanced with the pride of their guilt:
140 To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind: All are not fit with them to stir and toil, Nor is it discontent to keep the mind Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil In the hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. (Stanza 69)
Behind the humble rhetoric of these admirable sentiments lies the same elation of spirit that Harold ‘forbore to check.’ So, whatever shame these guilty Wanderers may feel is compensated by the elevated status which their self-exile achieves. They may not ‘fit’ a ‘contentious world, striving where none are strong,’ but they nevertheless ‘deplore’ and remain above the ‘wretched interchange of wrong for wrong’ which typifies natural ‘mankind.’ From this position, they are well on their way to becoming supernatural in the next stanza:
There, in a moment we may plunge our years In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears, And colour things to come with hues of Night . . . (Stanza 70)
Here is where the ‘race of life becomes a hopeless flight / To those that walk in darkness,’ as their death-in-life experience of guilt renders them ‘wanderers o’er Eternity.’
It seems that ‘we’ too may become one of these ‘wanderers o’er Eternity’ through the experience of our own guilt, ‘the blight / Of our own soul . . .’ Byron has consistently told his readership that guilt is a positive and heroic attribute, a burden which does not crush the soul but, rather, expands it. Confident, then, that they will understand him, there is no problem for Byron in switching to universal mode as he appeals for the sympathy of his readers.
This sympathetic relationship with the reader was partly established in canto two, where Harold had more of a narrative. There, 141 for a time, ‘we’ could relate to the Wanderer’s pilgrimage by comparing it with our own life-experience:
Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind; Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, And each well-known caprice of wave and wind; Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, Coop’d in their winged sea-girt citadel; The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, Till on some jocund morn - lo, land! and all is well. (Canto 2, Stanza 28)
The sweet pathos of describing life as a journey makes the reader feel like a Wanderer as well. Encompassing the whole range of human experience, its ‘joys and sorrows . . . The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind,’ the general and inclusive language of this stanza incorporates us easily, and comfortably, into the image of the Wanderer.
In canto three, Byron’s appeal to the reader still employs inclusive language. However, it seems more poignant and personal, as he speaks of and to ‘those that walk in darkness.’ There is a painful yet appealing pathos in thus turning ‘all our blood to tears,’ a movement which transforms, ‘in a moment,’ the road of life borne by mortals into the ‘fatal penitence’ borne by an immortal Wanderer:
They mourn, but smile at length - and smiling, mourn The tree will wither long before it fall; The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn; The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall In massy hoariness; the ruin’d wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone; The bars survive the captive they enthral; The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun; And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on. (Stanza 32)
These are all metaphors for a prolonged and suffering mortality, for a life which seems to extend beyond its allotted time; they culminate in the image, the ‘shatter’d guise,’ of a broken heart which, ‘Even as a broken mirror’ (Stanza 33) yet ‘brokenly live[s] on’: 142
Living in shatter’d guise; and still, and cold, And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old, Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. (Stanza 33)
It is the inner hell of the guilt-bearer which “unnaturally” sustains them while ‘all without is old.’ By bearing within themselves the eternal dimensions of this ‘untold’ world they achieve an immortal expanse of soul, even as their mortal selves decay.
Yet, despite these heartfelt appeals to the reader, there is still a sense in which Byron does not wish to be understood. For ultimately, his guilt and suffering, like Harold’s, is not of the common order and not to be borne by ordinary mortals. While the poet-narrator may tease us with the mention of a ‘peopled desert past . . . Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast’ (Stanza 73), we are not told what this sin is, nor are we allowed access to the uncommon soul which bears this guilty secret.
Nevertheless, as canto three draws to a close, Byron treats this guilt-burden as though it were a universal ‘theme,’ telling us ‘to steel / The heart against itself; and to conceal, / With a proud caution,’ our remorse for what ‘We are not . . .’
Thus far have I proceeded in a theme Renew’d with no kind auspices: - to feel We are not what we have been, and to deem We are not what we should be, and to steel The heart against itself; and to conceal, With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, - Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal, - Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought, Is a stern task of soul: - No matter, - it is taught. (Stanza 111)
The spectrum of human experience - ‘love, or hate, or aught, - / Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal . . .’ - again ensures the universal appeal of Byron’s lesson. However, once this lesson is ‘taught,’ the inclusive language disappears, to be replaced, rather forcefully, by the personal experience of an all-conquering ‘I’: 143
I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flatter’d its rank breath, nor bow’d To its idolatries a patient knee, Nor coin’d my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud In worship of an echo; in the crowd They could not deem me one of such; I stood Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. (Stanza 113)
As the canto draws to a close, the dramatic repetition of this heroic posture in the following stanza - ‘I have not loved the world, nor the world me’ (Stanza 114) - reiterates the heroic defiance of “one” lone Wanderer against the world. This is the image of himself that Byron chose to project: a Wanderer with an immortal guilt-burden.
Byron’s egocentric identification with this figure has, in a sense, replaced the need for a character, like Childe Harold, who embodies its attributes. Like the supernatural Wanderer that he is, Byron himself can now stand ‘Among them, but not of them.’ And wrapped ‘in a shroud / Of thoughts which were not their thoughts,’ he remains, after canto three, well above them - ‘them’ being ‘the World’ of mere mortals, which included an adoring readership, successfully positioned to admire this egocentric Wanderer, the ‘wandering outlaw of his own dark mind.’ With the relationship between himself and his readers now established Byron could, in the next canto, dispense with ‘a distinction between the author and the pilgrim,’ having ‘become weary of drawing a line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive’ (Byron,1970, p.226).
Canto Four
The final instalment of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818) is built upon the strength of Byron’s alliance with his readership. While the character of Childe Harold may disappear, the Wanderer yet remains; in particular, the Wanderer’s burden remains an important focal point for maintaining the sympathy of an appreciative audience. In a review of 144 canto four Walter Scott noted that ‘whether as Harold or as Lord Byron no author has ever fixed upon himself personally so intense a share of the public attention’ (Scott, 1818, p. 228). Where Scott, in 1812, had once seen ‘a monstrous deal of conceit’ in Byron’s effort to ‘claim sympathy gravely’ from the reader, he must now acknowledge the success of this strategy:
Whether the reader acted right or otherwise in persisting to neglect the shades of distinction which the author endeavoured to point out betwixt his pilgrim and himself, it is certain that no little power over the public attention was gained from their being identified. (1818, p. 217) We have seen how Byron, for the last six years, had subtly encouraged the reader to ‘neglect the shades of distinction’ between the author and his character. By thus cajoling the ‘public attention’ he had established the relationship which Scott describes:
The reader felt as it were in the presence of a superior being, when, instead of his judgment being consulted, his imagination excited or soothed, his taste flattered or conciliated in order to bespeak his applause, he was told, in strains of the most sublime poetry, that neither he, the courteous reader, nor aught the earth had to shew, was worthy the attention of the noble traveller. (p. 218)
However, Scott’s cynicism does not give ample credit to the creation of this ‘superior being,’ a being who was never so far removed from the concerns of the reader that he became unduly arrogant. In fact, canto four sees Byron attempting to build an even closer relationship with the reader, to some extent incorporating them into the Wanderer’s suffering. A more appreciative, less cynical appraisal is provided by Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine (May, 1818), which nevertheless reminds readers that ‘they will have to make a large allowance for the obtrusive egotism, which has yet had the advantage of concentrating our sympathies upon a real character, rather than upon a mere creature of fancy’ (cited in Redpath, 1973, p. 229).
Indeed, Byron gains his ‘advantage’ by ‘concentrating our sympathies’ upon the suffering of a ‘real character,’ the Wanderer, who no longer needs a disguise:
But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, The being who upheld it through the past? 145 Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. He is no more - these breathings are his last; His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, And he himself as nothing: - if he was Aught but a phantasy, and could be class’d With forms which live and suffer - let that pass - His shadow fades away into Destruction’s mass. (Stanza 164)
‘The being’ that allowed Byron’s ‘song’ to tarry for so long was a Wanderer figure with an immortal guilt-burden. Now, as the ‘phantasy’ of Childe Harold ‘fades away,’ the real form upon which his character was built is left to ‘live and suffer’ - and to plead for our sympathy one more time: ‘His task and mine alike are nearly done’(Stanza 175). Nevertheless, it is still the same figure, the Wanderer, who returns in canto four to consolidate the close accord he found with his appreciative audience.
The final stanza pays homage to the reader’s close relationship with this ‘being,’ even as it celebrates the completion of the Wanderer’s guilt-bearing task:
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been - A sound which makes us linger; - yet - farewell! Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene Which is his last, if in your memories dwell A thought which once was his, if on ye swell A single recollection, not in vain He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell; Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain, If such there were - with you, the moral of his strain. (Stanza 186)
The Wanderer’s task was established in the first two cantos. As a ‘Pilgrim’ he was to travel a hard road of penance, heroically bearing a guilt-burden. Here, we are told how readers have found accord with the Wanderer by sharing a similar burden, as in their own ‘memories dwell / A thought which once was his . . . A single recollection.’ Thus the reader has, to some degree, partaken of this penitential quest, with the Wanderer’s troubled conscience providing a focus for his or her sympathy.
146 By incorporating readers into the Wanderer’s guilt-bearing journey Byron is able to concentrate their sympathies more effectively; for while Byron’s Wanderer is always a ‘superior being’ he is not, as Scott would paint him, so far removed from their concerns that he becomes unrecognizable. The universal language which Byron employed in canto three returns with added vigour in the final instalment. When addressing ‘we of nobler clay’ he speaks of life in general being the heavy burden which we bear:
Existence may be borne, and the deep root Of life and sufferance make its firm abode The bare and desolated bosoms: mute The camel labours with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence, - not bestow’d In vain should such example be; if they, Things of ignoble or savage mood, Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay May temper it to bear, - it is but for a day. (Stanza 21)
While we are reminded of our mortality, which ‘is but for a day,’ we are also being led by the author toward a ‘nobler’ existence, to become ‘wanderers o’er Eternity.’ This transformation will of course require guilt.
It is, however, suffering in general which begins the transformative process, as we are told in the next stanza how ‘All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy’d, / Even by the sufferer . . .’ (Stanza 22) The process ‘in each event, Ends’ with the sufferer either ‘replenish’d and rebuoy’d,’ returning ‘to whence they came - with like intent,’ or ‘withering ere their time’ to ‘perish with the reed on which they leant.’ The outcome will be decided ‘According as their souls were form’d to sink or climb.’ It becomes clear, however, which form of suffering in particular will lead to an elevation of the soul, as we recognize the symptoms of ‘a scorpion’s sting’ in the following stanzas:
But ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion’s sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued . . . (Stanza 23)
147 . . . The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesign’d, When least we deem of such, calls up to view spectres whom no exorcism can bind, - The cold, the changed, perchance the dead - anew, The mourn’d, the loved, the lost - too many! yet how few! (Stanza 24)
The ‘scorpion’s sting’ is the sting of conscience, a ‘lightning of the mind’ (Stanza 24), which summons the ‘spectres whom no exorcism can bind.’ The ‘blight and blackening which it leaves behind’ is the trail of our mortal existence, transformed, ‘When least we deem of such,’ into a supernatural death-in-life amongst ‘The cold, the changed, perchance the dead - anew . . .’
As one of these ‘wanderers o’er Eternity’ himself, Byron continues to address others who wrestle perhaps . . .
. . . it may be, with demons, who impair The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey In melancholy bosoms, such as were Of moody texture from their earliest day, And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. (Stanza 34)
Such death-in-life imagery would have been all too familiar to Byron’s readership, as familiar as the tortured figure who bears this living hell within - the Wanderer.
Amidst the carnage of ‘The cold, the changed, perchance the dead - anew’ stands that familiar figure, heroically defiant, ‘A ruin amidst ruins’:
But my soul wanders; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand A ruin amidst ruins; there to track Fall’n states and buried greatness . . . (Stanza 25)
148 In canto two it was the narrator who fulfilled this contemplative role, wandering sadly amidst the ruins of Greece. But here, in Italy, it is neither the narrator nor Harold who calls upon his wandering soul; rather, it is the author who will ‘meditate’ upon ‘Fall’n states and buried greatness,’ by way of considering his own immortality:
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar
x My name from out the temple where the dead Are honour’d by the nations - let it be - And light the laurels on a loftier head! And be the Spartan’s epitaph on me - ‘Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.’ (Canto 4, Stanzas 9-10)
The egocentric tendency of this Wanderer was duly noted by The British Review (Aug. 1818):
When a man is rambling without ultimate purpose or destination, it is natural, and hardly avoidable, for him to re-tread his steps; and Lord Byron was the more in danger of so doing from the morbid bias of his mind . . . Indeed, his Lordship seems utterly incapable of all scheme and design in poetry; his strength seems to lie in talking of himself, except where the local magic of the scenery dilates his thoughts, and relieves him from the oppression of self, and the prison of his own mind. But even on these occasions the scene may rather be said to be full of Lord Byron, than Lord Byron of the scene. (Roberts, 1818, p. 22)
There is some truth in this assessment. It could even be said that Byron’s ego, in such passages, threatens to exclude readers from the sympathetic union they are persuaded to feel with the Wanderer:
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree I planted: they have torn me, and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. (Stanza 10)
When the author thus reflects upon himself, he leaves behind those universal sentiments which seek to incorporate the reader into the 149 Wanderer’s suffering. The inclusive language disappears, to be replaced instead by the lofty sounding pride of an afflicted ‘I’. And yet, Byron still needs to project himself as a superior being, one who will ‘seek no sympathies, nor need.’ In order to fulfil the heroic role of a Wanderer he willingly takes up his guilt-burden, having ‘reap’d . . . of the tree’ which he ‘planted.’ He must, in that valiant sense, remain above his readership if he is to command their respect as an admirable figure.
There is still, however, something unconvincing about the author in this role of a guilt-bearer. Whereas Childe Harold was prepared to learn ‘Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom’ (Canto 1, Stanza 23), his author is not so willing to acknowledge any guilt. Rather, the guilt which the author bears is of a somewhat qualified nature. We see, for instance, how he appeals to ‘Time! the corrector where our judgments err . . .’ and ‘Time!, the avenger! . . .’ (Stanza 130), who ‘never yet of human wrong / Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!’ (Stanza 132) ‘I sleep,’ says the author, ‘but thou shalt yet awake’ (Stanza 133). Again, the heroic ‘I’ returns, only this time it is not to bear a guilt- burden - ‘The thorns which I have reap’d’ - but rather to justify itself:
And if my voice break forth, ‘tis not that now I shrink from what is suffer’d: let him speak Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, Or seen my mind’s convulsion leave it weak; But in this page a record will I seek. Not in the air shall these my words disperse, Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse! (Stanza 134)
While this defiance may be awe-inspiring, it is hardly born from an acknowledgement of one’s guilt. Rather, the power of Byron’s ‘curse’ lies in his assertion of relative innocence:
That curse shall be Forgiveness. - Have I not - Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Have I not suffer’d things to be forgiven? Have I not had my brain sear’d, my heart riven, 150 Hopes sapp’d, name blighted, Life’s life lied away? And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. (Stanza 135)
The guilt which this Wanderer bears, if any, is qualified by a sense that he is less guilty than ‘the souls of those whom I survey.’ The condescension of his ‘Forgiveness’ stands in marked contrast to the humility of Childe Harold, whose ‘conscious Reason whisper’d to despise / His early youth, misspent in maddest whim’ (Stanza 27). Because the author only grudgingly bears a guilt-burden he is not as convincing in the role of a Wanderer as the character he created.
When Childe Harold first appeared it was as a ‘shameless wight’ without guilt. His gradual acquisition of a guilt-burden is what compelled the reader’s interest in him as a character, a process which, in cantos one and two, saw Harold become the Wanderer. The initial success of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage determined the course of Byron’s character construction for the next four years, a period in which he developed a line of guilt-ridden heroes. It was, however, Childe Harold the Wanderer who Byron would return to in 1816 when he wished to project an image of himself.
During the interim period Byron had developed the notion of guilt as a transformative power, particularly in The Giaour; and so, when ‘Long absent Harold re-appears at last’ (Canto 3, Stanza 8) he has adopted this development to become, in canto three, a supernatural being. To that end, the Wanderer’s guilt-burden comes to the fore, with Byron demonstrating how mortal beings like Harold and himself, perhaps even the reader, could become ‘wanderer’s o’er Eternity.’ Increasingly, though, it was the author who sought to fulfil this role, as the ‘line which everyone seemed determined not to perceive’ was dispensed with in canto four.
Of Byron’s arrival at the last instalment of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (May, 1818) had this to say:
151 The popular belief, that his heroes are himself, is a true belief; and the world has at last convinced the poet of that which he had at first but indistinctly understood, and imperfectly believed. (Wilson, 1818, p.217)
Perhaps they were right. Although, in the case of Childe Harold, ‘the wandering outlaw of his own dark mind,’ it is more likely that Byron had always sought this identification. Once he ‘believed’ that image to have been established he could let go of the character which made it possible:
But I forget, - My Pilgrim’s shrine is won, And he and I must part, - so let it be,- His task and mine alike are nearly done. (Stanza 175)
And yet, as Childe Harold, ‘his wanderings done . . . fades away into Destruction’s mass’ (Stanza 164), one notes also the disappearance of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden.
It seems that Byron was pleased, for a time, to use the sympathetic appeal of this burden to convey a compelling image of himself. He had, after all, consistently promoted guilt as an heroic quality through the construction of his ‘dark in soul’ heroes - a construction eagerly devoured by the public. In that sense, the Wanderer’s guilt-burden was primarily a means through which to gain the sympathy of an audience:
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Have I not suffer’d things to be forgiven?
That vulnerable self-presentation having been achieved, the ‘I’ of canto four seems to forget about the Wanderer’s guilt, seeking now to justify itself:
From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do? (Stanza 136)
In the end, perhaps the author was more concerned with fame than guilt:
152 But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain; But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they deem not of, Like the remember’d tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften’d spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. (Stanza 137) Needless to say, Byron’s prayers to ‘Time! the beautifier of the dead’ (Stanza 130) have been answered. Some thanks too, though, must go to the Wanderer’s guilt, a burden which allowed Byron to extract sympathy from his audience.
Like Wordsworth before him, Byron had chosen the image of a guilt-bearing Wanderer as a means through which to present himself to the public. And for both these authors, their egocentric identification with the Wanderer became so powerful that it blinded them to the guilt which gave the figure its significance. In a land where ‘slavery is unknown / Amongst us’ (The Excursion, Book 9, l.350) Wordsworth’s Wanderer took to defending the Establishment. Byron’s Wanderer, on the other hand, defended himself:
I stood and stand alone, - remember’d or forgot.
CXIII
I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flatter’d its rank breath, nor bow’d To its idolatries a patient knee . . . (Canto 3, Stanzas 112-113)
In so far as they were unwilling, themselves, to bear the Wanderer’s guilt-burden, these authors were unconvincing in the role to which they both aspired. Byron’s Wanderer became a self-righteous figure, devoid of guilt - and thus devoid of the very element which gave the trope its life. The shallowness of this decade’s Wanderer was soon to be exposed by an unscrupulous vampire.
153 Chapter 5
The Vampyre’s Empty Soul
John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) was published in the New Monthly Magazine as ‘A Tale By Lord Byron,’ but it was not to be considered as Byron’s for long. And rightly so, because Polidori’s story is clearly the product of another mind. While at first it appears to involve a familiar Byronic figure, the dark-in-soul Wanderer, Polidori’s story takes an imaginative turn which Byron’s conception of the Wanderer had not so far achieved, and perhaps did not allow for. This development has much less to do with the Wanderer becoming a vampire, as such, than it does with providing a unique treatment of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden. To that end, Polidori’s divergence from the image of the immortal Wanderer made popular by Byron is the primary focus of this chapter.
Why should vampirism, though, be considered as a side-issue when considering a story called The Vampyre, particularly as that text is often cited, sometimes grudgingly, as the primordial text of a vampire genre? My justification for this suspended view lies in drawing attention to something which, if one reads this primarily as a vampire story, may not be revealed - an aspect of the text which reveals Polidori’s astuteness in the construction of an “original” Wanderer figure. In order to achieve this, however, it will not be necessary or desirable to ignore vampires completely. On the contrary, by addressing vampirism directly and showing why its importance is often misplaced, the significance of Polidori’s new immortal Wanderer may be revealed.
The Vampyre follows on the heels of the last canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage(1818), the shadow of which the New Monthly Magazine was no doubt glad to let fall across this new Wanderer’s tale. And Lord Ruthven, the Vampyre, takes his name from Caroline Lamb’s satirical portrait of Byron in her novel Glenarvon (1816). Unscrupulously, in that sense, the Vampyre is simply trading off the fame of its more illustrious forebearers, Childe Harold and Byron himself - immortal Wanderers of a very similar ilk, or so it can appear. But the Vampyre presents a very different kind of Wanderer from 154 Childe Harold. However, thanks largely to its calculated promotion as ‘A Tale By Lord Byron’ such differences were not regarded. Furthermore, the shadow of Byron’s influence has continued to obscure an appreciation of Polidori’s unique divergence, even to this day.
Vampires, as we shall see, have contributed further to this misty appraisal. They were there right from the beginning, with the New Monthly Magazine cleverly incorporating Byron’s only vampire allusion into their sensational packaging of Polidori’s text. The preface to The Vampyre included a fragment of Byron’s The Giaour(1813), where a vampire curse is pronounced over the central character. It should be noted, however, that the Giaour in Byron’s verse-tale is not, nor does he become, a vampire; and too much has been made of this suggestive pointer ever since. Even Polidori’s staunchest defender finds the direction compelling:
The bizarre success of Polidori’s tale depended on the ways in which his monster was new; and those depended, I think, on what it owed to Byron. Even Byron’s indirect contributions to the theory and practice of vampirism turned out to be extraordinarily influential. (Macdonald,1991, p.190)
But apart from The Giaour’s oft-cited vampire-curse Macdonald is unenlightening as to what these other contributions might be. That the ‘curse was certainly known to Polidori’ (p.91) does not adequately account for the vitality of his own tale. Byron’s curse will be examined later, showing how the figure envisaged in that allusion is markedly different to the vampire created by Polidori.
