Robert Southey and romantic apostasy : political argument in Britain, 1780-1840
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Robert Southey and romantic apostasy : political argument in Britain, 1780-1840
（Royal Historical Society studies in history new series）
Royal Historical Society , Boydell Press, 2007
- : hbk
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Note
Based on a Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge
Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-228) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A fresh and sympathetic interpretation of Robert Southey's changing social and political ideas, shedding new light on contemporary thought.
Like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey has been remembered not just as a romantic poet but also as a political apostate. In the 1790s he was fired by enthusiasm for the French Revolution, and was knownas a radical and a republican. By the 1820s, however, he was not only the poet laureate, but a fierce conservative who opposed the reform of Church and State. Yet at the same time his reactionary politics were mixed with anxietyabout the effects of industrialisation and the growth of poverty, leading some commentators to view him as a precursor of socialism and collectivism.
This book charts the development of Southey's social and political ideas inorder to throw light on the problems generated by the concept of 'romantic apostasy'. It draws on his poetry, histories, journalism and letters to show that his intellectual evolution was more complex than has previously been thought. In so doing it touches on numerous themes: theological politics, national character, the 'social question', providence and history, questions of race, empire and civilisation as well as the nature of republicanism and the evolution of conservatism. As such it is an important contribution towards the wider understanding of the intellectual aftermath of the French Revolution in Britain.
DAVID M. CRAIG is a lecturer in History at the University ofDurham.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Revolutionary Progress
The Imperatives of War
Riches and Poverty
The Uses and Abuses of an Established Church
Nations, States and the People
The Future of Peace
Civilising Peoples
A Perilous Political Economy
In Defence of Church and State
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
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