Ways of thinking, ways of writing: novelistic expression of radicalism in the works of Godwin, Holcroft and Bage

In her essay Marion Leclair studies the novels of Godwin, Holcroft and Bage from the perspective of novelistic conventions. She argues that the fact that these eighteenth-century British radical novelists posed a challenge to established authority is reflected in the form of their novels. She explains how Godwin, Holcroft and Bage subverted three components of the prevailing novelistic order – style, plot and narration. She insists that the works of all three express a criticism of the conventional style of novels, seen as formulaic and untrue to life. In return, they had an embryonic stylistic programme for their novels which rejected the conventional style of such highly popular and marketable novels as sentimental novels and gothic romances. Leclair concludes that recasting the conventional novelistic mould allowed these writers to challenge the politics and morals of their time.

Toasting and the diffusion of radical ideas, 1780–1832

The 1780s saw the institutionalisation of radical dinners and the regular publication of toast lists in the press. Drawing upon archival evidence, in particular the minute books of the Society for Constitutional Information, Rémy Duthille analyses toasts as speech acts and as rituals of interaction, for toasting performed an integrative function in radical societies, fostering solidarity and mobilisation. He identifies the nature of these toasts, which were often used as rituals of remembrance that helped to build a sense of historical continuity with seventeenth-century England. Duthille uses examples of toast lists given in the contemporary press, including toasts drunk in France and in the United States. He analyses the linguistic structure of toasts and investigates the social values associated with toasts, in terms of what was regarded as acceptable or unacceptable social behaviour.

The diffusion and impact of Baron d’Holbach’s texts in Great Britain, 1765–1800

Nicholas Treuherz first looks at the bibliographical data in terms of translations, sales and circulation of d’Holbach’s works as well as press reactions to them. After a thorough description of his methodological approach, he analyses the results of his data processing. He argues that multiple intellectual networks and friendships could have potentially allowed d’Holbach’s texts to penetrate British markets. Then, Treuherz examines how d’Holbach’s texts were read by describing four case studies of British radicals whose reading of the French philosopher’s works was instrumental in circulating his ideas in Britain: William Godwin, Dr John Jebbs, Joseph Priestley and William Hodgson. This review allows Treuherz to shed light on the adjustment of French notions of radicalism to a British context.

Contesting the press-oppressors of the age: the captivity narrative of William Okeley (1675)

Catherine Vigier discusses the diffusion of radical ideas from the perspective of a captivity narrative, William Okeley’s Ebenezer, published by the radical printer Nathaniel Ponder. Her premise is that this captivity narrative is best apprehended as a literary text constructed in the light of political and ideological debates of its age since if offers a veiled criticism of events nearer home under the guise of a remote setting and plot. The publication of Okeley’s narrative is to be interpreted as an act of militant Protestantism in a culture of dissent at a time which witnessed increased repression against dissenters. She analyses biblical and mythological references in both Okeley’s narrative and Andrew Marvell’s pamphlets to support her claim that the Okeley text carried the polemic around Marvell’s The Rehearsal Transpros’d to a wider public and that publishing this captivity narrative, a popular literary genre, allowed Ponder and his collaborators to make a further case for freedom of speech.

Secular millenarianism as a radical utopian project in Shaftesbury

Patrick Müller asks whether a new interpretation of third Earl the Earl of Shaftesbury as a radical political theorist is justifiable and whether the term “radical” can be applied to a man who has traditionally been regarded as an aesthete and a moralist rather than a political writer. To answer this question he proposes a chronological survey of Shaftesbury’s development as an actor on the political scene. He first reviews Shaftesbury’s early political career and shows the influence of his grandfather, who helped to forge a new, distinctively Whig ideology, on Shaftesbury’s political socialisation. Patrick Müller then discusses Shaftesbury’s early years in Parliament, when he was committed to the tenets of Old Whiggism and conversed with a number of radical figures, especially Toland. Finally, Müller studies Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks as a utopian text which makes a case for dispensing with the political influence of the Church and even all established forms of religion.