Could it be that modern collators of the vampire canon, embarrassed by the dubious nature of Polidori’s text, have looked to Byron instead? A footnote to The Giaour’s vampire allusion in the Norton Critical Edition of Byron’s Poetry suggests this possibility. The note is attached to line 755 of The Giaour - ‘But first, on earth as Vampire sent’ - and reads:
Except for an incomplete novel, this is the only mention in Byron of the myth of the vampire, the doomed soul who cannot die and feeds on the blood of the living. Nevertheless, Byron has been frequently associated with the literature of vampirism as an expression of Romantic despair. (McConnell,1978, p.102)
155 The incredulity expressed by this note - ‘Nevertheless’ - answers my question. For one is clutching at straws if these trifles are to be regarded as ‘contributions to the theory and practice of vampirism’ (Macdonald, p.190). Byron’s ‘incomplete novel,’ which I examine here in some detail, does not mention ‘the myth of the vampire’ and is at best another allusion. Furthermore, if one defines ‘the literature of vampirism as an expression of Romantic despair’ there is little hope of Polidori’s The Vampyre being seriously considered, for Lord Ruthven is anything but the embodiment of Romantic angst.
Defenders of The Vampyre’s credibility have often sought to establish its worth in terms of a vampire canon, or sub-genre. To Morrison and Baldick, the ‘historical and mythological importance of Polidori’s The Vampyre lies in its drastic correction of the folklore’s shortcomings, and especially in his elevation of the nosferatu (undead) to the dignity of high social rank’ (1997, p.xii). Here, the originality of the text lies in what it corrects about vampire lore. Accordingly, its literary or generic worth is that, by giving a sophisticated depiction of a folk-belief, it ‘set in motion the glorious career of the aristocratic vampire,’ who everybody recognizes in Stoker’s Dracula(1897), ‘the novel that has defined our conceptions of lordly vampirism for the last century and more’ (1997, p.xii). Twitchell similarly praises the text’s achievement in this regard, stating that ‘the vampire’s subsequent durability in both the novel and the cinema is a testament to how Polidori first cast him in prose’ (1981, p.115). While these evaluations are quite deserved, there is only so much to be gained by defending Polidori on the vampire’s unhallowed turf - a generic ground which detractors of the text are equally anxious to claim for Byron.
There are two lines of thought which contribute to this on-going criticism. While perhaps they should remain unrelated, they have a mischievous tendency to converge. The first view has to do with Polidori’s integrity; it centres largely around his role in the text’s publication and promotion as a work of Byron’s. The second view relates to Polidori’s credibility as an artist, questioning his ownership of the story’s imaginative content, particularly vampirism, and his ability to develop such material successfully. This last suspicion points teasingly to the first, in so far as the unsatisfactory nature of the text appears to reflect the weak character of its author. However, the standard against which Polidori’s text is judged inadequate remains as 156 questionable as his role in the text’s production, perhaps even more so.
At least a little of the slur which this view relies upon can be removed from the author. In a measured defence of Polidori Macdonald has, as far as can be done, achieved this difficult task. He cites, amongst other unpublished material, Polidori’s letter (April 2, 1819) of protest to the New Monthly’s editor - sent the day after his tale appeared:
Sir I received a copy of the magazine of last 1rst April the present month & am sorry to find that your Genevan correspondence has led you into a mistake with regard to the tale of the Vampyre which is not Lord Byron’s but was written entirely by me ...... - I desire therefore that you will positively contradict your statement in the next number by the insertion of this note - With regard to my own tale it is imperfect & unfinished I had rather therefore it should not appear in the magazine - and if the Editor had sent his communication as he mentions he would have been spared this mistake. (cited in Macdonald, 1991, p.179)
Colburn subsequently agreed to print a more restrained letter from Polidori in the magazine’s next edition:
MR. EDITOR, As the person referred to in the Letter from Geneva, prefixed to the Tale of the Vampyre, in your last Number, I beg leave to state, that your correspondent has been mistaken in attributing that tale, in its present form, to Lord Byron. The fact is, that though the groundwork is certainly Lord Byron’s, its development is mine, produced at the request of a lady, who denied the possibility of any thing being drawn from the materials which Lord Byron had said he intended to have employed in the formation of his Ghost story. I am, &c. JOHN W. POLIDORI. (cited in Macdonald, 1991, p,181) Whatever one thinks of these embarrassed claims to authorship, of an ‘imperfect & unfinished’ story, it should at least be conceded that the decision to publish the story as Byron’s was not Polidori’s. In fact, the final decision to publish The Vampyre as ‘A Tale By Lord Byron’ was made by the magazine’s editor, Colburn, who deliberately removed a more tentative presentation written by the then sub-editor, Alaric Watts, who subsequently resigned over the affair. Watts, ‘without pledging . . . 157 positively for its authenticity, as the production of Lord Byron’ had offered the text as having probably ‘been committed to paper rather from the recital of a third person, than under the immediate direction of its noble author’ (cited in Macdonald, 1991, p.178).
The question of how the text came to arrive on Colburn’s desk in the first place remains unanswered. But to counter the assumption that Polidori himself forwarded the work, Macdonald traces the more likely scenario of it having been provided by John Mitford, who was also, according to Macdonald, responsible for the sensational prefatory material which accompanied the publication. (Macdonald, 1991, p.178- 181) Morrison and Baldick believe this preface, which I will discuss later, to have been written by the then sub-editor, Watts. (1997, p.235) So, however questionable Polidori’s role may appear in all of this, the hands of anxious editors cannot be discounted. Macdonald’s tentative assessment of the scandal is admirably fair: ‘Polidori’s integrity, if not his sophistication, can, I think, be defended’ (p.178).
The context which surrounds The Vampyre’s imaginative conception creates doubts which are harder to remove, particularly as that context involves an event forever enshrined in Romantic literary history. I am referring to the famous ghost story competition of 1816, as remembered by the winner, Mary Shelley, in her 1831 preface to Frankenstein (1818) - a story which she developed into one of the greatest of English novels. The stimulating, imaginative environment which gave birth to this acknowledged classic does not, however, cast a favourable light on The Vampyre, nor on its author. Polidori, at the time, was employed by Byron in the capacity of a personal physician. Nevertheless, he was included along with the Shelleys in the tale-telling diversions of this notable circle. Literary history is against him in this sense, with the weight of authoritative authors and texts contributing to the disparagement of his considerable achievement.
Shelley’s account of the event is a winner’s history, so to speak, where the other combatants withdraw from the field and she, quite rightly, takes centre stage. But while there are three losers, two of them ‘illustrious poets,’ there is one loser in particular:
Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole - what to see I forget - something very 158 shocking and wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and was obliged to despatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted. The illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task. (Shelley, 1996, p.171)
Thankfully, at some stage Polidori must have discarded this fruitless soil to build upon the fertile grounds of Byron’s imaginings which had ‘began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the end of his poem of Mazeppa’ (Shelley,1996, p.171). Shelley does not herself make a connection between Byron’s fragment and Polidori’s later development. Polidori, on the other hand, admits this much:
The tale which lately appeared, and to which his lordship’s name was wrongfully attached, was founded upon the ground-work upon which this fragment was to have been continued. Two friends were to travel from England into Greece, while there, one of them should die, but before his death, should obtain from his friend an oath of secrecy with regard to his decease. Some short time after, the remaining traveller returning to his native country, should be startled at perceiving his former companion moving about in society, and should be horrified at finding that he made love to his former friend’s sister. Upon this foundation I built the Vampyre . . .
What Polidori does not concede, however, is that Byron’s ‘ground-work’ was to become a vampire story.
When Barbour claims that ‘no one other than Polidori himself ever declared that Byron’s prose tale was to be the tale of a vampire’ (1992, pp.101-102) she is only half right. But she needs this accusation to support a derogatory view of Polidori’s text as being ‘a gamble that he could write himself into Byron’s league’ (p.92). However, if we look closely at Polidori’s declaration, published in the introduction to his novel Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus (1819), we see that he gives no such word on Byron’s behalf. On the contrary, he is anxious to claim the development of ‘the Vampyre’ as his own. He continues:
Upon this foundation I built the Vampyre, at the request of a lady, who denied the possibility of such a ground-work forming the outline of a tale which should bear the slightest appearance of probability. In the course of three mornings, I 159 produced that tale, and left it with her. From thence it appears to have fallen into the hands of some person, who sent it to the Editor in such a way, as to leave it so doubtful from his words, whether it was his lordship’s or not, that I found some difficulty in vindicating it to myself. (1997, p.244)
This declaration is consistent with Polidori’s other published and unpublished protests. While it displays an embarrassment over the appearance of a composition produced in ‘the course of three mornings,’ it nevertheless betrays an author’s anxiety to claim ‘the Vampyre’ as his own, having so far ‘found some difficulty in vindicating it’ to himself. That difficulty yet remains.
Remembering that The Vampyre was unscrupulously published as ‘A Tale by Lord Byron’ there is perhaps no need to cite Byron’s predictable reactions to the work. Nevertheless, his protestations add weight to the notion that he would not himself have written a vampire story. In a letter to Douglas Kinnaird (April 24, 1819) he insists: ‘Damn “the Vampyre,” - what do I know of Vampires? it must be some bookselling imposture - contradict it in a solemn paragraph’ (Marchand, v.6, p.114). Of more interest than Byron’s understandable anger is his avowed ignorance, above, of vampires. While, on the other hand, in a letter ‘To the Editor of Galignani’s Messenger’(27 April, 1819), Byron’s public disavowal ‘of a book I never wrote’ (Marchand, 1976, v.6, p.119) is complemented by an informed dislike of the creatures:
Sir, - In various numbers of your Journal - I have seen mentioned a work entitled “the Vampire” with the addition of my name as that of the Author. - I am not the author and never heard of the work in question until now . . . - I have besides a personal dislike to ‘Vampires’ and the little acquaintance I have with them would by no means induce me to divulge their secrets .’ (Marchand, 1976, v.6, pp.118- 119) While this is a typically teasing comment on Byron’s part, no doubt aimed at Polidori, the underlying sentiment of a disinterest in vampires is probably genuine - being consistent with the direction of Byron’s work for nearly a decade.
If Byron had wished to develop a vampire figure he very well could have. The Giaour was published in 1813. Polidori’s text did not appear until 1819. We have already seen, in the previous chapter, how Byron spent this period developing a line of infamous guilt-bearers, 160 dark-in-soul one and all - the most successful of which was the Wanderer, Childe Harold, in whom Byron had a demonstrably personal interest. There was plenty of opportunity, then, for Byron to develop what he had only alluded to in The Giaour. After The Giaour came The Corsair (1814), Lara (1814), Alp in The Siege of Corinth (1816), Manfred (1816) and two more cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1816 and 1818). But where is the vampire? Certainly these figures bear a death-in-life existence, but they are not the un-dead of an “as yet” un-born genre. Unlike the Wanderer, who is always central to Byron’s imaginative world, the vampire is conspicuously absent. And so, when The Vampyre arrives in 1819 he does so on Polidori’s terms, albeit under the shadow of Byron’s Wanderer.
Byron’s prose-fragment, Augustus Darvell, was published later that year, attached to his poem, Mazeppa. An examination of this incomplete Wanderer story reveals Polidori’s representation of Byron’s original scenario as accurate, and supports his claim for the further development of ‘the Vampyre.’ For, there is little in Augustus Darvell to suggest the turn of events that Polidori would give the scenario. The figure of the immortal Wanderer will enable us to see this divergence; he appears in both texts, yet in a markedly different form.
Byron’s Augustus Darvell: An Unsurprising Figure
Augustus Darvell belongs comfortably alongside Childe Harold. He is yet another version of the guilt-ridden male protagonist which Byron had found success with. As such, his portrayal does not depart in any considerable sense from the established formula we traced in the previous chapter. Like Childe Harold, there is little apart from Darvell’s inner hell, ‘some cureless disquiet’ (Byron, 1997, p.247), to recommend him as a compelling figure. He suffers intensely from guilt, and the vivid depiction of his suffering is what focusses our interest in him as a character.
Looking at Darvell, we witness that intense concentration of painful thought produced by guilt: ‘. . . that his feelings were acute, I had sufficient opportunities of observing; for, although he could control, he could not altogether disguise them’ (p.247). It is this aspect of 161 Darvell, ‘an inquietude at times nearly approaching to alienation of mind’ (p.246), that first fascinates the narrator of Byron’s prose fragment, bringing him under the spell of the typical dark-in-soul protagonist:
Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil: I know not how this may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though I could not ascertain the extent of the other - and felt loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its existence. (p.247)
So, while ‘Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell / The tortures of that inward hell!’ (The Giaour, ll.753-754) we can nevertheless catch a glimpse of it, for in the construction of his protagonists Byron never strays far from this proven formula - the tantalizing revelation of a tortured soul.
Byron’s formulaic portrayal of the guilt-sufferer, which had already proven successful in verse, is portrayed as captivating the narrator of his prose fragment. Again, it is the appearance of guilt which is the distinguishing mark of Byron’s dark-in-soul hero, rendering him virtually supernatural. To that end, the narrator views him as ‘a being of no common order’ (p.247), with his desire to penetrate Darvell’s proud wall of silence setting up the story:
My advances were received with sufficient coldness; but I was young, and not easily discouraged, and at length succeeded in obtaining, to a certain degree . . . intimacy, or friendship, according to the ideas of him who uses those words to express them. (p.247)
Similarly to Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, where the narrator is himself a Wanderer telling the story of another Wanderer, the narrator of this fragment is also a potential Wanderer. Having ‘for some time determined on a journey through countries not hitherto much frequented by travellers’ (p.246), he finds in Darvell an apparently ideal travelling companion - ‘a probable hope founded upon the shadowy restlessness which I had observed in him . . .’ (p.248) Bearing in mind that the author views himself as a Wanderer, it is hereby apparent how difficult it was for Byron, having ‘deviated into ‘the gloomy vanity of ‘drawing from self’’(1970, p.277), to move beyond this trope. So, while the narrator sees Darvell as ‘a being of no common order,’ he remains 162 comfortably unsurprising to those versed in Byron’s limited range of character lines. Needless to say, had the work been published in its own right, it would have presented an all too familiar face to the readers of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
There is indeed much of Childe Harold in Augustus Darvell, who could even be taken as a slightly older more responsible version of Harold: ‘He was a few years my elder, and a man of considerable fortune and ancient family - advantages which an extensive capacity prevented him alike from undervaluing or overrating’ (p.246). Again, the Wanderer is a man of privilege, ‘advantages,’ suffering heroically beneath the weight of a mysterious burden. The stoic posture of the guilt-bearer, ‘a solemnity in his manner,’ lends him an heroic air, even as he suffers;
. . . there appeared to be an oppression on his mind, and a solemnity in his manner, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed on what I regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian. (p.248)
One is here reminded of Cooper’s observation that, ‘the typical pose of the Byronic hero is not one of simple suffering, or of suppressed suffering, but of suffering visibly suppressed’ (1988, p.533). In the case of Darvell, however, there is little else apart from this established posture to recommend his heroism . For apart from how he ‘appeared’ in this fragment, he left little material to be developed into a more compelling figure.
As far as there was a narrative that concerned Childe Harold, it was the inner development of his guilt-consciousness which compelled the reader - a story which we traced in the previous chapter. This process involved Harold becoming the Wanderer - an heroic figure who, for the remainder of his journey, did little else but suffer intensely from guilt. Augustus Darvell does not really depart from this scenario. What little story there is revolves around the Wanderer’s soul-wasting woe, as Byron depicts a marked physical decay:
The constitution of Darvell, which must from his appearance have been in early life more than usually robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had neither cough nor hectic, yet he became daily more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and he neither 163 declined nor complained of fatigue, yet he was evidently wasting away: he became more and more silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, that my alarm grew proportionate to what I conceived to be his danger. (p.248)
The narrative, then, up until this point is simply an extension of Byron’s defining character trait; whereby, the intense suffering of the dark-in- soul is dramatized for the purpose of a short story. The Giaour had provided a vivid depiction of this process, shared also by Childe Harold, which leads inevitably and dramatically toward death, or rather, death-in-life, as ‘flames around their captive close . . . inly searched by thousand throes . . .’ (ll.425-426)
So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like Scorpion girt by fire; So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven, Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death! (ll.433-438)
So indeed does Darvell expire amidst the ‘turbaned tombstones’ of a ‘Turkish cemetery’ where, to the narrator, ‘this ‘city of the dead’ appeared to be the sole refuge for my unfortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming the last of its inhabitants’ (p.249). Whereas it would be quite the normal thing for Byron’s guilt-bearer to live on with their guilt, ‘Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,’ this Wanderer will literally, one assumes, return from the grave - a rather apt dramatization of the death-in-life syndrome Byron was so fond of describing. Already, perhaps, one is thinking of vampires.
There is, of course, an expectation created in having the narrator swear ‘an oath of great solemnity’ to ‘conceal’ Darvell’s ‘death from every human being,’ and by having him agree to the following:
‘On the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what one you please, but this must be the day ), you must fling this ring into the salt springs which run into the bay of Eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of Ceres, and wait one hour.’ (p.250)
One should not, however, presume too much about this resurrection - a development which never took place. ‘Between astonishment and grief’ 164 the narrator is left ‘tearless’ (p.251), a reaction which provides a fair enough assessment of events so far. Unfortunately, a modern reader of this fragment is likely to make the assumption that Byron’s Wanderer was bound to become a vampire. Yet, as Byron left his immortal Wanderer in the grave, unwilling to resurrect him, that transformation would require the hands of Polidori.
Had Augustus Darvell ever risen from the grave, it is unlikely that he would have departed too far from the lines which had so far determined the success of Byron’s other protagonists. Indeed, it is far more likely that he would have retained these lines in order to court the attentions of the narrator’s sister. Of the time this fragment took shape, Mary Shelley remembers that Byron was busy ‘writing the third canto of Childe Harold’ (Shelley, 1996, p.171). So Augustus Darvell was bound, it seems, to become a supernatural version of Childe Harold, yet another immortal Wanderer with a guilt-burden. It would have been difficult, one imagines, for Byron to move beyond this image of the Wanderer, particularly as he viewed himself in these terms. Polidori, on the other hand, was able to break away from this familiar portrayal, to provide a unique take on Byron’s by now somewhat tired Wanderer. In particular, it is his treatment of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden which determines this divergence.
Polidori’s The Vampyre: A New Type of Wanderer
For Byron’s Wanderer the suffering engendered by guilt is what constitutes his character, rendering him heroic. The most striking difference, then, between Polidori’s portrayal of the Wanderer and Byron’s is the absence of this most essential quality - a guilt-burden. Polidori dispenses with the Wanderer’s burden, and he does so in a very deliberate fashion through the mechanics of his plot. The Wanderer in The Vampyre manages to off-load his burden onto someone else, thereby making a relatively innocent character suffer the guilt which he himself should be bearing. The resultant figure, cynical and guilt-free, provides an interesting comment on Byron’s deep-feeling heroic Wanderer.
165 Lord Ruthven could, at first, be taken for one of Byron’s ‘dark-in- soul’ heroes; that is, before he is exposed as not having a soul. He appears one year ‘in the midst of the dissipations attendant upon a London winter’ as a mysterious man of privilege, though ‘more remarkable for his singularities, than his rank’ (Polidori, 1997, p.3). While Lord Ruthven stands apart from the crowd in this singularly Byronic fashion - ‘He gazed upon the mirth around him, as if he could not participate therein’ (p.3) - he is more remarkable in terms of this discussion for another of his ‘singularities,’ something which actually sets him apart from the typical Byronic hero. For we note that Lord Ruthven is not a deep-feeler. Unlike Augustus Darvell, he does not unwittingly express the turbulence of a troubled conscience. He does not suffer from, nor, importantly, does he appear to suffer from any such inner-turmoil . On the contrary, it is an apparently un-feeling nature which contributes to his attractiveness:
In spite of the deadly hue of his face, which never gained a warmer tint, either from the blush of modesty, or from the strong emotion of passion, though its form and outline were beautiful, many of the female hunters after notoriety attempted to win his attentions, and gain, at least, some marks of what they might term affection. (p.3) Here is ‘a man entirely absorbed in himself (p.5),’ but not in the sense that Byron had loved to portray, where the suffering soul was made dramatically visible.
The most important of Lord Ruthven’s admirers is ‘a young gentleman of the name of Aubrey . . . an orphan left with an only sister in the possession of great wealth’ (p.4), who proves, as the story unfolds, to be quite a catch for his lordship in more ways than one. Through a scenario of naive adoration Polidori reveals the shallowness of Byron’s dark-in-soul hero, exposing him as a mere figure of romance. As Aubrey ‘soon formed this object into the hero of a romance, and determined to observe the offspring of his fancy, rather than the person before him’ (p.5), the Byronic hero that so captivated an adoring readership over the last decade is thereby exposed, and left looking empty.
Aubrey finds nothing darkly romantic in his ‘object’ of adoration, rather, he ‘gradually learnt that Lord Ruthven’s affairs were embarrassed, and soon found, from the notes of preparation in _____ 166 Street, that he was about to travel’ (p.5). Nevertheless, he ‘gladly accepted’ a ‘proposal to join him,’ considering ‘it was time for him to perform the tour’ also. Apart from the obvious naivety of the younger man it is worth noting, also, the cynicism of Polidori’s tone when he describes ‘the tour’ - a cynicism which leans more toward sarcasm, rather than the worldly type of cynicism we might expect from Byron. Whatever the case, the oppressive ennui which Byron would have us take so seriously in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is missing from this depiction:
. . . it was time for him to perform the tour, which for many generations has been thought necessary to enable the young to take some rapid steps in the career of vice, towards putting themselves upon an equality with the aged, and not allowing them to appear as if fallen from the skies, whenever scandalous intrigues are mentioned as the subjects of pleasantry or of praise, according to the degree of skill shewn in carrying them on. (p.5)
One could take this as a veiled criticism of Byron’s fawning audience, as the Continental tour provides the subject for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a work whose author had, ‘according to the degree of skill shewn in carrying them on,’ manipulated ‘scandalous intrigues’ to further his popularity.
