William Wordsworth and the French Revolution
The Influence of Michel Beaupuy
In August of 1791, a group of four army companies was moved from Tours to Blois, and it was with the royalist officers of these companies that Wordsworth became acquainted. These officers tried to persuade him to join their cause, but Wordsworth was firmly committed to the Revolutionary cause. One of the soldiers in the regiment was a captain who "viewed the patriotic rising with the same feelings as the young foreigner" and who "was a democratic in heart also" (Harper 110).
Beaupuy, Wordsworth, and the Romantic Ideal in The Prelude
As a Romantic, Wordsworth believed in the equality of all men and saw the monarchy as an institution that sought to take away this equality. When the poet was pushed into an argument with an army royalist, "he proved to instinctively a democratic" (Harper 108).
Beaupuy strongly influenced Wordsworth in forming political ideals, and his presence was so important to the young poet that Wordsworth mentions the captain in Book Nine of The Prelude. He shows Beaupuy's fervor and idealism when upon seeing a young, hungry girl, "my friend in agitation cried, 'Tis against that/ That we are fighting.'"
The poverty and misery of the young girl "becomes for Beaupuy a paradigmatic provocation to revolution" (Hodgson 54). The sight of the starving girl had the same effect on Wordsworth and caused him to believe in the Revolution as much as Beaupuy's arguments did.
Wordsworth's Hopes for the French Revolution
The young Wordsworth had great hopes for the Revolution, and he believed that once a republic was firmly in power in France, he and his contemporaries "should see the people having a strong hand/ In framing their own laws; whence betters day; To all mankind" (Wordsworth, Book IX, lines 517-18).
Wordsworth therefore wanted France to become a "work of honour" made possible by men who "by patient exercise of reason made/ Worthy of liberty" To Wordsworth, a democratic government could not work unless there were men like Beaupuy and other revolutionaries to ensure that the government adhered to the principles of honor and freedom for all men.
Wordsworth and the End of the Revolutionary Ideal
With the advent of the Terror and England's declaration of war against France, Wordsworth became highly agitated. Essentially, he was torn between his zeal for the ideals of freedom and equality and the bloodshed he saw going on all around him.
Ultimately, Wordsworth lost his zeal for Revolution. Within a period of three years, Wordsworth went from being an avid republican with dreams of universal brotherhood and equality among all men, to a conservative who wished to preserve the existing stability and order in England.
However, Beaupuy remains immortalized in The Prelude: "So Beaupuy (let the name/ Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity)/ Fashioned his life" (Wordsworth, Book IX, lines 419-421).
References:
Harper, George McLean. William Wordsworth: His Life, Works, and Influence. New York: Russell and Russell, 1960.
Hodgson, John A. "Revolution in The Prelude." Studies in Romanticism 31 (1992): 45-70.
Wordsworth, William. The Prelude or Growth of a Poet's Mind. 1850. Ed. Ernest De Selincourt. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1959.
William Wordsworth
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Reading & Literature
Latest Articles