English radicalism in the 1650s: the Quaker search for the true knowledge

This chapter is a survey of first generation Quaker attitudes towards unlearnedness. Quakers regarded learning as a demarcation between the godly who relied on inward learning and the ungodly who adopted a rational approach to knowledge. Their antihumanism even led them to consider spirituality a preferable attitude to scripturalism. The Quakers’ sufficiency of inward learning has been extensively researched by students of mid seventeenth-century sectarian radicalism. However, Catherine Gill’s contention in this essay is that the Quakers’ position on learning is not as clear and monolithic as appears first. The way Quakers described inward-learning changed from writer to writer and required justification which they expressed in a variety of writings. Catherine Gill draws upon conversion narratives, poetry and polemical tracts penned by Quakers to explain how nuanced their position was, a far cry from a monochrome episteme. Gill insists that the Quakers’ responses to criticism contribute to a better understanding of these radical voices.

Thomas Paine’s democratic linguistic radicalism: a political philosophy of language?

Carine Lounissi’s premise in this chapter is that characterising Thomas Paine’s radicalism is a challenge, which she takes up by focusing on his “democratic style” as a way to make his ideas accessible to the common man. The author thus studies Paine’s “democratic style”, for which he was harshly criticised, as being part and parcel of his inherently republican and democratic radicalism. She argues that in his writings Paine sought to deconstruct the discourse of the political elite of his time, associated with the trappings of royalty, and promoted the language of common sense instead as an instrument of resistance predicated on the universality of human nature. He invented a radical linguistics whereby he wished to go back to the roots of words.

The parliamentary context of political radicalism in the English revolution

This chapter is a study of the relationships between Parliament, print and petitioning in revolutionary England. Jason Peacey explores the tension between the potential for political participation at Westminster and the problems related to this practice, and argues that this tension allows for a better understanding of political radicalism in the English Revolution. His essay rests on two foundations: first, the idea that an information revolution relating to Parliament developed in the seventeenth century, which made political information affordable; second, a sense that Parliament was extremely useful, hence citizens’ increased participation in its proceedings, not least through petitioning. Peacey highlights the radicalisation of petitioners’ rhetoric from case studies and argues that that radicalism was forged by forces that brought together disparate individuals whose ideas were shaped by their involvement in participatory politics.

‘The insane enthusiasm of the time’: remembering the regicides in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Britain and North America

Edward Vallance studies the representation of three English regicides, John Dixwell, William Goffe and Edward Whalley, in early nineteenth-century British fiction via the treatment made of them in late eighteenth-century histories and biographies. Vallance raises the question of what provoked this flurry of literary interest in the three regicides and suggests that the main explanation is to be found in the fit between the story of Dixwell, Goffe and Whalley and the Romantic sensibility. Their story seemed to combine elements traditionally associated with Romantic aesthetic. Vallance then explores the impact of historians’ accounts of the three regicides on the Romantic imagination. Sympathizing with the fate of the radicals did not entail endorsing either their political or religious views, or the act of regicide itself. But by presenting the regicide as an act of madness, writers of fiction ultimately diminished its political threat.

Community of goods: an unacceptable radical theme at the time of the English revolution

Jean-Pierre Cavaillé discusses the ‛community of goods’ motif permeating Digger and Ranter writings, a theme he studies from an axiological perspective which draws upon the notions of acceptability and unacceptability. His contention is that this theme had been circulating in England and throughout Europe for a long time before the mid-seventeenth century. While borrowing from Christopher Hill’s analysis of seventeenth-century radical plebeians the idea that the ‛community of goods’ theme is rooted in English history, he acknowledges that this motif owes as much to literary culture as to popular culture and argues that the context in which it developed should not be overlooked. According to Cavaillé, the fact that community of goods as a political motif was publicised through print in the late 1640s and early 1650s reflected the attempt of hitherto marginal radical voices to enter the public sphere.