However, having pointed to this intended irony it would be unwise, I think, to speculate any further as to Polidori’s underlying motives; for one runs the risk of devaluing the text, like Skarda, who finds that ‘Polidori’s thefts are too obvious not to be conscious, but the full extent of his envy is not’ (1989, p.265). While there is perhaps something of what Morrison and Baldick call a ‘middle-class resentment against the sexual allure of the noble roue’ (1997, p. xiii) evident in Polidori’s voice, it is not so easy to find the personal bitterness of a lesser author. On the contrary, Polidori’s astuteness in the construction of his ironic portrayal lays to rest the view of him as a weak talent.
Gelder (1994, pp. 32-33) finds irony, on Polidori’s part, in what Skarda (1989, p.255) regards only as a ‘clumsy attack’ on Byron’s poetry. Whereas Byron, in The Giaour, had portrayed the eyes of a Greek girl as ‘languishingly dark’ (l.476), the Greek girl in Polidori’s text has ‘the eye of animated nature.’ And ‘who would have exchanged her 167 eye . . . for that sleepy luxurious look of the animal suited but to the taste of an epicure’ (Polidori, 1997, pp.8 - 9). Similarly, Gelder points to how the East in Byron’s Augustus Darvell is a depopulated region, whereas the East in Polidori’s The Vampyre is inhabited by real people like Ianthe, who ‘are callously used and discarded by just such Byronic, vampire-like, citizens of the world’ (Gelder, 1994, p.31). There is, on that level, an accomplished irony in this active, living portrayal of the East as an inhabited region; and, as Gelder states, it ‘is hardly a passive writerly position. (p.31). This provides further evidence of Polidori’s considerable adeptness in the development of The Vampyre, even if ‘the foundation’ of the tale was provided by Byron.
Polidori has not sought to emulate Byron, nor is he a victim of his own bitterness. However, the tendency to view Polidori as a weaker talent, one who simply borrowed an idea from a greater writer, can effectively cloud an appreciation for his achievement. To that end, Skarda uses what Gelder has rightly called an ‘offensive simile’ (1994, p.31) to express her suspicions. ‘Polidori,’ she writes, ‘like a willing rape victim, sacrifices himself in life and Aubrey in his fiction to the father- god he found in Byron’ (p.262). That Polidori, intentionally or otherwise, was somehow portraying himself as the young Aubrey in a kind of fawning relationship gone sour is hard to accept. It should be noted, rather, that Aubrey’s adoration of Byron’s Wanderer is consciously depicted by Polidori as naive, with the soulless nature of Lord Ruthven being always on view to the reader.
Polidori does not, in any case, slavishly develop his story along “Byronic” lines. The marked differences between his Wanderer figure and Byron’s are enough to establish this. Indeed, Polidori takes the most significant of the Wanderer’s attributes, a guilt-burden, and develops it along his own ironic lines, leaving the dark-in-soul hero without a soul and looking positively unheroic. The Vampyre, in that sense, provides a significantly critical comment upon the type of Wanderer tale that had seduced Byron’s readership.
Not far into their travels Aubrey uncovers Lord Ruthven’s decided lack of soul, ‘surprized at the apparent eagerness with which his companion sought for the centres of all fashionable vice’ (p.6). Having already left London because his ‘affairs were embarrassed,’ this man of privilege uses his considerable means to further indulge in 168 excessive gambling and heartless womanizing. The gambling table provides Aubrey with his first glimpse of Lord Ruthven’s heartlessness. There he observes this man of privilege preying deliberately on the misfortunate. When ‘the known sharper was his antagonist . . . then he lost even more than he gained,’ but when he encountered ‘the luckless father of a numerous family; then his very wish seemed fortune’s law’ (p.6). Worse still is the apparent pleasure Lord Ruthven takes in all of this, as ‘his eyes sparkled with more fire than that of the cat whilst dallying with the half dead mouse.’ Showing no remorse for his innocent victims, it is the guilt-free, un-feeling nature of Lord Ruthven which is quickly revealed.
Yet, even while Lord Ruthven’s wickedness is made blatantly obvious to the reader, Aubrey remains unbelievably naive. The irony here is deliberately achieved, which is why the notion that Polidori somehow unwittingly portrays himself as Aubrey is hard to accept. With the ‘opportunity of studying Lord Ruthven’s character’ in this manner, Aubrey finds the aristocrat to be ‘profuse in his liberality’ (p.5), but to decidedly unworthy ends:
But Aubrey could not avoid remarking, that it was not upon the virtuous, reduced to indigence by the misfortunes attendant even upon virtue, that he bestowed him alms; - these were sent from the door with hardly suppressed sneers; but when the profligate came to ask something, not to relieve his wants, but to allow him to wallow in his lust, or to sink him still deeper in his iniquity, he was sent away with rich charity. (pp.5-6)
The discrepancies which Aubrey ‘could not avoid remarking’ are, to the reader, obvious signs of evil. The ‘hardly suppressed sneers’ of Polidori’s Wanderer stand in marked contrast to the face ‘so marked with inward pain’ (The Giaour, l.795) that a Byronic Wanderer, with ‘a solemnity in his manner,’ would have worn.
Nevertheless, the naive Aubrey continues with Lord Ruthven, receiving further evidence of his heartlessness, this time in the manner of his lordship’s womanizing:
It had been discovered, that his contempt for the adultress had not originated in hatred of her character; but that he had required, to enhance his gratification, that his victim, the partner of his guilt, should be hurled from the pinnacle of unsullied 169 virtue, down to the lowest abyss of infamy and degradation: in fine, that all those females whom he had sought, apparently on account of their virtue, had, since his departure, thrown even the mask aside, and had not scrupled to expose the whole deformity of their vices to the public gaze. (p.7)
As with his gambling, Lord Ruthven takes wicked pleasure in ruining the weak and innocent. He requires either the misfortune of a ‘luckless father’ or the innocence of ‘unsullied virtue’ to ‘enhance his gratification.’
While the soulless Ruthven may appear monstrous enough he has not as yet been ‘discovered’ as a vampire. He has left a trail of sullied females in his wake, but he has not left any corpses. In fact, it is these living victims who, having ‘thrown even the mask aside,’ bear witness to his deviancy. The expectant reader, then, is yet to be tantalized by his vampirism. That is, if such an expectation can be fulfilled.
The Vampyre’s apparent lack of vampirism, often regarded as an underdeveloped oversight, creates needless concerns which hinder an appreciative analysis of the text. Here then is where vampires must be addressed as a side-issue, in order that their misplaced significance does not inhibit our discussion of the text’s other qualities. It is understandable, though, that defenders of the text would seek to apologize for its lack of vampire material, particularly as that measure is used alternatively to deem the text unsatisfactory. On that level, Morrison and Baldick need to emphasize the metaphorical nature of Ruthven’s vampirism, pointing out that ‘the figure’ serves ‘principally as a vivid metaphor for that kind of womanizer who may be said to ‘prey upon’ his victims . . . (1997, p.xx)’ While this observation is true, it is nevertheless born from a need to defend the text’s generic credentials, after acknowledging that the ‘story is notably - and for some modern readers disappointingly - deficient in vampire-lore and its now customary paraphernalia . . . (p.xx)’ One should be prepared, though, to concede this ground.
170 Vampirism: A Side-Issue?
How could vampirism remain peripheral in a short story called The Vampyre, and in one which ends so sensationally - ‘Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey’s sister had glutted the thirst of a VAMPYRE! (p.23)’ - or which contains, at mid-point, the equally sensational discovery of a corpse?
- upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein: - to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, ‘a Vampyre, a Vampyre!’ (p.12)
The truth is, that apart from the exclamation marks these two instances of vampirism do not make for a very sensational vampire story per se. No matter how one exaggerates or highlights the text’s use of vampirism, the modern reader will remain unconvinced. That is not to say that Polidori’s text is not dramatic or compelling, rather, it is simply to suggest that the sensation of the text lies elsewhere - as I will demonstrate. It is better, therefore, to concede this ground; but only after showing why it is misguided.
There is an understandable tendency in critics to want to apologize for The Vampyre’s lack of vampire material, or, conversely, to use it as evidence for The Vampyre being an underdeveloped text, the product of a writer unequal to the task. My major contention with this debate is that vampire-lore is used as the measure against which the text is judged. I am on the side of apologizing for Polidori. To do his, however, there is no need to force his text into what is, by now, a firmly established genre, nor is there a need to promote The Vampyre as the source or origin of that genre. The worth of Polidori’s text may well lie elsewhere. At the very least, it expands considerably upon the trope of the Wanderer’s guilt-burden - developing it in a way that Byron, one imagines, would not have.
To Skarda, Polidori’s failure to realize the dramatic potential inherent in a vampire scenario provides evidence for his weakness as a creative talent: ‘The first vampire story in English fiction told less about ghoulish rituals of blood-sucking and heart-staking than about the failure to actualize one man’s dreams of literary fame’ (1989, 171 p.249). However, if one judges the text upon its adherence to established vampire conventions then of course it will fall short. As modern readers, though, we must bear in mind that Polidori is not being directed by the conventions of an as yet non-existent genre. In this sense, a depreciative appraisal of the text as unsatisfactory is misguided. Nevertheless, Skarda uses this invalid measure to support some rather mischievous suggestions. The article “Vampirism and Plagiarism: Byron’s Influence and Polidori’s Practice,” a title which says it all, uses the unsatisfactory nature of the text as evidence for a mind unequal to the task:
Modern readers, familiar with macabre accounts of demonic stalking vampires and heroic staking parties, are justifiably disappointed with Polidori’s comparatively pale conclusion. So, apparently, was he, for he added, for the first edition, a six-page introduction to vampirism full of vampire deaths and superstitions not merely current but already published. (p.258)
It is difficult to believe that Polidori laboured with the demands of these conventions, or to accept that he was ‘justifiably disappointed’ with himself for failing to measure up. His astuteness in the construction of the piece suggests that he was perfectly capable of including the above mentioned paraphernalia if he had so wished.
The prefatory material which Skarda accuses Polidori of including was more than likely collated by canny editors: ‘We have related this monstrous rodomontade, because it seems better adapted to illustrate the subject of the present observations than any other instance we could adduce.’ (1997, p.241) According to Morrison and Baldick (modern editors of magazine fiction from the period), the introduction was probably written by Alaric Watts, the then sub-editor of the New Monthly Magazine, and included at the insistence of the editor, Henry Colburn. They also cite another possibility for authorship - that proposed by Macdonald, of ‘the minor and somewhat unscrupulous hack writer John Mitford (1997, p.235).’ Whatever the case, it seems unlikely that Polidori would wish to overshadow his own quite measured text with gratuitously sensational material - ‘emitting at the mouth, nose, and ears, pure and florid blood’:
A stake was driven entirely through the heart and body of Arnold Paul, at which he is reported to have cried out as dreadfully as if he had been alive. This 172 done, they cut off his head, burned his body, and threw the ashes into his grave. The same measures were adopted with the corses of those persons who had previously died from vampyrism, lest they should, in their turn, become agents upon others who survived them. (1997, p.241)
Needless to say, Polidori’s text would have suffered less from modern disapproval if it had not been framed as a vampire story in the first place. But to suggest that Polidori himself, aware of The Vampyre’s failure, would haphazardly attach more sensational material seems doubtful. In any case, we should not allow this lack of judgment - whether it belongs to Polidori, his editors, or, indeed, the modern vampire enthusiast - to inhibit our appreciation for what is, in the end, significantly more than just a vampire story.
We must yet, however, consider the supposed influence of The Giaour’s vampire allusion on Polidori’s own construction of the figure. For, included in the preface to Polidori’s text is a vampire fragment from Byron’s own poem, sensationally referred to as ‘a fearfully sublime and prophetic curse from the Giaour’ (1997, p.242). Remembering that Byron himself never developed this allusion into an actual figure, we may nevertheless deduce what type of vampire Byron might have created. This will help us to appreciate the originality of Polidori’s construction, in so far as it diverges from the figure envisaged by Byron. Significantly, though perhaps unexpectedly, it is the Wanderer’s guilt-burden which illustrates this difference.
The lines which immediately precede this curse, not included by the magazine, are the following: ‘Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell/ The tortures of that inward hell!’ (ll.754-755) - which we recognize as signs of a guilt-burden. Byron, then, is foreshadowing the vampire as a guilt-bearing figure. The New Monthly’s citation begins at the next line, and continues thus:
But first, on earth as Vampire sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent: Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race; There from thy daughter, sister, wife, At midnight drain the stream of life; Yet loathe the banquet which perforce 173 Must feed thy livid living corse: Thy victims ere they yet expire Shall know the demon for their sire, As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem. But one that for thy crime must fall, The youngest, most beloved of all, Shall bless thee with a father’s name - That word shall wrap thy heart in flame! Yet must thou end thy task, and mark Her cheek’s last tinge, her eye’s last spark, And the last glassy glance must view Which freezes o’er its lifeless blue; Then with unhallowed hand shalt tear The tresses of her yellow hair, Of which in life a lock when shorn Affection’s fondest pledge was worn, But now is borne away by thee, Memorial of thine agony! Wet with thine own best blood shall drip Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip; Then stalking to thy sullen grave, Go - and with Gouls and Afrits rave; Till these in horror shrink away From Spectre more accursed than they! (ll.755 - 786)
This sole fragment, an allusion though it is, reveals much about Byron’s alleged vampire. For, if this ‘Spectre’ were to become a character he would have to bear that most essential of Byronic traits- a guilt-burden. In that sense, the vampire would not be allowed to depart from Byron’s established formula.
Byron’s curse entails that the vampire must bear the guilt associated with his supernatural existence. He must ‘suck the blood of all thy race’ yet ‘loathe the banquet.’ ‘As cursing thee, thou cursing them,’ the poignant recognition between the vampire and his victims who ‘know the demon for their sire’ is figured as an accusing conscience, the pain of which is felt upon hearing ‘a father’s name - That word shall wrap thy heart in flame!’ In the same poem we read that ‘infinite as boundless space’ is ‘the thought that Conscience must 174 embrace’ (ll.273-274). And to that immortal end, the ‘tresses of her yellow hair’ will here become a ‘Memorial of thine agony!’ - a guilt- burden - to be ‘borne away by thee . . . stalking to thy sullen grave.’
The poignant guilt which this immortal Wanderer feels lends him rather different lines to the vampire figure eventually constructed by Polidori. His ‘gnashing tooth and haggard lip’ betray a tortured conscience, whereas the ‘hardly suppressed sneers’ of Lord Ruthven, whose ‘eyes sparkled with more fire than that of the cat whilst dallying with the half dead mouse,’ point to no such remorse. This divergence from Byron’s typical guilt-bearer is deliberate on Polidori’s part; it determines not only his character construction but also, more sophisticatedly, the course of his narrative. In his development upon Byron’s original scenario he does not adhere to Byron’s notions of immortal guilt - which had lent the suffering Wanderer an heroic grandeur. Rather, Polidori effectively empties this now tired image of the Wanderer by creating his own soul-less version in the Vampyre, a Wanderer without a guilt-burden.
To the ‘exalted imagination’ of young Aubrey the ‘mystery’ which surrounds Lord Ruthven begins ‘to assume the appearance of something supernatural’ (p.7). This is, of course, entirely consistent with Byron’s likening of the mortal guilt-bearer to an immortal, supernatural being. In this case, however, Lord Ruthven really is such a one; he is a Wanderer of the supernatural variety. As a perpetual aristocrat he is a privileged being, but apart from this his only supernatural ability, leaving aside his vampirism, appears to be ‘the possession of irresistible powers of seduction’ (p.7). It is these powers which he employs to maintain his privileged lifestyle, ‘forced every year, by feeding upon the life of a lovely female to prolong his existence for the ensuing months’ (p.7). One would expect such a character, if he were developed along Byron’s lines, to be plagued with guilt, but Polidori presents us with a figure who is entirely guilt-free - a sneering cynic.
While Aubrey is yet unaware of Ruthven’s vampirism he ‘soon perceived, that his Lordship was endeavouring to work upon the inexperience of the daughter of the lady at whose house he chiefly frequented’ and confronts him, receiving an unashamed admission of cynical intent:
175 Lord Ruthven answered, that his intentions were such as he supposed all would have upon such an occasion; and upon being pressed whether he intended to marry her, merely laughed. (p.8) This episode separates the travelling companions, after ‘Aubrey determined upon leaving one, whose character had not yet shown a single bright point on which to rest the eye’ (p.7):
Aubrey retired; and, immediately writing a note, to say, that from that moment he must decline accompanying his Lordship in the remainder of their proposed tour, he ordered his servant to seek other apartments, and calling upon the mother of the lady, informed her of all he knew, not only with regard to her daughter, but also concerning the character of his Lordship. (p.8)
This separation, which involves Aubrey’s knowledge ‘concerning the character of his Lordship,’ is vital to the mechanics of the scenario that Polidori develops - whereby Ruthven’s guilt-burden is effectively transferred to Aubrey. The Wanderer, through this schema, can enjoy his privileged existence free from guilt, while an innocent third-party suffers from a troubled conscience.
Aubrey journeys alone to Greece, where he falls in love with the ‘innocence, youth, and beauty, unaffected by crowded drawing rooms, and stifling balls’ (p.9), that is the peasant girl, Ianthe. Such a picture of natural innocence, ‘engaged in the pursuit of a Kashmere butterfly . . . floating as it were upon the wind’ (p.9), is ripe to become a victim of the worldly Vampyre - ‘exultant’ in his revenge over the meddling Aubrey:
As he approached, the thunders, for a moment silent, allowed him to hear the dreadful shrieks of a woman mingling with the stifled exultant mockery of a laugh, continued in one almost unbroken sound. (p.11)
As Aubrey suffers from shadowy fears that he knows Ianthe’s killer, Lord Ruthven takes his wicked revenge even further:
Aubrey being put to bed was seized with a most violent fever, and was often delirious; in these intervals he would call upon Lord Ruthven and upon Ianthe - by some unaccountable combination he seemed to beg of his former companion to spare the being he loved. - At other times he would imprecate maledictions upon his own head, and curse him as her destroyer. (p.13) 176
It is Aubrey’s capacity for feeling guilt, his ability to ‘imprecate maledictions upon his own head,’ that Lord Ruthven cleverly plays on, becoming a spur to the troubled conscience of the younger man:
Lord Ruthven chanced at this time to arrive at Athens . . . and Aubrey perceived no difference from the former man, except, that at times he was surprised to meet his gaze fixed intently upon him with a smile of malicious exultation playing upon his lips; he knew not why, but this smile haunted him. (p. 13)
Lord Ruthven will indeed continue to haunt Aubrey, acting as a spur to the latter’s overly sensitive conscience. In proportion to the degree which Aubrey suffers, Ruthven’s ‘smile of malicious exultation’ grows ever more leering.
The Vampyre becomes increasingly guilt-free as he effectively off-loads the guilt of his crimes onto an innocent third-party. He achieves this primarily through an oath of secrecy, but not before he subtly rebuilds the intimacy he had lost with his victim. During Aubrey’s confinement Lord Ruthven becomes, to that end, a ‘constant attendant’:
When the latter recovered from his delirium he was horrified and startled at the sight of him whose image he had now combined with that of a Vampyre; but Lord Ruthven by his kind words, implying almost repentance for the fault that had caused their separation, and still more by the attention, anxiety, and care which he showed, soon reconciled him to his presence. (p.13)
And we see that part of Lord Ruthven’s cajoling involves striking a typically Byronic pose:
During the last stage of the invalid’s recovery, Lord Ruthven was apparently engaged in watching the tideless waves raised by the cooling breeze, or in marking the progress of those orbs, circling, like our world, the moveless sun; - indeed he appeared to wish to avoid the eyes of all. (p.13)
However, the ‘alienation of mind’ and ‘solemnity in his manner,’ which characterizes Byron’s Augustus Darvell, is a mere facade in which Lord Ruthven ‘appeared.’
177 Nevertheless, Lord Ruthven regains enough of Aubrey’s affections to make the latter, ‘who was induced to offer his assistance with more than usual earnestness’ (p.15), a suitable death-bed confidant, extracting from him an oath of great solemnity. A scenario involving an oath of secrecy occurs also in Augustus Darvell. There is however a significant development in Polidori’s version, a subtle divergence which allows for the development of a complex scenario involving the Wanderer’s guilt- burden:
‘Assist me! you may save me - you may do more than that- I mean not my life, I heed the death of my existence as little as that of the passing day; but you may save my honour, your friend’s honour.’ - ‘How, tell me how; I would do anything,’ replied Aubrey. ‘I need but little - my life ebbs apace - I cannot explain the whole - but if you would conceal all you know of me, my honour were free from stain in the world’s mouth - and if my death were unknown for some time in England - I - I - but life.’ - ‘It shall not be known.’ - ‘Swear!’ cried the dying man, raising himself with exultant violence, ‘Swear by all your soul reveres, by all your nature fears, swear that for a year and a day you will not impart your knowledge of my crimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may happen, or whatever you may see.’ - His eyes seemed bursting from their sockets: ‘I swear!’ said Aubrey; he sunk laughing upon his pillow and breathed no more. (p.15)
It is not ‘death’ which the perpetual aristocrat, a Vampyre, need fear. Rather, he is concerned for his loss of ‘honour,’ particularly ‘in England,’ as he intends to return there. Aubrey, through the mechanics of this oath, becomes burdened with the ‘knowledge’ of Ruthven’s ‘crimes.’ The Vampyre, who ‘sunk laughing upon his pillow,’ is suitably pleased with the freedom this guarantee promises - the freedom to continue with his roguish existence, minus any associated guilt-burden.
The significance of this oath, in terms of the story’s unique development, should not be underestimated; it performs a central role in the unfolding narrative, and is perhaps the text’s most successful attribute. If, however, one views the narrative as being primarily a vampire story, then the significance of the oath becomes virtually lost, and Polidori’s ingenious use of it unappreciated. Ironically, it is Polidori’s defenders who make this mistake, and they do so, unintentionally, because of vampires, and because of Byron.
