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Durham E-Theses The use of politics by Disraeli the novelist and the use of the novel by Disraeli the politician: a study of reciprocity Hay-Will, R. H. How to cite: Hay-Will, R. H. (1983) The use of politics by Disraeli the novelist and the use of the novel by Disraeli the politician: a study of reciprocity, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7883/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 /. ABSTRACT OF THESIS The Use of Polities by Disraeli the Novelist and ¥h© Use of the Novel by Disraeli the Politieiaa: A Study @f Reciprocity. R.H. Hay-will. Disraeli was all of a piece...His novels are part of his polities and Ms polities at times seem to be an emanation of Ms novels.(R. Blake, Bisraeli, (London. 1966), 220)0 Disraeli's fame as a politician is well recognised: Ms Premier- sMp under Queen Victoria and his Parliamentary duels with Peel and Gladstone, amongst others, are established in history. But, wit* the exception'perhaps of Coningsby and Sybil. his novels are net well known, even to students of literature0 TMs thesis seeks to redress the balanee, by showing that Disraeli's eareer as a whole was shaped as such by Ms literary nature as by Ms political ambitions. So it is a mistake to argue that *>e should have confined himself to one pursuit or to the other; because both were psychologically essential to Ms - two ambitions exerting a reciprocal influence on each other. In some instances these 'two natures' ean be accused ®f diluting his energies, but as a rule their interaction was a dynamic which pre• vented introverted and self-defeating absorption in one of th@m0 So, although Disraeli never aeMeved great fame as a novelist, he actually wrote more successfully after entering Parliament, than before. And tMs was not entirely due to the interest aroused in a politician taking Ms experiences into print. In themselves, the tone of Ms works became less self-concerned, and the style sharper: less self-conscious and ponderous. The early novels were too autobio• graphical and introverted: they lacked an objective outside of them• selves, and political issues were to provide this. Coningsby and Sybil, written in the heat of frustrated political ambition, veered to the opposite and polemical extreme. They were rooted in the active world of politicians and political struggles, and read at times like Parliamentary reports or speeches rather than novels. The basic ele• ments of most novels: an historical/social context, a meaningful structuring or commenting upon it, and a suitable 'plot', are cer• tainly present, but not always satisfactorily integrated. Neverthe• less, Disraeli's position in polities gave him some unique advantages of access to, and familiarity with, the world of government. Thus in time he learnt to incorporate his perspective on the political world into more balanced works: Lothair and Endvmion. Without the challenge of presenting political subjects, however, his writing would probably have tailed off into irrelevant and self-indulgent autobiography0 Conversely, although Disraeli wrote few novels after entering Parliament, considering the length ©f his career* he still acknow• ledged a debt to the literary side of his nature, in the policies and speeches he initiated. Some of his moves were to fulfil the ap• parently wild prophecies of the earlier novels with almost uncanny fidelity. And h@ retained a dramatic self-consciousness and a oym- bolic sense, even after adopting the sober dress and impassive manner of the Conservative leader. Whether one calls his approach romantic, or spiritual, or simply sentimental, the novelist in Disraeli was borne out in a number of acts which seem to have eome not from the committee-room, but from the pages of his quixotic romances. The Use of Politics by Disraeli the Novelist and the Use of the Novel by Disraeli the Politician: A Study of Reciprocity. Submitted for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the University of Durham, By Raglan Hamish Hay-will, B.A. Department of English Language and Literature, University College January, 1983, Durham. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 27 APR. 1984 3 CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THESIS CHAPTER ONE: 1804-1832 1. Biographical: Neither Novelist nor Politician,. •.»5 2. Travels 23 3. T*e 'Autobiographical' Trilogy 32 CHAPTER TWO: 1832-1837 1. Biographical: In Society. ••••...59 2. Henrietta Temple and Venetia. • .75 3. Disraeli and Romanticism ...88 4. The Influence of Byron 101 CHAPTER THREE: 1837-1847 1. Biographical: In Parliament 120 2. T*e Novelist and Polities 132 3. Polities in t*>e Novel.«0............................•••^54 4. Novels of a Politician 174 CHAPTER FOUR: 1847-1881 1. Biographical: Art into Life 202 2. Life as Art: Lot*air, Endymion, and Falc onet.........a.225 3. Disraeli's Conservative Ideal 247 CONCLUSION 260 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 ('Footnote' references follow after each individual Section). DECLARATION I declare that this dissertation is the result of my independent investigation, carried out under the guidance of my tutor, Dr. G. Ivy, Phd., to whom I owe a debt far exceeding the bounds of academic duty. All indebtedness to other sources is. acknowledged by explicit reference in the text or in footnotes. I declare further that this dissertation has not al• ready been accepted in whole or in part for any degree, and is not being submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed M January, 1983. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 5 CHAPTER ONE 1. Biographical: Neither Novelist nor Politician all his days he was haunted, more than most men, by a longing to escape from the sordid details jf commonplace life into spacious historical atmospheres. The young Disraeli was dominated by ambition. Possessed by great but undirected energies, he made urgent grasps at fame in a variety of fields; like the titular hero of his first novel, Vivian Grey, it mattered little how it was to be achieved, so long as it came soon. After a series of abortive attempts at instant success, invariably concluding in ignominious failure, he was through time and circumstance to resolve his efforts into two distinct channels: the world of politics and that of letters. Whilst Disraeli may be remembered as the embodiment of Victorian statesmanship, he was in• fluenced as much by the sphere of literature as by that of politics in the early and formative years. Disraeli's ambition sprang from a sense of innate disadvantage in several fields, and he fought a personal political campaign to redress the balance almost from birth. In 18^+8 he wrote of his pat• ernal grandfather and namesake: My grandfather retired from active business on the eve of that great financial epoch, to grapple with which his talents were well adapted; and when the wars and loans of the Revolution were about to create those families of millionaires, in which he might probably have, enrolled his own. That, however, was not our destiny. Their name proclaimed the Disraeli clan to be of Judaic origin. The isolation this could cause was one of young Benjamin's earliest lessons. Until he was thirteen he attended a school at Blackheath run by the Reverend John Potticanny. There he found himself one of only two Jewish pupils present, the other being a character with whom he had nothing in common. The two received instruction from a Rabbi in Hebrew, while the rest of the school attended Sunday Ser• vice."^ Such episodes were to Disraeli what the blacking factory was to Dickens: they brought humiliation and, in consequence, an indis• criminate hunger for success. Disraeli left school at about the age of sixteen , and added a lack of university education to his other handicaps. Thereafter followed a period of self-study at home, reflected in Vivian Grey^. 6 He read widely in the classics, but was already developing a par• ticular taste for the satirists and orators amongst them, notably Lucian, and Demosthenes, with whom he was entranced, as he recorded in a fervent passage in his diary: In my lesson of today is included that magnificent pas• sage in which the Athenian Orator swears by the warriors of Marathon and the day of Salamis, and a more eloquent and enchanting passage mortal hand never penned, mortal ear never heard...and even I, I who have been obliged to wade through his beauties, with a hateful lexicon at my side, have often wished to have lived in the olden time , when Philip was king of Macedon and Demosthenes demagogue of Athens." Oratory held a unique position for Disraeli in that it bridges the worlds of the written and the spoken word.