178 Strangely, the only direct example which Macdonald gives of a vampire contribution from Byron has very little to do with vampirism, as even he acknowledges, ‘it is hard to imagine any sane person worrying about the morality of breaking a promise to a vampire’ (p.190). Macdonald is of course referring to the ‘oath of great solemnity’ (Byron, 1997, p.250) from Augustus Darvell, which he describes as ‘not one of Byron’s more plausible narrative devices’ (p.190). What he does not mention, however, is that Byron took this scenario from Godwin’s St Leon - another story of an immortal Wanderer. Like the fading Augustus Darvell, the dying Wanderer in Godwin’s novel extracts an oath of secrecy from St Leon:
After my death I have but one injunction to leave with you - the injunction of Hercules to Philoctetes - that no inducement may move you to betray to mortal man the place in which you shall have deposited my ashes. Bury them in a spot which I will describe to you: it is not far, and is only recommended to me by its almost inaccessible situation: and that once done, speak of me and, if possible, think of me no more. Never on any account mention me or allude to me; never describe me, or relate the manner of our meeting, or the adventure which has at length brought on the desired close of my existence. (Godwin, 1994, pp.157-158)
This narrative device - which is not Byron’s - has nothing to do with vampirism; it comes from a novel about a supernatural Wanderer, which suggests that Byron’s real interest in using the oath was to resurrect his own immortal Wanderer from the grave - to be more like Godwin’s St Leon than a vampire. Macdonald sees Byron’s use of the oath in Augustus Darvell as awkward, but only because he already takes Darvell to be a vampire.
Speculating on Byron’s use of the oath may seem trivial, but it becomes important when we come to Polidori’s tale. Twitchell, who rightly suspects ‘that Byron was not the originator of the vampire story, either in intention or execution’(1981, p.115), gives Polidori due credit in this regard. However, his attention to vampirism blinds him to the significance of the oath in Polidori’s story. To that end, it is rather telling how Twitchell admires almost every aspect of the story, until Polidori arrives at the oath:
. . . yet Polidori seems to have Byron’s outline in mind, at least in the beginning. He has introduced additional characters, new locations, and vivid details. And, with 179 the exception of the oath, the story has a momentum of its own that is quite sufficient to carry even the most skeptical reader past such contradictions as why a vampire need carry a dagger, or what Ianthe is doing out in the woods at night. (1981, p.112)
Perhaps it should also be noted that the ‘skeptical reader’ here is the one looking specifically for a vampire story, and puzzling over ‘why a vampire need carry a dagger,’ as though all points of the narrative must adhere to the conventions of vampirism or be considered ‘contradictions.’ In this vampire-clouded light the oath of secrecy has little chance of conveying its significance. In fact, it may even appear responsible for stalling the ‘momentum’ of a good story:
Polidori must have realized that the oath was the weakest link in the story, for to increase the pathos of Aubrey’s condition, Polidori must make him an honorable man whose word is his bond, yet he must be courageous enough to realize that there can be no honor when dealing with fiends. (Twitchell, 1981, p.111)
This consideration of the narrative flow implies that Polidori had to struggle in order to make ‘the oath’ relevant to the gist of a vampire story, that he only just managed to salvage its significance by making it part of a moral tale about ‘dealing with fiends’ (vampires). But the meaning of the oath, and its function in the narrative, only becomes clear when considered as part of a Wanderer, rather than Vampire, tradition. In Byron’s hands, the oath was to form part of a Wanderer’s tale - so too in Polidori’s, but with an ingenious and sinister twist.
Polidori’s development upon the oath allows him to effectively remove what had, up until now, been traditionally considered as immovable, ineffable and eternal. The plot mechanism of an oath of secrecy allows the Wanderer, through the remaining course of the story, to transfer his guilt-burden to someone else. So, far from being a weak link it is central to the mechanics of the narrative. Furthermore, the value of Polidori’s text may lie in this significant development upon the Wanderer’s guilt-burden, as much as it does with being the first vampire story in English literature.
180 An Ingenious Twist
The Vampyre’s incorporation and treatment of the Wanderer’s oath, far from appearing haphazard, comes across as deliberately achieved. Let us then trace, finally, this shrewd twist. The scenario involves Aubrey, sworn to silence, watching Ruthven court the attentions of his sister - quite a burden to bear for ‘a year and a day.’ Having ‘been thought by her guardians more fit that her presentation should be delayed until her brother’s return from the continent, when he might be her protector’ (p.17), Miss Aubrey’s entry into society is also set to coincide with the return of the roguish immortal Wanderer. However, the cynical courtship of Aubrey’s sister does not become the focus of the tale. Rather, the suspense of the ensuing year is conveyed compellingly by focussing upon the marked decline of Aubrey’s health.
Byron’s readers are familiar with this syndrome, ‘The withered frame, the ruined mind’ (The Giaour, l.1253), and recognize it as a symptom of guilt. But what is remarkable about Polidori’s scenario is that, by incorporating an innocent party through an oath of secrecy, it provides a sinister turn to this guilt-suffering:
His oath startled him; - was he then to allow this monster to roam, bearing ruin upon his breath, amidst all he held dear, and not avert its progress? His very sister might have been touched by him. But even if he were to break his oath, and disclose his suspicions, who would believe him? (p.19)
The impossible and irreversible dynamics of the oath ‘allow’ for the intense guilt which should be suffered by Lord Ruthven to be passed on to Aubrey. Thus, for the course of a suspenseful year and a day it will be Aubrey who wastes away from the customary Byronic guilt- burden - a soul-wasting woe.
As Aubrey ‘retired into a recess, and there gave himself up to his own devouring thoughts’ (p.18), we witness that intense concentration of thought produced by guilt:
181 If before his mind had been absorbed by one subject, how much more completely was it engrossed, now that the certainty of the monster’s living again pressed upon his thoughts. (p.19)
Indeed, Aubrey is tormented by the incessant recollection of Lord Ruthven, who’s ‘image’ has become an unwanted spur to his conscience: ‘At last, no longer capable of bearing stillness and solitude, he left his house, roamed from street to street, anxious to fly that image which haunted him’ (p.19). As ‘his haggard and suspicious looks were so striking, his inward shudderings so visible’ (p.19), it is the innocent Aubrey who becomes a guilt-bearing Wanderer, ‘no longer to be recognized,’ instead of the guilty party who should be in this role. To that end he is given the appearance, demeanour and behaviour associated with guilt:
His dress became neglected, and he wandered, as often exposed to the noon-day sun as to the mid-night damps. He was no longer to be recognized; at first he returned with the evening to the house; but at last he laid him down to rest wherever fatigue overtook him. His sister, anxious for his safety, employed people to follow him; but they were soon distanced by him who fled from a pursuer swifter than any - from thought. (p.19)
This deliberately inappropriate characterization is part of the menacing turn which makes the narrative compelling.
The poignancy of the drama lies in the guilty silence which Aubrey is bound to keep, even while ‘his very sister might have been touched,’ the one who, for quite different reasons, is ‘anxious for his safety’ also. Polidori handles this tension well, leading us effectively to the point where Aubrey’s greatest fear comes to fruition:
Night passed on without rest to the busy inmates of the house; and Aubrey heard, with a horror that may more easily be conceived than described, the notes of busy preparation. Morning came, and the sound of carriages broke upon his ear. Aubrey grew almost frantic. (p.22)
The fact that Aubrey, confined in more ways than one, only hears of what the reader knows is pending adds a chilling effect to the already suspenseful silence - a guilty silence which Aubrey can no longer keep. Left for a moment ‘in the custody of an helpless old woman’ he 182 ‘seized the opportunity’ and ‘with one bound was out of the room’ (p.22). But a physical confrontation proves too much for the weakened Aubrey:
When on the staircase, Lord Ruthven whispered in his ear - ‘Remember your oath, and know, if not my bride today, your sister is dishonoured. Women are frail!’ So saying, he pushed him towards his attendants, who, roused by the old woman, had come in search of him. (p.22)
Lord Ruthven’s chilling reminder of ‘your oath’ is the final trigger which destroys Aubrey’s mind, a spur which Aubrey’s tormented conscience can no longer stand. Apart from the obvious sensory thrill of a whisper, the content of that whisper is just as chilling; for it places the further guilt which would, and should, belong to Lord Ruthven, of dishonouring Aubrey’s sister, upon the already buckling shoulders of her guilt-laden brother, who knows Ruthven is a vampire - a load which, after a year and a day, is too much to bear: ‘Aubrey could no longer support himself; his rage, not finding vent, had broken a blood- vessel and he was conveyed to bed’ (p.22).
Aubrey’s death-bed is thus prepared. As ‘the bride and bridegroom left London,’ he is no longer able to support the burden placed upon his conscience, of being responsible for this unhallowed union:
Aubrey’s weakness increased; the effusion of blood produced symptoms of the near approach of death. He desired his sister’s guardians might be called, and when the midnight hour had struck, he related composedly what the reader has perused - he died immediately after. (p.23)
This sounds more like a death-bed confession of guilt than an urgent warning, as Aubrey, who waits until ‘midnight,’ is too late in telling ‘composedly’ what has been troubling him for a year and a day: ‘The guardians hastened to protect Miss Aubrey; but when they arrived, it was too late. Lord Ruthven had disappeared, and Aubrey’s sister had glutted the thirst of a Vampyre!’ (p.23)
Needless to say, Aubrey is no hero figure. And that is a deliberate construction on Polidori’s part, for he is merely the vessel upon which a guilt-burden is placed. At the end of this process he is 183 left weak and wasted, not grand and heroic as Byron’s guilt-syndrome would render one. As a participant in the Wanderer’s oath of secrecy he is left to die with the Wanderer’s guilt upon his shoulders, while the Wanderer, we may assume, is free to continue in his roguish ways abroad, gambling and womanizing until his ‘affairs’ become ‘embarrassed’ and he again requires an Aubrey to ‘conceal’ the ‘knowledge of’ his ‘crimes.’ Of course, the Vampyre is no hero either. Though he does not feel any guilt, he is nevertheless a guilty character because he is responsible for crimes. Indeed, neither protagonist is made heroic through guilt, which is something Byron would have promised at least one of them.
What then are we to think of the other protagonist, the Vampyre, the central figure in the story? While the focus remains on Aubrey’s decline, Lord Ruthven continues to function as a chilling presence, even when, for the most part, he remains absent. As the spur to Aubrey’s conscience he is, at first, a physical presence:
Lord Ruthven again before him - circumstances started up in dreadful array - the dagger - his oath. - He roused himself, he could not believe it possible - the dead rise again! - He thought his imagination had conjured up the image his mind was resting upon. (p.18)
Then, after the shock of Ruthven’s post-resurrection appearance, Aubrey’s ‘devouring thoughts’ (p.18) become centred on this ‘one subject’ (p.19), with the ‘image’ of the ‘spectre’ (p.18) returning at key points to whisper to his conscience:
. . . he again heard that voice whisper close to him - ‘Remember your oath!’ - He did not dare to turn, but, hurrying his sister, soon reached home. (p.19)
In this sense, Lord Ruthven is eerily present, even while he remains absent:
- But he could not advance - it seemed as if that voice again bade him remember his oath - he turned suddenly round, thinking Lord Ruthven was near him, but saw no one. (p.21)
As ‘that image which haunted him,’ Ruthven is the spur of guilt which breaks Aubrey’s mind. After having ‘seized the portrait in a paroxysm 184 of rage, and trampled it under foot,’ his sister inquires of ‘him why he thus destroyed the resemblance of her future husband’ (p.21). To Aubrey’s carers this is ‘confirmation of the insanity they imagined had taken possession of his mind’ (p.21).
Here, to great effect, is where Ruthven’s fiendish, physical presence is re-introduced: ‘Lord Ruthven had called the morning after the drawing room, and had been refused with every one else’ (p.21). Polidori thus delays re-introducing Lord Ruthven, in the flesh, until this last day of the year, when the process of breaking Aubrey’s mind has been virtually completed. Note, however, where the monstrosity of the Vampyre lies; for it is not so much in his being real, which we already suspect, as in the wicked glee he displays over the suffering of Aubrey:
When he heard of Aubrey’s ill health, he readily understood himself to be the cause of it: but when he learned that he was deemed insane, his exultation and pleasure could hardly be concealed from those among whom he had gained this information. (p.21)
The monster who ‘sunk laughing upon his pillow’ when he first extracted the oath from Aubrey is here given the guarantee he was searching for. To that degree, Lord Ruthven’s ‘exultation’ is the complete opposite to a guilty response. He knows himself ‘to be the cause’ of ‘Aubrey’s ill-health,’ and his ‘pleasure’ is only increased by confirmation of this. In other words, he has successfully passed on the guilt-burden which should belong to him.
Without any qualms of conscience, Lord Ruthven can continue in his roguish ways, knowing that his ‘crimes’ will prey upon the mind of someone else. And thanks to his ‘hardly suppressed sneers,’ the reader is always aware of the Wanderer’s heartlessness, an awareness which contributes to the suspense of his re-introduction: He hastened to the house of his former companion, and, by constant attendance, and the pretence of great affection for the brother and interest in his fate, he gradually won the ear of Miss Aubrey. Who could resist his power? (p.21)
When the soulless nature of this immortal Wanderer is further revealed, he sounds remarkably like Childe Harold - who was also, apparently, a great lover: 185
Who could resist his power? His tongue had dangers and toils to recount - could speak of himself as of an individual having no sympathy with any being on the crowded earth, save with her to whom he addressed himself; - could tell how, since he knew her, his existence had begun to seem worthy of preservation, if it were merely that he might listen to her soothing accents; - in fine, he knew so well how to use the serpent’s art, or such was the will of fate, that he gained her affections. (p.22)
Byron would hardly have betrayed his own Wanderer in this manner: laying bare a lack of genuineness to the reader. For here, the facade of a dark-in-soul Wanderer is effectively stripped away. It is unlikely, had Augustus Darvell ever risen from the grave, that Byron would have turned so ironically upon his own character type. To that end, The Vampyre is Polidori’s sin, not Byron’s - an accomplished crime for which he has more than paid his due, while Byron has taken the credit.
In the wake of The Vampyre, the immortal Wanderer appears to have been discredited. However, as we arrive at the end of Byron’s decade, there is about to emerge another, more impressive, supernatural version of the figure - one more chance, perhaps, for the Wanderer to regain his soul. 193 Chapter 6
Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer
We come now to Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Robert Maturin. Maturin is very similar to Godwin in his concern to illustrate the nature of oppression. He follows on from Godwin in using the supernatural to exemplify the guilt which is associated with privilege. For both these writers, privilege is the root cause of oppression, and the figure of an immortal aristocrat provides the ideal means for communicating the evils of that injustice. By giving the Wanderer figure supernatural attributes - advantages which cannot be openly accounted for - the status accorded to privilege by society is thus exposed as unreasonable and unjust. Of the Wanderer figures we have been examining, Melmoth is the most supernatural; and to that extent, he is also the most guilty. But whereas Godwin uses this strategy primarily to address social concerns, Maturin’s portrayal has both a social and religious agenda.
In terms of the novel’s religious agenda, Melmoth functions as a witness to Maturin’s Christianity, proclaiming: ‘If this be true, it bears attestation to a truth uttered by the lips of one I may not name, and echoed by every human heart in the habitable world’ (Maturin, 1968, p.538). In the Preface, the author states that his novel was inspired by the following passage in one of his sermons:
‘At this moment is there one of us present, however we may have departed from the Lord, disobeyed his will, and disregarded his word - is there one of us who would, at this moment, accept all that man could bestow, or earth afford, to resign the hope of his salvation? - No, there is not one - not such a fool on earth, were the enemy of mankind to traverse it with the offer!’ (1968, p.5)
In Maturin’s novel, the Wanderer is ‘the enemy of mankind’ who fails in his attempt to bestow boundless privileges on the mortals he tempts: ‘No one has ever exchanged destinies with Melmoth the Wanderer. I have traversed the world in the search and no one, to gain that world, would lose his own soul!’ (p.538) While the spiritual 194 concerns of the author are quite blatant, there is another level of more immediate social concerns which deserve examination.
We have seen how many of the social philosophers of the period identified privilege as the enemy of equality. ‘Let not then the happiness of one half of mankind be built on the misery of the other,’ wrote Wollstonecraft (1993, p.332). In St Leon, Godwin achieved his social critique through a first-person narrative, constructing his Wanderer figure as a negative representation of one particular form of privilege, namely aristocracy. On the other hand, Maturin’s text attacks a number of oppressive institutions, not only through the figure of Melmoth, but also through a complex narrative arrangement.
As the varying critical views of its awkwardness suggest, Maturin’s arrangement of layered narratives is involving to say the least. What I hope to show, in the second half of this chapter, is the possible significance of this design in terms of the social critique that Maturin is trying to achieve. My reading will give precedence to Maturin’s social rather than religious agenda as, I believe, that is the primary end to which he employs his remarkable strategy. To see this strategy clearly, though, it will be necessary, first of all, to understand the kind of character that Maturin’s Wanderer is. As we shall see, Maturin owes much to Godwin for the spirit in which his polemic against oppression is conveyed, but the unusual schema he employs toward this end is entirely his own.
Part One
Melmoth is by far the most supernatural of our wanderer figures, and thus the most privileged. He is raised above the rest of his species by a number of considerable advantages.These privileges are enough to render him god-like, which one would expect from ‘the enemy of mankind’ whose function he is created to perform:
‘ . . . I obtained from the enemy of souls a range of existence beyond the period allotted to mortality - a power to pass over space without disturbance or delay, and visit remote regions with the swiftness of thought - to encounter tempests 195 without the hope of their blasting me, and penetrate into dungeons, whose bolts were as flax and tow at my touch.’ (p.538)
There is, it would seem, almost no ability with which he is not endowed. Witness the following episode:
He attempted no defence. He retreated a few paces, and sheathing his sword, waved them back only with his arm; and this movement, that seemed to announce an internal power above all physical force, had the effect of nailing every spectator to the spot where he stood. (p.521)
Beyond this even, he is endowed with a form of extra-perception through which he knows intimate details of his intended victims’ lives (pp.496-497). And, as we would expect from a supernatural wanderer, the most significant of Melmoth’s advantages is his preternatural longevity, having ‘the only human voice that had respired mortal air beyond the period of mortal life . . .’ (p.536) With virtually nothing in the natural world to constrain him, Melmoth, in his supernatural person, is truly privilege personified.
In his singularity, this supernatural wanderer is a concentration of aggravated wealth and power. Melmoth, then, holds a monopoly upon privilege, an unjustifiable advantage over his fellow man. This is not just privilege concentrated in the hands of a few, it is privilege concentrated in the hands of one. As Melmoth is the only human being to partake of these boundless privileges, he represents the kind of guilty exclusivity which Godwin had railed against, and which Maturin also is keen to condemn.
The exclusivity of the privileged few or, in this case, the privileged one, cannot be justified in any reasonable sense. It is unnatural in ‘the system of the universe left at large to all her sons’ (Godwin, 1971, p.201).With Godwin’s St Leon, it was a condition of secrecy which enshrined his dubious endowment: ‘There was nothing about which he was so solicitous as concealment; the most atrocious criminal could not be more alarmed at the idea of being discovered’ (Godwin, 1994, p.139). In Maturin’s novel, we find what is referred to as the incommunicable condition.
196 To Moncada, a Spaniard in the prison of the Inquisition, Melmoth ‘proposed . . . that incommunicable condition which’ he is ‘forbid to reveal, except in the act of confession’ (p.237). Upon hearing this, Moncada’s listener (John Melmoth the younger) ‘could not forbear remembering the incommunicable condition proposed to Stanton in the mad-house, - he shuddered, and was silent.’ John is shuddering for having remembered what was effectively missing and unspoken in the narrative of the Englishman Stanton. In this way, Maturin creates as much drama as possible around this unmentionable element of the text:
The explanation occupied several pages, which, to the torture of young Melmoth, were wholly illegible. It seemed, however, to have been rejected by Stanton with the utmost rage and horror, for Melmoth at last made out,- ‘Begone, monster,demon! - begone to your native place. (p.58)
To similar effect, we see Immalee-Isidora, Melmoth’s love-interest, asking for absolution upon her death-bed:
‘Promise me absolution for repeating the words, for I should wish that my last breath might not be exhaled in uttering - what I must.’ - ‘Te absolvo’, &c. said the priest, and bent his ear to catch the sounds. The moment they were uttered, he started as from the sting of a serpent, and, seating himself at the extremity of the cell, rocked in dumb horror.’ (p.532)
The priest may have ‘rocked in dumb horror’ but the reader is unlikely to be so shocked by Melmoth’s proposal. Nevertheless, the incommunicable condition (italicized throughout the text) is dramatically over-played and reiterated by the author.
Earlier in the novel, Moncada unwittingly reveals the condition as ‘the price of my salvation’:
Here the Spaniard paused in some agitation. In the enthusiasm of his narration, he had in some degree disclosed that secret which he had declared was incommunicable, except in confessing to a priest. Melmoth [John Melmoth], who, from the narrative of Stanton, had been prepared to suspect something of this, id not think prudent to press him for a further disclosure . . . (p.264)
197 The point of this repetitive drama is not to create tension or mystery in light of an upcoming revelation, because we already know in essence what the condition is. Having ‘been prepared to suspect something of this’ all along, there is no real need for ‘a further disclosure.’ Rather, Maturin seeks to emphasize, through reiteration, the guilt which is attached to privilege, reminding us that to accept the aristocrat’s boundless privileges is to entail an immortal guilt-burden.
To that end, the kind of advantage which Melmoth offers is not merely dubious or shameful, it is so guilt-ridden as to be damnable. So when Immalee inquires directly of Melmoth’s ‘wealth and dower,’ of ‘that region where you have told me your rich and wide possessions are held,’ we get the following dramatic scene:
‘At these words, Melmoth approached as close as possible to the casement, and uttered a certain word which Isidora did not at first appear to hear, or understand - trembling she repeated her request. In a still lower tone the answer was returned. Incredulous, and hoping that the answer had deceived her, she again repeated her petition. A withering monosyllable, not to be told, thundered in her ears, - and she shrieked as she closed the casement.’ (p.355)
Again, this is hardly a moment of revelation to the reader. The significance of the scene lies rather in the impact of the guilty silence, ‘a withering monosyllable, not to be told,’ than the predictable answer. Melmoth’s privileges could not, of course, have a guiltier source.
In the open universe of Paine and Godwin, where ‘the reason for everything must publicly appear’ (Paine, 1989, p.173), Melmoth’s accounts are not open to the light of day. Rather, they remain jealous of investigation. In this sense, the supernatural advantage which the immortal aristocrat holds over his fellow man is to be condemned. His perpetual aristocracy cannot be openly accounted for. If this was the case with St. Leon’s ‘excessive and clandestine advantages,’ then how much more so for Melmoth’s dower, which is not merely dubious or shameful, but damnable.
While this particular aspect of Melmoth’s character, his supernatural endowment, is to be condemned, a guilty awareness of his own privileged status forms part of a more sympathetic portrayal. There is, in this sense, quite a difference between Godwin’s negative portrayal 198 of St. Leon and Maturin’s treatment of Melmoth. Godwin’s immortal aristocrat fails to recognize why he is guilty, or to understand why he is being persecuted:
. . . nothing merely human could be hated in the degree in which I was hated; few were daring and intrepid enough to repeat the very name I bore; and, when it was inadvertently pronounced, it produced through the whole extent of the astonished circle an involuntary and supernatural shudder. (Godwin,1994, p.268)
Incredulous, St. Leon sees nothing wrong with ‘excessive and clandestine advantages.’ Indeed, he continues to assert his privileged innocence, exalting in the superiority of a supernatural elevation ‘which raises him so much above his species, makes him glory in his superiority, and cherish his innocence’ (Godwin, 1994, p.420).
In Maturin’s text, on the other hand, Melmoth knows precisely what it is that makes him guilty, and this self-consciousness allows for a more sympathetic portrayal. As the ‘world could show him no greater marvel than his own existence,’ (p.358) his supernatural status is never allowed to escape him. It is his boundless privileges, ‘the facility with which he himself passed from region to region, mingling with, yet distinct from all his species, like a wearied and uninterested spectator rambling through the various seats of some vast theatre . . .’ (p.358) that remind him (with pathos) of why he remains guilty in the eyes of the world.
The following scene is like a moment of exposure or shame for Melmoth; yet note how our sympathy leaves with him:
‘The light of the torches, which the trembling servants held up to gaze on him, fell full on his countenance, and the voices of a few shuddering speakers exclaimed, ‘MELMOTH THE WANDERER!’ - ‘I am - I am!’ said that unfortunate being - ‘and who now will oppose my passing - who will become my companion?’ (p.521)
If he is an extraordinary being, he is also ‘that unfortunate being’ who becomes sympathetic because of his conscious self-loathing: ‘Hate me - curse me! . . . hate me, for I hate you - I hate all things that live - all things that are dead - I am myself hated and hateful!’ (p.318) This bitter self-hatred is intended to show how Melmoth is suffering for his 199 apartness. He does not exalt in his superiority over ‘all things that live,’ but rather despises himself. And in so doing, he becomes engaging to a degree which Godwin’s St. Leon is not.
With his assertion of privileged innocence, St. Leon remains a defiant aristocrat. Melmoth, on the other hand, knows all too well what makes him guilty. Devoid of St Leon’s aristocratic arrogance, he knows it is his supernatural endowment which condemns him and, in the end, he accepts this judgement:
‘ . . . if my crimes have exceeded those of mortality, so will my punishment. I have been on earth a terror, but not an evil to its inhabitants. None can participate in my destiny but with his own consent - none have consented - none can be involved in its tremendous penalties, but by participation. I alone must sustain the penalty. If I have put forth my hand, and eaten of the fruit of the interdicted tree, am I not driven from the presence of God and the region of paradise, and sent to wander amid worlds of barrenness and curse for ever and ever?’ (p.537)
It seems like more than a just recompense that Melmoth ‘alone must sustain the penalty’ for having partaken of a supernatural existence, for ‘crimes’ that ‘have exceeded those of mortality.’ As Melmoth condemns himself in this fashion, there is little room left for the reader to pass a moral judgement. And furthermore, the grand pathos and remorse for a paradise lost leaves us sympathetically disposed toward this sole bearer of guilt, with whom ‘none can be involved’ as ‘none have consented.’
Axton suggests it is Melmoth’s ‘tormented sense of his own evil’ that nearly makes him forgivable, this being achieved through ‘Maturin’s sensitive presentation of his suffering’ (Axton, 1961, pp.xiv - xv). But I think it is Melmoth’s awareness of his guilt, rather than his evil, which partially redeems him. The difference is significant, because the guilt which Melmoth feels is tied specifically to the privilege of his supernatural status. Melmoth is left to ‘curse for ever and ever’ for having partaken of an unnatural existence.
Melmoth is painfully aware of his own guilt, and the most poignant way of bringing this out is through his love-interest, Immalee- Isidora. Immalee represents an ideal state of natural innocence; she is 200 ‘a being who had hitherto conversed with nothing but the melody of birds and the murmur of waters’(p.285). She lives alone on an idyllic East Indian isle where everything is in abundance, a microcosm, perhaps, of a ‘universe left at large to all her sons.’ (Godwin, 1971, p.201) As we might expect, it is a world free from oppression, from ‘suffering, guilt, and care’; and Immalee is the being who embodies its innocence.
If Melmoth in his supernatural person is guilt personified, then Immalee in her natural person is innocence personified. And through his longing for Immalee, Melmoth virtually feels remorse over his supernatural status:
‘Perhaps this extraordinary being, with regard to whom the laws of mortality and the feelings of nature seemed to be alike suspended, felt a kind of sad and wild repose from the destiny that immitigably pursued him, in the society of Immalee’ (p.298).
Immalee represents a natural state of innocence from which Melmoth, being above ‘the laws of mortality and the feelings of nature’ is forever barred. Melmoth’s awareness of his own guilt in this regard, is awakened by the innocent ‘society of Immalee,’ in which he ‘felt a kind of sad and wild repose.’ That he feels this remorse with such sweet pathos is what gains our sympathy.
Melmoth is fully aware of the unnatural advantage he holds over Immalee. He could, if he would, choose to employ his supernatural powers to ‘transfix her very soul,’ but he does not. Her purity awakens a deep sense of his own unworthiness; so much so, that he restrains himself:
He saw this pure being surrounded by the terrors of nature, and felt a wild and terrible conviction, that though the lightening might blast her in a moment, yet there was a bolt more burning and more fatal, which was wielded by his own hand, and which, if he could aim it aright, must transfix her very soul. (p.314)
When Melmoth finds Immalee ‘exhausted by emotion and terror,’ we read that he ‘Flung his senseless burden on the sands, and departed - nor did he ever revisit the island’ (p.324). A similar scene of renunciation is repeated three years later, when they meet in Madrid: 201
‘Would you follow me from land to sea, and from sea to land, - a restless homeless, devoted being, - with the brand on your brow, and the curse on your name? Would you indeed be mine? - my own - my only Immalee?’ - ‘I would - I will!’- ‘Then,’ answered Melmoth,‘on this spot receive the proof of my eternal gratitude. On this spot I renounce your sight! - I disannul your engagement! - I fly from you forever!’ And as he spoke, he disappeared.’ (p.367)
In each case, it is Melmoth’s guilty self-consciousness that leads to this heroic action; and because Melmoth knows there is nothing in the natural world to constrain him, we are positioned to admire him all the more for his heroic fortitude.
‘I stood between myself and her,’ Melmoth tells Isidora’s father (p.522; Maturin’s italics). All the while, the reader is being positioned to feel how painful this supernatural separation is for Melmoth:
‘Think, Immalee for a moment, how unsuitable, how unworthy, is the object of the feelings you lavish on him. A being unattractive in his form, repulsive in his habits, separated from life and humanity by a gulph impassable; a disinherited child of nature, who goes about to curse or to tempt his more prosperous brethren; one who ______what withholds me from disclosing all?’ (p.319)
As ‘a disinherited child of nature . . . separated from life and humanity by a gulph impassable,’ Melmoth cannot disclose the shameful truth about the source of his privileges. It is this self-consciousness which guiltily restrains him in his relationship with Immalee. He displays a tormented awareness of his guilt in this regard, ‘ . . . if my crimes have exceeded those of mortality, so will my punishment . . .’, and not so much his evil: ‘I have been on earth a terror, but not an evil to its inhabitants.’
In the honourable remorse of Melmoth we find a worthy recognition of guilt, as Maturin would have the man of privilege ‘curse for ever and ever’ his unnatural advantages. His self-derision squares up with his self-condemnation, a sentence pronounced by his own conscience, and the social conscience of the author. The importance of Immalee, in this regard, is to make Melmoth’s recognition of the guilt attached to privilege all the more poignant. In this way, Melmoth’s troubled conscience endears him, ever so slightly, to the reader. 202
The Wanderer’s Soap-Box
Apart from his deep sense of guilt, there is something else which makes Melmoth forgivable and likeable to the reader. For a supposed ‘enemy of mankind,’ he displays a remarkable sympathy for the plight of the oppressed. Indeed, he becomes to some degree the voice of a social conscience in this novel. It is important then for Melmoth to be at least partially redeemable, as he is to function as a mouth-piece for the author’s views on social justice.
Alone with Immalee on the East Indian island, Melmoth reflects, for our benefit, upon the evils of mankind. This section, which occurs in the centre of the novel, is the best glimpse we are offered of Maturin’s social views. It contains Melmoth’s most sustained piece of dialogue, which alone suggests its importance in understanding what Maturin had intended with this figure. It also provides a key to negotiating the novel’s complex narrative arrangement (a task reserved for the second part of this chapter). So it is not just central in a structural sense, but an interpretative one as well. For here, in the centre of the novel, Melmoth is given a soap-box from which to air the views of his author; and more often than not, Melmoth’s views on society are surely those of Maturin.
When Melmoth’s speech is at its worst, when ‘the demon of his superhuman misanthropy had now fully possessed him,’ his creator offers an apologetic footnote:
. . . I must here trespass so far on the patience of the reader as to assure him, that the sentiments ascribed to the stranger are diametrically opposite to mine, and that I have purposefully put them into the mouth of an agent of the enemy of mankind. ( Maturin, 1968, p.303 )
Maturin’s views may not be so cynical as those of Melmoth, but neither could they be ‘diametrically opposite.’ As we shall see, Melmoth sounds more like a champion of the oppressed than ‘an agent of the enemy of mankind.’ The real enemy, according to Melmoth and, we may assume, Maturin, is the same one that Coleridge had thanked 203 Godwin for uncovering: ‘Pleas’d I have mark’d OPPRESSION, terror- pale, / Since, thro’ the windings of her dark machine, / Thy steady eye has shot its glances keen . . .’ (Coleridge, 1912, p.86) When Melmoth casts his Godwin-like eye over the world, he uncovers this same insidious structure.
We find Melmoth and Immalee, guilt and innocence respectively, sitting on the shoreline watching the boats go by. Melmoth knows that to Immalee, in her natural state of innocence, these vessels are from a wholly other world, ‘a world of suffering, guilt, and care’ (p.285):
There came on the European vessels full of the passions and crimes of another world, - of its sateless cupidity, remorseless cruelty, its intelligence, all awake and ministrant in the cause of its evil passions, and its very refinement operating as a stimulant to more inventive indulgence, and more systematized vice. (p.300)
Melmoth’s thoughts are significant, because they act as a prelude to his description of the world he is about to give Immalee, a world in which the ‘indulgence’ and ‘vice’ of the privileged few oppresses the many. When Melmoth reflects upon the injustice of European society, it is the structure of oppression which he most readily identifies. Still musing to himself, he finds it first of all lurking behind colonialism, and the excessive consumerism which colonialism supports:
He saw them approach to traffic for ‘gold, and silver, and the souls of men;’ - to grasp, with breathless rapacity, the gems and precious produce of those luxuriant climates, and deny the inhabitants the rice that supported their inoffensive existence; - to discharge the load of their crimes, their lust and their avarice, and after ravaging the land, and plundering the natives, depart, leaving behind them famine, despair, and execration. (p.300)
Melmoth sees an unjust system of oppression, whereby the luxury of Europeans is attained at the expense of ‘famine, despair, and execration’ for native inhabitants. This exemplifies the kind of excess and superfluity which Godwin had railed against.
Through Melmoth’s eyes, we see Europeans chasing after ‘that luxury, which unnerves and debases the men that practise it, and is 204 the principal source of all the oppression, ignorance and guilt which infest the face of earth’ (Godwin, 1971, p.318). For Coleridge, it was the West Indian Trade which exemplified this notion: ‘Perhaps from the beginning of the world the evils arising from the formation of imaginary wants have been in no instance so dreadfully exemplified as in the Slave Trade & the West India Commerce!’ (Coleridge, 1970-2001, v.1, p.236) According to Coleridge and the abolitionists, one could entail upon themselves the responsibility for this injustice by effectively consuming a guilty meal: ‘And does not then the guilt rest on the consumers?’ (Coleridge, 1970-2001, v.2, p.138) Melmoth too knows how to paint a picture of the guilty meal, as we see these Europeans ‘bearing with them back to Europe, blasted constitutions, inflamed passions, ulcerated hearts, and consciences that could not endure the extinction of a light in their sleeping apartment’ (p.300). Having indulged in this sinister feast, the weight of oppression entailed by their consumption is returned to them in the burden of ‘consciences that could not endure the extinction of a light . . .’
After these preliminary thoughts, Melmoth delivers ‘a description of the world, after his manner,’ which is also, one suspects, the manner of Maturin himself:
There was a mixture of fiendish acrimony, biting irony, and fearful truth, in his wild sketch, which was often interrupted by the cries of astonishment, grief, and terror, from his hearer. (p.300)
Just as Immalee is shocked by the ‘biting irony, and fearful truth’ of Melmoth’s words, Maturin would be seeking for a similar response in his reader. He would, at least, have them acknowledge the ‘fearful truth’ of his observations on society.
In simple terms, Melmoth’s speech is a cynical harangue upon the evils of mankind. But a closer examination reveals Melmoth to be a keen social observer, much in the style of the 1790’s radicals. Indeed, it could be said that he takes up their views wholesale and carries on their task - to make us feel for the wretched many:
205 ‘But the people of the other worlds have invented, by means of living in cities, a new and singular mode of aggravating human wretchedness - that of contrasting it with the wild and wanton excess of superfluous and extravagant splendour.’ (p.302)
When Melmoth depicts the contrast between ‘wretchedness’ and ‘superfluous and extravagant splendour,’ he displays Godwin’s enlightened distaste for excessive wealth, for that ‘third degree of property’ (Godwin,1976, p.711) which is simply a ‘bitter aggravation’ to the already desperate plight of the oppressed:
. . . it is a bitter aggravation of their own calamity, to have the privileges of others forced on their observation, and, while they are perpetually and vainly endeavouring to secure for themselves and their families the poorest conveniences, to find others revelling in the fruits of their labours. (Godwin, 1976, p.91)
It is worth looking at a passage from Godwin’s Political Justice to see how closely Maturin draws from the same strategy - a strategy designed to make us feel the injustice of society:
A perpetual struggle with the evils of poverty, if frequently ineffectual, must necessarily render many of the sufferers desperate. A painful feeling of their oppressed situation will itself deprive them of the power of surmounting it. The superiority of the rich, being thus unmercifully exercised, must inevitably expose them to reprisals; and the poor man will be reduced to regard the state of society as a state of war, an unjust combination, not for protecting every man in his rights and securing to him the means of existence, but for engrossing all its advantages to a few favoured individuals, and reserving for the portion of the rest want, dependence and misery. (1976, p.90)
By depicting the ‘painful feeling’ experienced by the poor in their ‘oppressed situation,’ Godwin is persuading us to feel the unjust imbalance of society. And here is how Maturin, through Melmoth, employs a similar technique when he portrays the plight of the poor man. I have italicized the word feel in order to bring out the effect:
‘ . . . let his steps, that know not where they wander, conduct him to the gates of the affluent and the luxurious - let him feel that plenty and mirth are removed from him but by the interval of a wall, and yet more distant than if severed by 206 worlds - let him feel that while his world is darkness and cold, the eyes of those within are aching with the blaze of light, and hands relaxed by artificial heat, are soliciting with fans the refreshment of a breeze - let him feel that every groan he utters is answered by a song or a laugh - . . .’ (p.303)
While it is the poor man himself who is suffering here, ‘let him feel,’ it is the reader who is being asked to recognize the ‘biting irony, and fearful truth’ of his plight:
. . . and let him die on the steps of the mansion, while his last conscious pang is aggravated by the thought, that the price of the hundredth part of the luxuries that lie untasted before heedless beauty and sated epicurism, would have protracted his existence, while it poisons theirs - let him die of want on the threshold of a banquet-hall, and then admire with me the ingenuity that displays itself in this new combination of misery. (p.303; Maturin’s italics)
Thus, the reader is positioned to recognize the unjust imbalance of society. What Melmoth perceives as a ‘new combination of misery’ is nothing less than what Coleridge had depicted as “The Present State of Society” (1796): ‘O ye numberless / Whom foul OPPRESSION’s ruffian gluttony / Drives from Life’s plenteous feast!’
But Melmoth, we are told, ‘had incredible difficulty to make Immalee comprehend how there could be an unequal division of the means of existence . . .’ (p.302) She ‘continued to repeat . . . in a kind of pouting inquietude, “Why should some have more than they can eat, and others nothing to eat?” In other words, if there is something wrong with this arrangement to the innocent mind of Immalee, how much more should the worldly-wise reader be able to recognize an unjust and unnatural state of affairs as their own inheritance. That the poor man will ‘die of want on the threshold of a banquet-hall’ is the ‘biting irony, and fearful truth’ that Maturin (with italics) wants us to see.
That the poor man should starve is not simply an accident of nature, as Malthus had suggested: ‘At nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will execute her own orders . . .’ (Malthus, 1992, p.249) Melmoth lets Immalee, and the reader, know that this is not the work of nature, but the guilty legacy of an unjust society:
207 ‘ . . . to bid the wretch who dies for want feed on the sound of the splendid equipages which shake his hovel as they pass, but leave no relief behind - to bid the industrious, the ingenious, and the imaginative, starve, while bloated mediocrity pants from excess - to bid the dying sufferer feel that life might be prolonged by one drop of that exciting liquor, which, wasted, produces only sickness or madness in those whose lives it undermines; - to do this is their principal object, and it is fully attained.’ (p.302)
Here, ‘an unequal division of the means of existence’ is the ‘principal object’ of privileged society. Of oppression then, the privileged few are guilty as charged, and the judgment is pronounced by Melmoth. So as much as he may be ‘an agent of the enemy of mankind,’ Melmoth is also a mouth-piece for the social views of his author, displaying a marked sympathy for the plight of the poor and an enlightened distaste for the ‘sated epicurism’ of the privileged.
As though to pre-empt the natural imbalance argument of someone like Malthus, Melmoth moves from what could be dismissed as natural misery to a description of ‘artificial misery.’ This ‘artificial misery’ is to be found in the institutions which mankind has constructed in order to oppress its fellows:
‘The inventive activity of the people of the world, in the multiplication of calamity, is inexhaustibly fertile in resources. Not satisfied with diseases and famine, with sterility of the earth, and tempests of the air, they must have laws and marriages, and kings and tax-gatherers, and wars and fetes, and every variety of artificial misery conceivable to you.’ (p.303)
The first of these institutions is government and, in this case, monarchy; reminding us of Paine’s view, that monarchy ‘is all a bubble, a mere court artifice to procure money’:
‘These people,’ said he, ‘have made unto themselves kings, that is, beings whom they voluntarily invest with the privilege of draining, by taxation, whatever wealth their vices have left to the rich, and whatever means of subsistence their want has left to the poor, till their extortion is cursed from the castle to the cottage - and this to support a few pampered favourites, who are harnessed by silken reins to the car, which they drag over the prostrate bodies of the multitude.’ (pp.303-304) 208
Again, the structure of oppression is the same; a ‘multitude’ are suffering beneath the weight of ‘a few pampered favourites.’ And the system is repeated all over again when these beings wish to create more ‘artificial misery’ for themselves:
Sometimes exhausted by the monotony of perpetual fruition . . . they amuse themselves by making war, that is, collecting the greatest number of human beings that can be bribed to the task, to cut the throats of a less, equal, or greater number of beings, bribed in the same manner for the same purpose. (p.304)
The last three institutions which Melmoth addresses are law (p.306), religion (p.307), and the family (p.308). While Maturin does not attack religion or the family as such he does show, as we shall see, how each may become an oppressive institution. It is not just through Melmoth’s voice that Maturin targets these areas. There are separate tales within the novel that are devoted to their critique as well. In each of these tales we find the story of how an innocent party is oppressed by one or more of these institutions. Melmoth’s speech occurs in the middle of the text, in ‘Tale of the Indians,’ with the other tales surrounding it, as though it were placed there for the purpose of providing a thematic linkage, a kind of interpretative key to understanding Maturin’s overall concerns.
To that end, Melmoth’s views are supported by the surrounding tales. Here is how the effect is achieved. Of the law, Melmoth tells Immalee:
‘ . . . judge, Immalee, when I tell you, that you might spend your life in their courts, without being able to prove that those roses you have gathered and twined in your hair were your own - that you might starve for this day’s meal, while proving your right to a property which must incontestibly be yours, on the condition of your being able to fast on a few years, and survive to enjoy it, and that, finally, with the sentiments of all upright men, the opinions of the judges of the land, and the fullest conviction of your own conscience in your favour, you cannot obtain the possession of what you and all feel to be your own, while your antagonist can start an objection, purchase a fraud, or invent a lie.So pleadings go on, and years are wasted, and property consumed, and hearts broken,- and law triumphs.’ (p.306) 209
These views then find credence in the ‘The Tale of Guzman’s Family,’ where a family suffer to the point of starvation in contesting their right to an estate. As German Protestants in Catholic Spain, Guzman’s family also fall victim to the next of Melmoth’s oppressive institutions - religion: ‘The chance of a heretic stranger, against the interests of churchmen in Spain, may be calculated by the most shallow capacity’ (pp.413-414). We read ‘that nothing but the foulest means that might be resorted to by interested and bigotted monks, could have extorted such a will from the dying man . . .’ (p.412) It is a tale of woe that supports Melmoth’s cynicism:
‘They have such a religion, but what use have they made of it? Intent on their settled purpose of discovering misery wherever it could be traced, and inventing it where it could not, they have found, even in the pure pages of that book, which, they presume to say, contains their title to peace on earth, and happiness hereafter, a right to hate, plunder, and murder each other. Here they have been compelled to exercise an extraordinary share of perverted ingenuity.’ (p.307)
It is not religion per se that Maturin is criticizing, but the ‘use’ which has been ‘made of it’ to exploit others, the ‘perverted ingenuity’ which turns it into a vehicle for oppression. Axton identifies this theme, ‘the tragic human perversion of a religion of love into a means of self- torment and torture of others’ (1961, p. xiii), as the primary concern of Maturin’s imaginative life.
The most sustained critique of religion is found in the ‘The Tale of the Spaniard,’ an all too long depiction of religious oppression which literally takes up half the novel. Spread across two volumes, its unwieldiness does however bear witness to Maturin’s strategy of making us feel as much as possible for the plight of the oppressed. Where the author strays is in trying to sustain our concern for too long. Hoping for information on the Wanderer, the reader must first be treated to Maturin’s obvious dislike of Catholicism. Indeed, one almost forgets about Melmoth, until he arrives at last to speak his mind.
The Spaniard, Moncada, has suffered at the hands of an oppressive monastic regime, and is now a prisoner of that most 210 infamous of religious institutions, the Inquisition. To Moncada, Melmoth ‘spoke his abhorrence of the whole system,- his indignation against the Inquisition, Inquisitors, and all their aiders and abettors, from St Dominic down to the lowest official . . .’ Above all, it is Melmoth’s style of delivery which impresses Moncada, as he spoke ‘with such unqualified rage of vituperation, such caustic inveteracy of satire, such unbounded license of ludicrous and yet withering severity, that I trembled.’ (p.228) If Moncada, himself a prisoner of this institution, is impressed by Melmoth’s ‘withering severity,’ we can assume that the reader is likewise meant to be impressed by Maturin’s ‘caustic inveteracy of satire’:
‘You are a prisoner of the Inquisition. The holy office, no doubt, is instituted for wise purposes, beyond the cognizance of sinful beings like us; but, as far as we can judge, its prisoners are not only insensible of, but shamefully ungrateful for, the benefits they might derive from its provident vigilance.’ (pp.232-233)
Moncada cannot help but acknowledge the ‘biting irony, and fearful truth’ of Melmoth’s observation; and in so doing, he gives credence to Maturin’s overall critique of religious oppression, a critique which is echoed throughout the novel.
Of Maturin’s social conscience there can be no doubt, as his monster is firmly on the side of the oppressed. Melmoth’s message to the oppressors is that they, like himself, will one day have to pay for their privileges. Just as their earthly estates have been built upon oppression, they will have this weight of suffering returned to them in the form of an immortal one:
‘In other cases, the possession of the territory is the security for the man, - but here the man is the security for the everlasting possession of the territory. Mine heirs must inherit it for ever and ever, if they hold by my tenure.’ (p.349)
For ‘all that is mighty and magnificent, - all that is splendid and voluptuous - the sovereign and the sensualist - the inebriated monarch and the pampered slave . . .’ (p.351) a price must be paid; and hell, in Maturin’s text, is where justice is finally accomplished. There we find those who have occupied the top level during this life, engaged now in a chorus of eternal remorse, their ‘voices accompanied and re-echoed 211 by the thunders of ten thousand billows of fire, lashing against rocks which eternal despair has turned into adamant!’ (p.35)
Of course, as the most privileged being to have ever lived, Melmoth himself is heading in this direction:
The burning waves boomed over his sinking head, and the clock of eternity rung out its awful chime - ‘Room for the soul of the Wanderer!’ - and the waves of the burning ocean answered, as they lashed the adamantine rock - ‘There is room for more!’ (p.539)
There is room then for ‘more’ like Melmoth, who would seek for unjustifiable advantages over their fellow man. As bastions of wealth and privilege, they will be suitably rewarded for their indulgence:
‘Listen to me while I announce to you the wealth, the population, the magnificence of that region to which I will endower you. The rulers of the earth are there - all of them. There be the heroes, and the sovereigns, and the tyrants. There are their riches, and pomp, and power - Oh what a glorious accumulation! - and they have thrones, and crowns, and pedestals, and trophies of fire, that burn for ever and ever, and the light of their glory blazes eternally.’ (p.349)
But Maturin’s social justice need not wait until eternity. Within the novel, there is a character who is made to suffer in this life for the oppression he has caused.
Grinding the Rich for Grinding the Poor
In the character of ‘Aliaga the rich,’ Maturin creates a figure through which a number of oppressive institutions can be condemned. Whilst Melmoth declares to Aliaga, ‘Satan himself, however depraved, has a better taste than to crunch such a withered scrap of orthodoxy as you between his iron teeth’ (p.443), Maturin, as we shall see, takes some pleasure in bringing this rich man down. In the colonial father- figure of ‘Aliaga the rich,’ Maturin has created an altogether more dislikeable character than Melmoth, for the purpose of exacting some immediate social justice.
212 As head of one of the first families of Spain, Aliaga’s social status renders him guilty from the start. Furthermore, when we first meet him, he is ‘journeying homewards’ from his East India enterprize ‘full of the contemplation of his wealth.’ And so, we are introduced to the very picture of prosperity and privilege:
He felt like a man ‘at ease in his possessions,’ - and he felt also a grave and placid satisfaction at the thought of meeting a family who looked up to him with profound respect as the author of their fortunes, - of walking in his own house, amid bowing domestics and obsequious relatives, with the same slow authoritative step with which he paced the mart among wealthy merchants, and saw the wealthiest bow as he approached, - and when he had passed, point out the man of whose grave salute they were proud, and whisper, That is Aliaga the rich. (p.395)
Next to Melmoth, Aliaga is the most powerful man of privilege in this novel, and, like Melmoth, he is a figure representative of unnatural advantage. Through this “flattering” introduction, Maturin is preparing us for his fall and grooming us to condemn him. For here is one who is lording it over his fellow man.
In order to teach the man of privilege a hard lesson, Maturin creates a proud remorseless character who glories in his superiority. Recall that Godwin had dealt St Leon a similar treatment. So it is that Aliaga too will be made to suffer for his thoughtless indulgence, and this will be the social justice of the author. ‘So thinking and feeling, as most prosperous men do. . .’ - we are thus prepared for Aliaga’s downfall. Now let us examine how the figure of Melmoth functions in this condemnatory schema.
In his relations with the character of Aliaga, Melmoth is perhaps a more sinister version of Southey’s poet-wanderer, attempting and eventually succeeding in making the rich man feel something for others:
I turn’d me to the Rich Man then For silently stood he . . . You ask’d me why the Poor complain, And these have answer’d thee! (Southey, ll. 45-48)
213 But Melmoth has some trouble in breaking through to the dead heart of Aliaga. When first they meet, he attempts to awaken some kind of conscience in this man of privilege:
‘You yourself, Senhor, who, of course, as an orthodox and inveterate Catholic, must abhor the enemy of mankind, have often acted as his agent, and yet would be somewhat offended at being mistaken for him.’ Don Francisco crossed himself repeatedly, and devoutly disavowed his ever having been an agent of the enemy of man. ‘Will you dare to say so?’ said his singular visitor . . . (pp.435- 436) Of course, Aliaga would deny his guilt in this regard, of ever having done wrong to mankind. So Melmoth must press further:
‘Have you never forgot to do the good you ought to do, - or remembered to do the evil you ought not to have done? - Have you never in trade overreached a dealer, or banquetted on the spoils of your starving debtor? . . . Have you never, as you beheld the famished, illiterate, degraded populace of your country, exulted in the wretched and temporary superiority your wealth has given you, - and felt that the wheels of your carriage would not roll less smoothly if the way was paved with the heads of your countrymen? Orthodox Catholic - old Christian - as you boast yourself to be, - is not this true? - and dare you say you have not been an agent of Satan?’ (p.436)
In other words, the mortal man of privilege is as much ‘an agent of Satan’ as the supernaturally privileged Melmoth, perhaps even more so:
‘Enemy of mankind!’ the speaker continued,- ‘Alas! how absurdly is that title bestowed on the great angelic chief, - the morning star fallen from its sphere! What enemy has man so deadly as himself? If he would ask on whom he should bestow that title aright, let him smite his bosom, and his heart will answer, - Bestow it here!’ (p.436)
While the language here is universal, attacking ‘man’ in general, Melmoth does display a rather enlightened distaste for those on the upper-strata in particular. Melmoth’s message to the rich man then is pointedly clear, and so is Maturin’s. Aliaga’s heart, however, will not acknowledge this ‘fearful truth.’
Note how Maturin describes the awakening conscience of the briefly ‘affected’ rich man: 214
The emotion with which the stranger spoke, roused and affected even the sluggish and incrusted spirit of the listener. His conscience, like a state coach- horse, had hitherto only been brought on solemn and pompous occasions, and then paced heavily along a smooth and well-prepared course, under the gorgeous trappings of ceremony; - now it resembled the same animal suddenly bestrid by a fierce and vigorous rider, and urged by lash and spur along a new and rugged road. And slow and reluctant as he was to own it, he felt the power of the weight that pressed, and the bit that galled him. (p.437) Melmoth is like a ‘lash and spur’ to the palsied conscience of privilege, attempting to make it feel some kind of guilt for the suffering it has caused. Aliaga is having the weight of oppression returned to him now as a burden upon his conscience, having ‘felt the power of the weight that pressed.’
To the mind of Aliaga, ‘who did not feel particularly anxious to renew the intimacy’ (p.438), Melmoth functions as a guilt-figure, spurring him to consider what he would rather forget. He would rather be rid of this ‘intimacy,’ as Melmoth returns again and again to trouble him with the poignant intention of making him feel something for one who is being oppressed by him:
‘I would not intrude on you with a narrative in which you can feel but little interest, were I not conscious that its relation may operate as a warning the most awful, salutary, and efficacious to yourself.’ - ‘Me!’ exclaimed Don Francisco . . . ‘No! - the interest I alluded to as possible for you to feel, refers to another one, for whom you ought to feel if possible more than for yourself.’ (p.443; italics added)
But Melmoth has a hard task in trying to make this man feel anything other than concern for his own aggrandizement, even when the subject of Melmoth’s allusion is Aliaga’s own daughter:
It is almost incredible, that after this warning, enforced as it was by the perfect acquaintance which the stranger displayed of Aliaga’s former life and family- circumstances, it should not have had the effect of making him hurry homewards immediately . . . (p.504)
‘Don Francisco, do you understand me now? - Has this tale interest or application for you?’ (p.503) Indeed, Melmoth’s tale should hold interest 215 for Aliaga, as it refers retrospectively to the guilty source of his wealth, and looks forward to the future welfare of his estate:
‘There was,’ said the stranger, ‘a certain Spanish merchant, who set out prosperously in business; but, after a few years, finding his affairs assume an unfavourable aspect, and being tempted by an offer of partnership with a relative who was settled in the East Indies, had embarked for those countries with his wife and son, leaving behind him an infant daughter in Spain.’ - ‘That was exactly my case,’ said Aliaga, wholly unsuspicious of the tendency of this tale. (p.502) Bearing in mind Melmoth’s earlier observations on colonialism, the author is doing much more here than filling in the blanks of Immalee’s story. Here too is the story of a man whose ‘opulence’ comes from a ‘successful occupation’ of the East Indies:
‘Two years of successful occupation restored him to opulence, and to the hope of vast and future accumulation. Thus encouraged, our Spanish merchant entertained ideas of settling in the East Indies, and sent over for his young daughter with her nurse, who embarked for the East Indies with the first opportunity, which was then very rare.’ - ‘This reminds me exactly of what occurred to myself,’ said Aliaga, whose faculties were somewhat obtuse. (p.502)
At this point the reader is reminded of something too, of Melmoth’s earlier observations:
He saw them approach to traffic for ‘gold, and silver, and the souls of men;’ - to grasp, with breathless rapacity, the gems and precious produce of those luxuriant climates, and deny the inhabitants the rice that supported their inoffensive existence . . . (p.300)
So Melmoth knows all too well what kind of a man Aliaga is; and Maturin would have the reader be prompted to some thoughtful reservations also. The opulence of this man’s expansive estate has its source in colonial oppression. Such is the unflattering background to ‘Aliaga the rich,’ the oppressive father-figure of a privileged family.
Conspiring together, the institutions of law, religion, and the family are embodied in the Aliaga household - a bastion of oppression. The victim here is Isidora (who is also Immalee, Melmoth’s love-interest, now returned to Europe). Aliaga has arranged for his own advantage 216 the marriage of Immalee-Isidora to ‘Don Gregorio Montilla, of whose qualifications I have not now leisure to speak, but whom I will expect she will receive as becomes the beautiful daughter . . . of FRANCISCO DI ALIAGA’ (pp.369-370). Donna Aliaga is a tyrannical parent-figure herself, and the sinister household is completed by the addition of Fra Jose, yet another manipulative priest.
Even upon the eve of this sinister arrangement, we find Aliaga exultant in the contemplation of his soon to be expanded estate:
Aliaga’s heart expanded amid the approaching completion of the felicitous plans he had formed, and with his heart, his purse, which was its depositary, opened also, and he resolved to give a splendid fete in honour of his daughter’s nuptials. Isidora remembered Melmoth’s prediction of a fatal festival; and his words, ‘I will be there,’ gave her for a time a kind of trembling confidence. (p.517)
Melmoth does indeed disturb this arrangement, and in so doing brings the Aliaga household to ruin. Thus, Maturin makes the rich man pay for having exulted in himself at the expense of others:
‘Wretched old man - you were warned - but you neglected the warning - I adjured you to save your daughter - I best knew her danger - you saved your gold - now estimate the value of the dross you grasped, and the precious ore you dropt! I stood between myself and her - I warned - I menaced - it was not for me to intreat. Wretched old man - see the result!’ - and he turned slowly to depart. (p.522)
Thus Melmoth teaches Aliaga a hard lesson; even after he had been duly ‘warned.’ We know that Aliaga became side-tracked by letters ‘from Montilla, his intended son-in-law’, informing him of his father’s approaching death. ‘After reading these letters’, we see that ‘Aliaga’s mind began to flow in its usual channel’:
As the decisions of fate involved equally the wealth of the son, and the life of the father, Aliaga could not help thinking there was as much prudence as affection in this resolution.
That there is far more ‘prudence’ than ‘affection’ in Aliaga, is demonstrated by his fatal resolution to ‘set out for the distant part of 217 Spain where his presence was to save this tottering house in which he had an extensive concern . . .’ (p.505)
Wealth and advantage at the expense of others; this is the mistake ‘Aliaga the rich’ is made to pay for: ‘Wretched old man - you were warned . . . - you saved your gold, now estimate the value of the dross you grasped, and the precious ore you dropt!’ (p.522) It is not possible to burden the conscience of one like Aliaga with guilt, so the only way to make him suffer is through the ruin of his household; and Maturin takes some pleasure in depicting his fall from grandeur:
‘In less than half an hour, the superb apartments, the illuminated gardens of Aliaga, did not echo a footstep; all were gone, except a few who lingered, some from curiosity, some from humanity, to witness or condole with the sufferings of the wretched parents. The sumptuously decorated garden now presented a sight horrid from the contrasted figures and scenery.The domestics stood like statues, holding the torches still in their hands - Isidora lay beside the bloody corse of her brother, till an attempt was made to remove it, and then she clung to it with a strength that required strength to tear her from it - Aliaga, who had not uttered a word, and scarcely drawn a breath, sunk on his knees to curse his half-lifeless daughter . . . (p.523)
The pomp, luxury and excess of the Aliaga household, with its ‘superb apartments,’ ‘illuminated gardens’ and ‘domestics,’ is now reduced to a state of wretchedness. It is, perhaps, a just reward for ‘Aliaga the rich,’ and just the kind of judgment which Godwin would have handed down to the rich man:
Such is the real tendency of the conduct of that so frequently applauded character, the rich man who lives up to his fortune. His houses, his equipages, his horses, the luxury of his table, and the number of his servants, are so many articles that may assume the name of munificence, but that in reality are but added expedients for grinding the poor, and filling up the measure of human calamity. (Godwin,1971, p.317)
Godwin had made St Leon pay dearly for his superfluity, and Maturin’s ‘Aliaga the rich’ receives a similar measure of social justice. By grinding the rich man for ‘grinding the poor’, Maturin is able to bring about some immediate social justice.
218 The Wanderer is Maturin’s mouth-piece and vehicle in this strategy of reform. In the absence of a social conscience, Melmoth functions to convict and condemn the rich man of his guilt. Against the otherwise religious framework of the novel, with this scenario Maturin was making an immediate social rather than religious point. That is to say, it is not enough that the privileged should pay for their indulgence in hell, rather, they should suffer now.
Of course, Melmoth too is a man of privilege, indeed, even more so than Aliaga. But the difference between the two is significant. For whereas Melmoth feels deeply his own guilt, Aliaga remains unfeeling and quite remorseless. For one ‘whose faculties were somewhat obtuse’ (p.502), more through arrogance than ignorance, the reader is unlikely to feel sorry. Although Melmoth is the very embodiment of unnatural advantage, he achieves a kind of redemption in our eyes. This is because he knowingly accepts the guilt associated with his privileges: ‘. . . if my crimes have exceeded those of mortality, so will my punishment’ (p.537). When Melmoth condemns himself in this manner, he is also condemning the unjust advantages which his supernatural status represents, as well as providing a warning to those mortals who would ‘participate’ in a similar arrangement, reminding us that ‘none can be involved in its tremendous penalties, but by participation.’
Through the course of the novel, not only does Melmoth speak against oppression, he also recognizes his own contribution to ‘the weight / Of that injustice which upon ourselves / By composition of society / Ourselves entail’ (Wordsworth, 1970, pp.220-221). In this sense, Maturin’s Wanderer is a worthy representative of an emerging social conscience. Having considered the type of figure Melmoth is, it is now time to address the complexity of the novel’s design and the function that Melmoth performs in its awkward arrangement.
Part Two
Because of its layered narratives, Melmoth the Wanderer can be compared with Frankenstein (1818) and Wuthering Heights (1847); but it differs considerably, in that the subject matter of each narrative is 219 remarkably independent. For large periods of time our attention is wholly taken up with these stories, so much so, that Melmoth himself becomes something of an afterthought. The Wanderer is, in due course, revealed through each of these tales, but only towards the end, where the scenario in which he offers his fatal bargain is repeated. It is an awkward schema which has attracted much critical debate.
A Clumsy Confusion?
When Soldati praises the novel as ‘the highest achievement of integrated structure and theme in early nineteenth-century Gothic fiction’ (1980, p.75), his modern appraisal provides a marked contrast to the contemporary reception given by the Quarterly Review, where the novel was seen as ‘a clumsy confusion which disgraces the artist, and puzzles the observer’ (cited in Soldati, 1980, p.109-110). Somewhere between these two extremes lies the conservative middle-ground, represented by Idman, who finds ‘six different tales with nothing in common except the appearance, at the critical moment, of Melmoth the Wanderer.’ Accordingly, he believes ‘the only means of analysis is to treat each tale separately’ (1923, p.200).
With this broad spectrum of critical appraisal before us, Fowler is quite right to say that ‘the novel’s multiplicity of stories and unusual narrative structure do mightily vex and bewilder the reader’ (1986, p.525). I do not however agree with her suggestion that the novel is ‘intentionally de-formed’ (p.522). Fowler argues that Maturin was depicting an absurdist universe in order, it would seem, to prompt ‘a faith in God which can re-unify the world and the novel’(p.538). On the other hand, it would have been entirely within Maturin’s powers as a writer to construct a balanced novel with a more symmetrical arrangement of narratives. That neither is the case, leads me to believe that structure was not a primary concern for Maturin; or, if it was, it was soon overcome by more thematic concerns. What remains, then, is the lop-sided product of an attempt to integrate these narratives into a cohesive whole.
There can be no accounting for the relative length or brevity of these tales, except to say that Maturin is more or less concerned with 220 their content. The best or worst example of this, depending on how one views it, is the ‘Tale of the Spaniard,’ which spans two volumes of the novel. In this story, where Maturin is concerned to portray religious oppression, he becomes carried away by his attack on Catholicism. Later, in the ‘Tale of Guzman’s Family’ and ‘The Lover’s Tale,’ his concern is still to portray oppression - this time through the institutions of the law, the church, and the aristocracy. By now though, he must have realized the tendency of allowing his own interests to compromise our focus on the central character who is in danger of being forgotten. Hence, the tales become shorter as the novel is brought back on track from its initial waywardness.
There is, on that level, little to be gained from a close structural analysis of the novel, particularly if the object of the search is some kind of organized dis-order. The best attempt, however, is provided by Null in his paper “Structure and Theme in Melmoth the Wanderer.” Focussing on religious and familial persecution, Null demonstrates well how the tales, taken independently, reflect thematic concerns across the novel. He is less convincing, though, in elucidating an overall design. Perhaps because Null is searching for an over-arching structure he is led to attribute too much significance to what are, effectively, anomalies within that apparent design.
For example, he feels bound to ‘account for the strange positioning of Stanton’s tale, which is structurally separate from the succeeding encapsulation of tales’ (Null, 1977, p.136). Of this deliberate placement, Null concludes that ‘it adumbrates all the themes for the remaining tales’ and that ‘these tales in turn function as reflections of and variations on Stanton’s tale’ (p.140). But ‘Stanton’s Tale,’ the shortest in the novel, does not convey all the themes for the remaining stories, unless we really force it to. While it does perform an introductory function, it is hard to attribute to it the kind of significance which Null seems to. If anything, the remaining tales of the novel are reflections and variations on Melmoth’s speech, which occurs in the middle of the text as part of the ‘Tale of the Indians.’ It is here that we find the novel’s major concerns. But when Null arrives at this tale, he reads it largely as an expansion upon the novel’s religious theme (1977, p.143), thus glossing over much of its intended content. As we have already seen, while Melmoth does speak at length on the evils of 221 religion, he speaks with equal length and vehemence on secular society and its various oppressive institutions.
Melmoth’s speech should not be regarded as central just because it occurs at the centre of the novel. The importance of Melmoth’s speech lies rather with its content than its placement. Nevertheless, because his speech occurs in the middle of the novel, it can be said that the tales surround Melmoth as though his views are to provide us with a focal point; even more so, as the content of the tales support what Melmoth is saying. And despite Maturin’s disclaimer - ‘that the sentiments ascribed to the stranger are diametrically opposite to mine’ (p.303) -, when Melmoth speaks it is to espouse the social philosophy of his author, albeit with a sinister twist. In this way, the views of Melmoth and the message of the tales are complementary. At least this much of Maturin’s design is clear, however lop-sided the final product may appear.
Perhaps the best way to approach the complexity of this novel, is to first of all understand Melmoth’s primary religious function. While I disagree with Fowler on her view of the novel as intentionally deformed, I agree substantially (though not wholly) with her interpretation of Melmoth’s role within Maturin’s design. By showing how Melmoth performs a similar role to that of Satan in the Biblical book of Job, Fowler underlines a significant parallel which explains much of the novel’s waywardness. In the Biblical text, Job is an innocent sufferer tempted by Satan to curse God. In Maturin’s text, we find, in Fowler’s words, ‘a host of Jobs,’ as each tale presents us with an innocent sufferer, tempted by Melmoth to renounce their faith. Importantly, in the Biblical text, Satan is permitted by God to tempt Job in order to prove Job’s righteousness.
Similarly, Maturin only allows Melmoth to tempt the righteous. Fowler’s analysis of Maturin’s language, reveals Melmoth as one who is permitted and commissioned, like Satan. She cites the examples of Melmoth being described as ‘a being permitted to wander . . . with power to tempt men . . .’ (p.427) and ‘his destined victim[s]’ as ‘the being whom he is permitted to tempt . . .’ (p.327; Fowler’s italics) And Melmoth himself tells us ‘that this power was accorded to me, that I might be enabled to tempt wretches in their fearful hour of extremity, with the promise of deliverance and immunity, on condition of their 222 exchanging situations with me’ (p.538). So Melmoth cannot simply choose the wretches whom he tempts. Rather, he is only permitted by Maturin to approach Job-like characters. This explains why Melmoth does not approach the most wretched criminals and degenerate sinners, to whom ‘exchanging situations’ would be more appealing. It also provides an answer to Poe, who had questioned why Melmoth ‘labors indefatigably through three octavo volumes, to accomplish the destruction of one or two souls, while any common devil would have demolished one or two thousand’ (1986, p.381).
Fowler’s point is an important one to emphasize, because if we do not make the connection between Melmoth and Job’s Satan, then Melmoth’s function, in terms of the multiple narrative structure, remains puzzling. When Botting describes Melmoth as ‘a particularly unsuccessful tempter, a victory perhaps for the personal faith engendered by the Reformation’ (1996, p.108), he follows Poe’s lead in missing the point. For Maturin, there would be no ‘perhaps’ about it, as Melmoth’s primary function is to prove the faith of the righteous, and this role necessarily involves failure. Melmoth fails time and again as he confronts, to use Fowler’s words, ‘a host of Jobs.’
In the end, Melmoth’s intended victims are not his victims at all. Rather, these innocent sufferers are victims of human institutions. Through their stories we witness the law, aristocracy, religion, or the family, more often than not conspiring together to persecute them. Society is the enemy in this novel, more so than Satan or Melmoth. In fact, a visit from Melmoth bodes well for one’s spiritual prospects. Even Immalee-Isidora, who comes closest to “falling”, attains ultimate salvation: ‘In rejecting his last terrible temptation - in resigning him to his destiny, and preferring submission to my own, I feel my triumph complete, and my salvation assured’ (p.531). As we shall now see, to reject Melmoth is not just an act of spiritual pragmatism, it is also an affirmation of a social conscience.
Resisting the Demon of Privilege
Melmoth appears only briefly at the end of each tale, in order to offer his fatal bargain. So if we are to piece together his story, Maturin 223 would first have us become acquainted with the story of oppression, not just once, but time and again. In this way, the author leads us to the oppressed at the point of their most intense suffering, ‘their fearful hour of extremity’ (p.538), in order to familiarize us with their plight. In effect, as we begin to expect Melmoth’s arrival, we have already become familiar with the story of oppression. And so Melmoth, in an indirect sense, has brought social injustice to our attention. Idman has accurately observed of Melmoth that, ‘little as he actually appears, he is the locomotive power without which the whole would collapse’ (1923, p.263). Indeed, Maturin’s strategy could not work without him, as Melmoth not only holds the narratives together but, more importantly, provides the guiding interest which leads us through such a complex arrangement.
The strategy is aimed at awakening a social conscience in the reader, of getting us to at least feel something for the plight of the poor. With Melmoth as our guide, providing the narrative linkage, Maturin is able to lead us through the separate tales, in order to illustrate just why ‘the Poor complain.’ Again, he is like the Poet- Wanderer: ‘You ask’d me why the Poor complain, / And these have answer’d thee!’ (Southey, 19 , pp.387-388) With Melmoth as our guide, we are led repeatedly to this point, a point at which our social conscience, like that of Southey’s ‘Rich Man,’ is stirred.
To that end, Maturin makes each one of his tales as harrowing as possible. Thus, at the end of ‘The Lover’s Tale’ we are positioned to feel as much as possible for Elinor and John who have been persecuted at the hands of aristocracy, their union having until now been foiled by John’s mother, in her attempt to gain ‘the wealth and rank of the house of Mortimer’ (p.470). Note how the author attempts to evoke and then build upon a sympathetic response to the plight of their poverty:
After an interval of two years, during which she had expended a large part of the capital of her fortune in obtaining the first medical advice for the patient, and ‘suffered many things of many physicians,’ she gave up all hope, - and, reflecting that the interest of her fortune thus diminished would be but sufficient to procure the comforts of life for herself and him whom she has resolved never to forsake, she sat down in patient misery with her melancholy companion, and added one more to the many proofs of woman’s heart, ‘unwearied in well-doing,’ without the 224 intoxication of passion, the excitement of applause, or even the gratitude of the unconscious object. (p.495)
Maturin would have us admire the ‘patient misery’ of this innocent Job-like sufferer; so innocent, that she seeks not ‘the gratitude of the unconscious object’ she tends. Now, with John as an invalid, Elinor must suffer the material pains of poverty, added to the spiritual pain of her melancholy love. Beyond this even, her poverty, pain and suffering are further amplified:
Were this a life of calm privation, and pulseless apathy, her efforts would scarce have merit, and her sufferings hardly demand compassion; but it is one of pain incessant and immitigable. The first-born of her heart lies dead within; but that heart is still alive with all its keenest sensibilities, its most vivid hopes, and its most exquisite sense of grief. (p.495)
It is the ‘pain incessant and immitigable’ of a ‘heart . . . still alive with all its keenest sensibilities’ that Maturin wants us to feel. He solicits this response as much as possible, in preparing us for the arrival of Melmoth at ‘the hour of utmost need and extremity.’ This is the point to which he repeatedly builds; and we are never disappointed:
Evening after evening he watched them. He knew the history of these two unhappy beings, and prepared himself to take advantage of it. (p.496)
Even though we have come to expect and look forward to Melmoth’s arrival, we must first read through a harrowing tale of injustice. The scheme is repeated time and again. In the ‘Tale of Guzman’s Family,’ we are made to witness a family dying from starvation. The following is a stark yet vivid depiction of squalidness, one which brings ‘the hourly pangs of necessity’ to our attention:
The family collected around the dead body . . . As the deceased was a heretic, the corpse was not allowed to be laid in consecrated ground; and the family, solicitous to avoid giving offence, or attracting notice on the subject of their religion, were the only attendants on the funeral. In a small inclosure, at the rear of their wretched abode, her son dug his mother’s grave, and Ines and her daughters placed the body in it. Everhard was absent in search of employment . . . (p.418)
225 Denied their rightful estate by the conspiring forces of religion and the law, Maturin wants us to feel the pain of this injustice, of a family’s humiliation and degradation at the hands of human institutions:
Alas! if it be so, for what purpose were hearts that beat, and minds that burn, bestowed on us? Is all the energy of intellect, and all the enthusiasm of feeling, to be expended in contrivances how to meet or shift off the petty but torturing pangs of hourly necessity? (p.418)
By giving us a deep-feeling insight into their situation, their ‘torturing pangs of hourly necessity,’ Maturin once again brings the plight of the oppressed to our attention.
Expectedly, it is at the point of starvation, ‘the hour of utmost need and extremity,’ that Melmoth arrives with his fatal bargain:
‘Ines, listen to me. I see that figure as plainly as I see yours, - I hear his voice as distinctly as you hear mine this moment. Want and misery are not naturally fertile in the production of imagination, - they grasp at realities too closely. No man, who wants a meal, conceives that a banquet is spread before him, and that the tempter invites him to sit down and eat at his ease. No, - no, Ines, the evil one, or some devoted agent of his in human form, besets me every night, - and how I shall longer resist the snare, I know not.’ (p.426)
By now though, we expect the righteous Walberg to reject Melmoth’s temptation, as the pattern established by Stanton in the first tale, ‘Begone, monster, demon! - begone to your native place’ (p.58), is continued through to the last, when Immalee proclaims, ‘In rejecting his last terrible temptation . . . I feel my triumph complete and my salvation assured’ (p.531).
Melmoth is, in fact, more of a challenge to his reader’s conscience than he is to his intended victim. For we see that Walberg has enough of a social conscience to perceive that Melmoth is not offering a meal, but a guilty banquet: ‘No man, who wants a meal, conceives that a banquet is spread before him, and that the tempter invites him to sit down and eat at his ease.’ Although he is one of those for whom, in Malthus’ words, at ‘nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him’ (1992, p.249), Walberg knows that to partake of this banquet is to entail the guilt of its excess. The reader is likewise 226 challenged. We are to recognize that nature’s mighty feast is really a banquet for the privileged few, a guilty meal at which no one may ‘sit down and eat at his ease.’
The Wanderer is the figure who time and again brings us to this point. In each of the tales the story of oppression is repeated, with an innocent sufferer being persecuted at the hands of one or more human institutions. The effect here is one of accumulative pathos, as Maturin seeks to make the reader feel as much as possible for the plight of the wretched. As the layers build, so does the reader’s sympathy for these innocent sufferers; or at least that is the desired effect. So it is, that Maturin’s Wanderer brings the plight of the oppressed in ‘their fearful hour of extremity’ to our attention, in order that our conscience be challenged. By rejecting Melmoth, we are resisting the demon of privilege.
The Wanderer’s Homecoming[s] - The Guilt Returns
Having examined Melmoth’s role as tempter, and how this interacts with the novel’s narrative structure, we need to consider another aspect of Melmoth’s behaviour, which can seem rather peculiar. Fowler, who quite rightly compares his behaviour with that of Satan in Job, is yet left puzzled: ‘Why, for example, does Melmoth appear at the deathbed of family members, and how does this connect with his “mysterious errand”?’ (1986, p.530) While it is only alluded to, this extra- activity occurs contemporaneously with the other tales. What I would propose is that Melmoth here performs a secondary function which is separate from the main plot-line of the novel. In this other role he functions not as a tempter but as an accuser, condemning the guilty for having partaken of unjustifiable privileges.
Melmoth’s secondary function is mentioned in the outer or frame narrative, which occurs at the beginning and end of the text; though we are to imagine him engaged in this activity periodically through the course of the novel. It is in tracing this secondary role that we find Melmoth’s real victims - his own family, including himself. This is not primary in terms of Melmoth’s spiritual commission, but it is nevertheless important, because it is an activity in which he is 227 engaged all the while he is pursuing his grander purpose. It must then have some significance. We learn of Melmoth’s extra-activity through ‘an odd story in the family’ (p.22), related by Biddy Brannigan, an Irish servant in the Melmoth household, to John Melmoth (the younger). In trying to understand this odd behaviour, we begin to see the root cause of Melmoth’s unsettled existence.
For Melmoth does have a home of sorts, and a family, of whom ‘It was said that they did not feel themselves perfectly at ease in his presence’ (p.26). They reside in Ireland, on lands which were given to the ‘first of the Melmoths . . . an officer in Cromwell’s army,’ and which are ‘the confiscated property of an Irish family attached to the royal cause.’ (p.26) Of ‘John Melmoth the Traveller (as he was called)’ we read that ‘he was never known to appear but on the approaching death of one of the family, nor even then, unless when the evil passions or habits of the individual had cast a shade of gloomy and fearful interest over their dying hour’ (pp.26-27). So it is, that the Wanderer returns home to Ireland to visit the death-bed of particularly guilty family members, which explains in part his recent appearance.
John is present at his uncle’s death-bed, and so is Melmoth, ‘beckoning and nodding to him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying’ (p.20). We read that old Melmoth ‘died as he had lived, in a kind of avaricious delirium’ (p.19). These are his final words:
‘They are robbing me, - robbing me in my last moments, - robbing a dying man. John, won’t you assist me, - I shall die a beggar; they are taking my last shirt, - I shall die a beggar.’ _____ And the miser died. (p.20)
We are to feel little sympathy for this ‘miser.’ Like Aliaga the rich, he is a figure to be condemned by Maturin’s social justice. To the last, he is accusing his servants, the native Irish inhabitants, of ‘robbing’ him, when, in terms of a colonial power structure, the opposite is more likely to be the case.
The Melmoths have themselves lived for generations on ‘confiscated property’ with no interest in disturbing this fortuitous arrangement. Their privileged status in an occupied country is based upon oppression, but they fail to recognize this. We are intended to 228 see this colonial inheritance as a guilt-ridden estate. In terms of Maturin’s social justice, then, Melmoth’s unusual behaviour performs a specific function.
If we bear in mind Melmoth’s views on colonial oppression, which occur in the centre of the novel, the outer-narrative begins to make sense. Here too is the story of Melmoth’s homecoming, a story whose significance becomes apparent only in light of these views. ‘Your ancestor has come home . . . his wanderings are over! - What has been told or believed of me is now of light avail to me’ (p.537). These words are spoken to John Melmoth (the younger) who, along with us, has just listened to the various stories which relate to Melmoth. John has just now inherited the Melmoth lands and property after the death of his avaricious uncle. In this frame-narrative, the avaricious old Melmoth is the figure who represents the family’s monopoly upon privilege, as he is the one who currently presides over the estate:
It was therefore judged no favourable augury for the spiritual destination of the last Melmoth, that this extraordinary person had visited, or been imagined to visit, the house previous to his decease.’ (p.27)
A visit from Melmoth then, is like a seal of guilt upon one’s death-bed. When ‘John was found to be left sole heir to his uncle’s property’ (p.21), the transmission of this estate is meant to be viewed as a guilty inheritance. So it is, that Melmoth appears to John at his uncle’s death-bed, ‘beckoning and nodding to him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying’ (p.20).
In his will, John’s uncle enjoins his nephew to enter the family closet and destroy a portrait of Melmoth, which is to be found tellingly ‘among some papers of no value, such as manuscript sermons, and pamphlets on the improvement of Ireland, and such stuff’ (p.21). That the Wanderer’s portrait should be found at the heart of old Melmoth’s apathy and amidst the unspoken history of the Melmoths’ occupation says much. To this end, the Melmoth family closet is representative of a monopoly upon privilege. Just as old Melmoth has hoarded away his advantages, the family secrets too have been kept guiltily under lock and key.
229 The restless wanderings of ‘John Melmoth the Traveller (as he was called)’ run parallel to a history of colonial occupation. His perpetual youth, recorded in the portrait, marks the time when his family came into possession of their lands. He leaves it with them after his first visit home during the life-time of his brother, thus marking the end of the first generation of occupation:
It was said that they did not feel themselves perfectly at ease in his presence. On his departure he left them his picture, (the same which Melmoth saw in the closet, bearing date 1646 ), and they saw him no more. (p.26)
Well might the Melmoths feel uneasy in the presence of one whom ‘to the astonishment of his family . . . did not betray the slightest trace of being a year older than when they last beheld him’ (p.26). Both the portrait and Melmoth’s return function to remind the family of what they would rather forget, as ‘Their memory was not stimulated by their affection’ (p.26). In this awkward schema, Melmoth is like the missing conscience of the family, always absent, conveniently for them as ‘they did not feel themselves perfectly at ease in his presence’ (p.26), yet returning periodically to condemn them at their death-beds. In a sense, while the Melmoths live comfortably on their Irish estate, their troubled conscience, in the shape of the Wanderer, is sure to return to them one day.
Needless to say, a visit from the Wanderer does not bode well for the spiritual destination of a dying Melmoth. As colonial occupiers, the Melmoths cannot possibly belong to the company of the righteous, at least not in the Wanderer’s eyes, as he describes Hell as a place for all those ‘who, under various titles and claims, ravaged and ruined the earth they came to conquer’ (p.350). In this troubled light, Melmoth’s death-bed visitations to the family are a reminder of the immortal guilt which their colonial inheritance entails. Melmoth the Wanderer is the missing conscience of a privileged family, which surfaces periodically to remind them of their guilt.
For the youngest representative, there would then be some cause for alarm at the Wanderer’s latest appearance: ‘Melmoth, you behold your ancestor - the being on whose portrait is inscribed the date of a century and a half, is before you’ (p.536). However, John need not fear. When the Wanderer returns home this final time, it is to 230 condemn himself: ‘In this apartment . . . I first drew breath, in this I must perhaps resign it, - would - would I had never been born!’ (p.540) Having partaken of a life of privilege, of ‘a range of existence beyond the period of mortality - a power to pass over space without disturbance or delay, and visit remote regions with the swiftness of thought,’ he has returned home ‘to resign that existence which has been the object of terror and wonder to the world’ and to accept the damnation which it entails: ‘I alone must sustain the penalty.’
It is the end, not only of Melmoth’s wanderings, but of a parallel though unrecorded family saga. No longer will Melmoth return to remind his family of their shameful legacy. ‘Your ancestor has come home . . . his wanderings are over!’ (p.537) says Melmoth to his current name-sake. Possibly John is intended as a new beginning for the Melmoths. Purged of their guilt, they can perhaps make a fresh start. John is not to repeat the mistakes of his family, which he has seen reflected through the tales he has heard, each one bearing witness to oppression in its various forms. By listening to the various stories which relate to his ancestor John, along with the reader, has become more than acquainted with the story of oppression and injustice, and thoroughly moralized as to the evils of privilege. In this sense, the Wanderer has effectively challenged our social conscience.
Intentional or otherwise, and quite regardless of its artistic merits, the awkward structure of this novel does achieve a specific effect, and one which falls in line with the view of society we have been tracing. Maturin, in his portrayal of oppression, effectively builds a sense of injustice by layering the plight of the oppressed - developing their wretchedness to the point at which we are confronted by Melmoth, a supernatural figure who embodies the guilty conscience of privilege. Emerging from the layers of suffering he appears in the ‘fearful hour of extremity,’ by which time our conscience should have been awakened. Thus, Maturin combines the persuasive power of the Poet- Wanderer with the immortal guilt-burden of the perpetual aristocrat. That a novel of some unwieldiness is required to develop this agenda is quite understandable.
Melmoth the Wanderer is an impressive attempt to transform the guilt-burden of privilege into a social conscience. If, in the end, it does not provide an answer to oppression, it shows at least how not to 231 contribute further to the unjust imbalance of society. We are not to repeat the mistakes of Aliaga the Rich, colonialism, the Melmoth clan or, for that matter, the Wanderer himself. Like Melmoth’s young nephew, the reader has been familiarized with the plight of the oppressed, so much so, that there is no longer an excuse for apathy. Melmoth is suffering in Hell now, but his ghost remains to trouble us with a nagging sense of privilege. One may, of course, regard the threat of damnation as empty, but the salutariness of Maturin’s eternal warning lies in its social rather than religious agenda. 232 Conclusion
We have thus seen how writers of the Romantic period could use the Wanderer figure as part of their strategy for awakening a social conscience. This was particularly the case with Godwin’s St. Leon, Wordsworth’s Poet-Wanderer and Maturin’s Melmoth. Using the troubled conscience of the Wanderer these writers were, in various ways, able to express their progressive social views. What made the Wanderer so apt for this purpose was his ability to bear a guilt- burden, not the eternal, spiritual guilt borne by the Wandering Jew, but the guilt which was of particular concern to this enlightened age with its egalitarian aspirations - the guilt entailed by privilege.
For, in whatever guise he appeared, the Wanderer from this period was a privileged being. His burden of conscience was, it would seem, most pertinent to the society these writers were addressing; it arose from the 1790’s climate of radical egalitarian thought and was, in part, an English intellectual response to the events of the French Revolution. While radical reform was likewise desired in Britain, the violence which accompanied this upheaval could still be avoided; that is, if only British society could be awakened to the oppression which was endemic of its preserved structure, an oppression caused by unnatural inequalities. This then was the role of such guilt: to awaken the privileged few to the plight of the wretched many, returning the weight of oppression to them as a weight upon their conscience, as a guilt-burden. The Wanderer was, as far as he could bear this weight, an effective means through which oppression could be brought to the minds of readers.
Godwin had already reminded the privileged classes of their collective responsibility for this oppression, for the unjust imbalance to which every individual of that privileged society contributed. ‘Every man may calculate’ (Godwin, 1976, p.711), to that end, with every luxury consumed, how much he is ‘adding to the weight of oppression’ (1971, p.317). Coleridge, inspired by Godwin, saw ‘The wretched Many! Bent beneath their loads’ (1970-2001, v.2, p.64), and, having thus ‘mark’d OPPRESSION, terror-pale’ (1912, p.86) provided a similar spur to the palsied conscience of sugar takers: ‘And does not then the guilt rest 233 on the consumers?’ (1970-2001, v.2, p.64) Wordsworth felt the burden of oppression keenly upon his own conscience, not through reading Godwin or Coleridge, but by observing . . .
. . . those who liv’d By bodily labour, labour far exceeding Their due proportion, under all the weight Of that injustice which upon ourselves By composition of society Ourselves entail.
With this growing sense of injustice came a new spirit of inquiry, a spirit which sought to redress the social imbalance by interrogating the institutions of privilege, proclaiming they had no place in ‘the system of the universe left to all her sons (Godwin, 1976, p.473).’ So, while society in general - ‘Ourselves’ - were being persuaded to feel the guilt-burden of oppression, there was yet one privileged class in particular that raised the ire of this enlightened spirit - the aristocracy. For, to the radical egalitarian, aristocracy seemed to exemplify all that was unnatural and unjust about privilege. Tom Paine wrote that the ‘nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us’ in ‘the law of primogenitureship’ which ‘is a law against every law of nature, and nature herself calls for its destruction.’ The purpose of the French constitution having ‘destroyed’ this law was ‘to exterminate the monster aristocracy, root and branch’ (1989, p.91). In English fiction, too, there was an effective way of dispensing with this ogre.
As aristocracy was thus deemed an unnatural monster, what better way, then, to embody this insidious institution than in the supernatural figure of a perpetual aristocrat, a figure that can be justly condemned? It is for this purpose that Godwin created the supernatural Wanderer, St. Leon, and for this purpose also that Maturin revived the figure with Melmoth. Indeed, these supernatural Wanderers are privilege personified, with unlimited access to ‘Exhaustless wealth’ (Godwin, 1994, p.2) and ‘a range of existence beyond the period allotted to mortality’ (Maturin, 1968, p.538). While they share the preternatural longevity of the Wandering Jew, their guilty privileges have a secular rather than a religious significance. How apt that Godwin, whose Enquiry Concerning Political Justice had provided a systematic interrogation of privilege, should be the first to create such a figure. 234
In the enlightened world of St Leon, a world filled with Godwin- styled inquisitors, the central character appears increasingly ‘obscure, clandestine, and indirect’ (1994, p.390), as his author methodically dispenses with the ‘flimsy pretences’ (p.222) of aristocracy. St. Leon, as an aristocrat, must be awakened to his responsibility for oppression, to acknowledge along with his wife that ‘the splendour in which we lately lived has its basis in oppression, and that the superfluities of the rich are a boon extorted from the hunger and misery of the poor!’ (Godwin, 1994, p.85) By boasting of ‘blood and heroic sentiments’ (p.222) he fails, dramatically, to account for his unnatural advantages. Through the inquisitorial schema of Godwin’s novel this perpetual aristocrat is hounded by ‘an immutable voice of reason and justice’ (Godwin, 1976, p.194) until he eventually pleads: ‘Let no man, after me, pant for the acquisition of the philosopher’s stone!’ (1994, p.246) - perhaps echoing the sentiments of Godwin’s partner, Mary Wollstonecraft, who earlier implored: ‘Let not then the happiness of one half of mankind be built on the misery of the other’(1993, p.332). The supernatural Wanderer, to this effect, provided Godwin with a means through which to convey his egalitarian message. The effectiveness of the supernatural Wanderer in that regard was perceived by Maturin also.
Having constructed a figure who can be justly condemned, Godwin revels in making his immortal aristocrat suffer. But whereas St. Leon has to be made to feel his guilt, Maturin creates a supernatural Wanderer who already feels deeply the guilt entailed by his privileges. Melmoth knows his unnatural advantages condemn him. Through his tortured conscience he basically passes sentence upon himself: ‘. . . If my crimes have exceeded those of mortality, so will my punishment . . . Am I not driven from the presence of God . . . and sent to wander amid worlds of barrenness and curse for ever and ever?’ (p.537) The pathos of this portrayal is made all the more compelling by the fact that Melmoth speaks at length on behalf of the oppressed, passionately denouncing the injustices committed by ‘a few pampered favourites, who are harnessed by silken reins to the car, which they drag over the prostrate bodies of the multitude’ (p.304); or by telling the affecting story of how a poor man will ‘die of want on the threshold of a banquet-hall [Maturin’s italics]’ knowing ‘that the price of the hundredth part of the luxuries that lie untasted before heedless beauty and sated epicurism, would have protracted his existence . . .’ (p.303) By thus 235 showing how ‘the wild and wanton excess of superfluous and extravagant splendour’ contributes to ‘aggravating human wretchedness’ (p.302), Melmoth has effectively traced the mechanics of oppression, revealing the same insidious structure which 1790’s egalitarianism had seen as endemic of British society. And, as Melmoth is placing a burden upon our conscience in this manner, using the language of Godwin to persuade us to ‘feel that plenty and mirth are removed from’ the poor man ‘but by the interval of a wall’ (p.303), he is all the while suffering beneath his own guilt-burden of privilege.
The troubled sleep of Coleridge allowed us to see how this guilt-burden might still weigh upon one’s egalitarian conscience. In “The Pains of Sleep” Coleridge sympathized with the oppressed in their violent assault on material privilege - a response which Godwin had made understandable to readers of his Political Justice: ‘A perpetual struggle with the evils of poverty, if frequently ineffectual, must necessarily render many of the sufferers desperate’ (1976, p.90). Yet, while Coleridge may sympathize with the rioters, perhaps persuaded by Godwin to feel the ‘bitter’ aggravation’ of having ‘the privileges of others forced on their observations’ (Godwin, 1976, p.91), he remains apart from them in his privileged role as a Poet. In his dream he is amongst the wretched many, but never really with them, so to speak: ‘ . . . all confused I could not know / Whether I suffered or I did . . .’ (ll. 28 - 29) To that end, Wordsworth reminds us that ‘however exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of a Poet’ he remains apart from ‘real and substantial action and suffering’ (1963, p.256). So, this privileged distance could itself become a burden of conscience for someone like Coleridge, a nagging sense of privilege which surfaces in “The Pains of Sleep.” This Poet does not, however, readily accept the burden: ‘Such griefs with such men well agree / But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?’ (ll.49 - 50) He does not, like Wordsworth, go on to become the Wanderer - one who labours conscientiously beneath this weight.
Wordsworth, as a Poet, proposed a strategy through which he might employ his burden of conscience toward a worthy end, in the hope that ‘justice may be done’ (The Prelude, Book 12, l.236). This involved imaging himself as a Wanderer. By joining the two roles - to become the Poet-Wanderer - Wordsworth could wander amongst the oppressed, collecting and then relating their stories so that we might 236 become aware of their plight. The oppression which Wordsworth saw and felt so keenly in The Prelude, ‘a sense / Of what had been here done, and suffer’d here / Through ages, and was doing, suffering, still’ (Book 8, ll.781 - 783), would thus be conveyed to the reader through the heart-felt burden of these stories. It was a ‘weight and power, / Power growing with the weight’ (ll.705 - 706) which could only be borne by a Wanderer, and only communicated effectively by an egalitarian Poet.
Southey provides us with a succinct performance of this strategy in his poem, “The Complaints of the Poor.” There, the Poet-Wanderer leads a rich man on a brief stroll through the environs of the wretched many, thus allowing the weight of their tales to burden his (and the reader’s) conscience:
I turn’d me to the Rich Man then, For silently stood he, . . . You ask’d me why the Poor complain, And these have answer’d thee! (ll.45 - 48)
This was likewise, it would seem, to be Wordsworth’s strategy for enlightenment in The Excursion, but on a more ambitious scale.
However, despite the lengthy efforts of Wordsworth in this direction, he somehow fails to communicate the same sense of oppression which earlier motivated him to become a Poet-Wanderer. While various sufferers ‘from his tongue call forth / Some way-beguiling tale’ (Book 1, ll.36 - 37), it is the tale of misfortune rather than injustice which is repeatedly related by this new Wanderer: ‘an instance of unrequited Love,’ the ‘lonely miner’ (1949, p.186), the ‘deaf man,’ the ‘blind man’ (p.230). To that end, the structure of The Excursion may work to accumulate a sense of pathos, but it fails to communicate the weight of an ‘oppression worse than death’ (The Prelude, Book 12, l.194). The Wanderer can, however, teach us how “feelingly religion may be learned” (Book 4, l.790) in a land where “slavery is unknown / Among us” (Book 9, l.350), thus restoring our faith in the Establishment - that same Establishment of which the 1790’s spirit of inquiry had recently cast so many doubts. For, “Now, when oppression, like the Egyptian plague / Of darkness, stretched o’er guilty Europe, makes” Britain by its “brightness more conspicuous” (Book 7, ll.409 - 411) there is nothing left here to trouble our social conscience. And, with 237 oppression removed, there is no longer a guilt-burden for the Wanderer to bear.
As he now exorts the people of this “happy island” (l.412) to “Show to the wretched nations for what end / The powers of civil polity were given” (ll.414 - 415) the Wanderer has become an imposing, self- righteous figure, particularly as he bears no burden of his own:
In his steady course, No piteous revolutions had he felt, No wild varieties of joy and grief. Unoccupied by sorrow of its own, His heart lay open. (Book 1, 358 - 361)
Wordsworth is ‘here called upon freely,’ in the notes for The Excursion, ‘to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances’ (1949, p.373). Somewhere then along the way of The Excursion, through the course of constructing this egocentric Wanderer, Wordsworth had lost the nagging sense of privilege which first motivated him - unsurprising, in a land from which oppression has now been removed, and also uncompelling.
Byron too chose to present himself to the public in the guise of a Wanderer. The on-going construction of his “character,” through the course of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, coincided with his rising fame, allowing him to unabashedly adopt this persona. In a similar vein to Wordsworth, Byron’s egocentric identification with the Wanderer led him to construct a version of the figure which, like Wordsworth’s, was overbearingly self-righteous. Upon the completion of Childe Harold’s “development” in canto four, when Byron at last owned up to his character, William Hazlitt took issue with the self-presentation of both Byron and Wordsworth:
His Lordship, in fact, makes out his own hard case to be, that he has attained all those objects that the rest of the world admire; that he has met with none of those disasters which embitter their lives; and he calls upon us to sympathise with his griefs and his despair. This will never do. It is more intolerable than even Mr. Wordsworth’s arbitrary egotism and pampered self-sufficiency. (Hazlitt, 1818, p.142) 238
While Hazlitt does not acknowledge the important role of the Wanderer figure in the self-imaging of these poets, he nevertheless identifies that ‘intolerable’ tendency toward self-righteousness which renders these would-be Wanderers unconvincing. By discarding the Wanderer’s guilt- burden they had effectively discarded the ‘weight and power, / Power growing with the weight’ which gave the figure its vitality.
As Wordsworth became a voice for the Establishment, so Byron increasingly became a voice for himself: ‘I have not loved the world, nor the world me’ (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 3, Stanza 113). In Wordsworth’s case the Poet-Wanderer was intended to become a voice for the oppressed, labouring beneath the weight of a troubled social conscience. For Byron, on the other hand, the Wanderer’s guilt- burden served a wholly different purpose, as there was never a social agenda attached to it. He used the image of a Wanderer with an immortal guilt-burden to present “himself” to the public. The Wanderer’s guilt, to that end, was the means by which he could compel their fascination in him as being a dark, suffering, lonely figure. The image of the Author himself as a deep-feeling Wanderer worked to establish Byron as such in the minds of an adoring readership. For, just like Childe Harold he was a mysterious ‘dark-in-soul’ exile, travelling the Continent with sufferings strange and wild.
We saw how Childe Harold, in canto one, had to be given a guilt-burden in order to become an immortal Wanderer in the same league as the Wandering Jew. The success of this construction allowed the mortal Harold, along with his Author, to re-emerge as one of those ‘wanderer’s o’er Eternity’ (Stanza 70) in canto three. Byron required the Wanderer’s guilt-burden in order to effect this transformation in the eyes of his readership. Through a successful line of guilt-bearing heroes Byron had, in the meantime, persuaded his audience to see guilt as an heroic virtue, as a positive attribute which could expand one’s soul, lifting one above the natural order. The shrouded presence that wanders through canto four, ‘all-seeing but unseen’ (Stanza 138), is the Author himself, supernaturally transformed at last into the ‘wandering outlaw of his own dark mind’ (Canto 3, Stanza 3).
It was indeed a supernatural Wanderer that inspired Shelley. The egocentric appeal of this image is illustrated by the fact that, despite 239 the figure being intended by Godwin as a negative representation of privilege, Shelley saw St. Leon in a positive light, even as a character to emulate. That Shelley, heedless of Godwin’s warnings, would follow in Ireland the path of St. Leon’s failure in Hungary says much for the overpowering nature of this identification. The all-too brief excursion of this aspiring Wanderer illustrates an important point; for Shelley was not the only poet of this period overcome by a need to see himself as the Wanderer, and to be left appearing unconvincing in that role. It seems that whenever a would-be Wanderer neglected or forgot the significance of the figure’s guilt-burden, as with Wordsworth, or failed to recognize its significance, as with Shelley and Byron, the resultant Wanderer was uncompelling.
Byron could be confident of having achieved a Wanderer’s immortality: ‘I stood and stand alone, remember’d or forgot’ (Canto 3, Stanza 112). He had self-righteously employed the Wanderer’s guilt to thus elevate himself above ‘human things’: ‘From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy / Have I not seen what human things could do?’ (Canto 4, Stanza 136) In so doing, however, he had emptied the trope of its significance. No longer was it being used to illustrate that ‘Equality is the soul of real and cordial society’ (Godwin, 1994, p.210-211), or to convey ‘the weight / Of that injustice which upon ourselves / By composition of society / Ourselves entail’ (Wordsworth, 1970, pp.220-221). Of course, it was never Byron’s intention to pursue an egalitarian agenda; nevertheless, his shallow treatment of the Wanderer’s guilt- burden allows us to see where its real ‘weight and power’ lay. For, there is little that is compelling about a Wanderer who is raised so far above ‘human things,’ especially when his burden is used merely as part of an image or appearance, as a beguiling and attractive facade.
The Vampyre, too, was a dark and mysterious character; only, there was nothing so compelling about him. Polidori’s Wanderer was a heartless rake, a libertine and guilt-free man of privilege. Nevertheless, Lord Ruthven manages to seduce his victims by striking a typically Byronic pose: ‘He gazed upon the mirth around him, as if he could not participate therein’ (p.3). This dark facade, in terms of our discussion, is where the value of Polidori’s portrayal of the immortal Wanderer lies - in its exposure of Byron’s formulaic and fashionable guilt, a guilt which achieved success through the course of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. To a similar end, Lord Ruthven ‘knew so well how to use the serpent’s 240 art’ that he could ‘speak of himself as of an individual having no sympathy with any being on the crowded earth’ (pp.21-22). After telling readers that it was guilt which set one apart in this manner, Byron had likewise presented himself, through Childe Harold, as a dark-in-soul Wanderer.
What is it, then, that Polidori specifically removes in order to make his construction of the immortal Wanderer deliberately unpersuasive? It is that most essential of the Wanderer’s traits - a guilt- burden. Polidori cleverly incorporates the removal of this burden into the mechanics of his story. Indeed, Lord Ruthven gladly passes his guilt along to someone else, in order that he may enjoy a privileged lifestyle entirely guilt-free. It is this Wanderer’s complete absence of conscience, an un-feeling nature, which makes him duplicitous and monstrous. The Vampyre thus suggests that guilt, in Byron’s hands, had become an empty, superficial and “disposable” feature of the Wanderer. While it might remain useful for projecting a dark-in-soul image, it need not, however, be genuine or heart-felt. And because the Vampyre’s empty soul is always on view, Byron’s Wanderer is left to appear markedly unconvincing to readers.
With the Wanderer’s guilt-burden emptied of significance by Wordsworth and Byron, then exposed for its shallowness by Polidori, the figure seemed to be losing its ‘weight and power’ as a meaningful trope. It would take the considerable effort of Maturin to restore the Wanderer’s credibility. Melmoth the Wanderer, to that end, is given a guilt-burden of convincing ‘weight and power,’ the genuineness of which is marked by an unmistakable social conscience. As Maturin’s Wanderer suffers deeply for his apartness from “all things that live” (p.318), the figure is successfully reunited with the guilt-burden of privilege. The pathos of portraying “this extraordinary being” (p.298) as “that unfortunate being” (p.521), “sent to wander amid world’s of barrenness and curse for ever and ever” (p.537), has a persuasive power which succeeds, largely because Melmoth’s guilt is tied specifically to his privileges.
Maturin’s Wanderer is a man of unnatural advantages, “A being” painfully aware that he is “separated from life and humanity by a gulph impassable . . . a disinherited child of nature” (p.319). As Melmoth feels this truth so keenly himself, the reader is likewise to acknowledge 241 the veracity of his egalitarian warning. For, while we are positioned to sympathize with the suffering of Melmoth we are also, at the same time, reminded of “how unsuitable, how unworthy, is the object of the feelings you lavish on him” (p.319). Even Melmoth’s repeated failures serve this salutary social agenda, as not one of those whom Melmoth tempts with boundless privileges succumb to the offer; they recognize, rather, that such unnatural excess is in fact a guilty meal, the thought of which is enough to trouble one’s conscience: “No man, who wants a meal, conceives that a banquet is spread before him, and that the tempter invites him to sit down and eat at his ease” (p.426). To reject Melmoth, in this sense, is a social duty as much as it is a spiritual expedient. Hell, as Melmoth reminds us, is a place where the oppressors of this world, along with their privileges, are finally consigned: “There are their riches, and pomp, and power - Oh what a glorious accumulation!” (p.349) But the significance of Melmoth’s warning to “you” now, as one of the privileged few, lies in its social agenda.
The supernatural Wanderers are the most persuasive in conveying this egalitarian message. This, I think, is because their unnatural advantage over the rest of mankind is made blatantly clear. The guilt associated with their “amplified” status - a guilt-burden of privilege - can thus be more effectively portrayed. Indeed, an author could be less than subtle when pointing out the evils of privilege, of “excessive and clandestine advantages” (Godwin, 1994, p.210), to a supernatural embodiment of ‘the monster aristocracy’ (Paine, 1989, p.91): “How unhappy this wretch! How weak and ignoble the man that voluntarily accepts these laws of existence!” (Godwin, 1994, p.211) At least in fiction that much is true ‘!’
There could be no doubting Maturin’s social conscience either; only, he used the supernatural Wanderer in a more sophisticated fashion, presenting us with a privileged being who is also genuinely troubled by an egalitarian conscience. Furthermore, the inter-linked narratives of Maturin’s novel allow for this same troubled figure to bring the stories of the oppressed indirectly to our door. Convoluted as the result may be, the text itself reads convincingly like a troubled conscience. While it was Wordsworth who spoke in The Prelude of a ‘weight and power, / Power growing with the weight,’ it was the awkwardness and complexity of Melmoth the Wanderer that succeeded in conveying this burden, rather than the self-assured and neatly 242 arranged lines of The Excursion. Maturin’s supernatural Wanderer, in that sense, was able to fulfil the role which Wordsworth’s Wanderer had neglected. ‘And slow and reluctant as he was to own it, he felt the power of the weight that pressed, and the bit that galled him’ (p.437). By thus describing the effect of Melmoth’s words upon the conscience of a rich man, Maturin also reveals ‘the power of the weight’ which his novel was intended to convey.
To awaken the conscience of a society who had ‘become accustomed to the sight of injustice, oppression and iniquity, till their feelings’ were ‘made callous, and their understandings incapable of apprehending the principles of virtue’ (Godwin, 1976, p.728) was no small feat. It required making the members of that society at least feel something for those whom their relative ease was oppressing. It was a privilege to not be one of the wretched many, a privilege, however, which entailed enormous guilt; for the privileged were, it was implored, responsible for the unjust imbalance of society. It is one thing, though, to tell people directly that they are guilty, yet quite another to persuade them of their social responsibility. Such guilt, then, was unlikely to be easily acknowledged or owned.
The enormity of this burden was such that its ‘weight and power’ had to be dispersed amongst the members of society, borne equally by ‘Ourselves’ as it were. In fiction, however, there was a solitary figure who could bear this weight alone; and yet, in so doing, convey the power of its significance to the reader. A burden of such “immortal” proportions required the shoulders of a supernatural Wanderer. The Wandering Jew had of course long been associated in the European mind with eternal guilt. But in this new construction of the immortal Wanderer, the religious guilt of the older myth was replaced by the secular guilt of an enlightened age. What really troubled this society “now” was oppression, and that was an immediate rather than eternal concern. And, in a climate where privilege was being radically denounced, this too was what really troubled the Wanderer. This newly created being, in that sense, spoke specifically for the egalitarian conscience of the period; he suffered deeply for his apartness and sometimes briefly, like the Poet-Wanderer, was moved toward conscientious duty. It should neither surprise or disappoint us that mortal Wanderer’s like Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron were unable, or unwilling, to sustain this immortal load for too long. 243
The Wanderer was an apt vehicle for persuasively conveying the guilt-burden of privilege. The figure remained compelling so long as it was employed toward that end. Through the suffering of this privileged being readers could be persuaded to feel the guilt entailed by their own advantages. When writers lost sight of this social agenda the Wanderer too lost his way. In the wake of The Excursion (1814) and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812 - 1818), The Vampyre (1819) warned of how empty the Wanderer’s guilt was becoming - which makes Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) all the more remarkable for its reinvigoration of the trope.
At the end of a decade through which he had seemed to become inured to ‘injustice, oppression and iniquity,’ the Wanderer made his last appearance the most compelling yet, reminding us of the ‘Power growing with the weight’ that could be achieved by a conscientious employment of his guilt-burden. “Childe Harold” will never lose his place in literary history as the dominant Wanderer of the Romantic period, standing ‘alone,’ as he does, ‘remember’d or forgot.’ However, of all these Wanderer’s, it is Maturin’s Melmoth who brings ‘the power of the weight that pressed’ upon the conscience of that troubled time most clearly to our own minds: a compelling witness for the lost social value of this now discarded, yet once significant, Romantic outcast. 244 List of Works Cited
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