PRICE/BURKE/WOLLSTONECRAFT/PAINE

It’s difficult to overstate the influence of the political revolutions of this era on the literature

Consider, especially, how enthusiastically Romantic thinkers were involved in political debate, struggling to realize such abstractions as LIBERTY, JUSTICE, EQUALITY in concrete social terms

Consider the extent to which the former transfixes the latter

These texts are concerned with the English controversy about the Revolution

Consider analysis here of LANGUAGE/POLITICS/FORM/FUNCTION

These texts demonstrate the ways in which such wars were about control over language Who owned the correct meaning of key

words such as as “rationality” or “civility”?

The way a political statement is made, as Burke knew well, is as important as what the statement is

Forget liberal or conservative biases of today’s media; forget the frantic efforts to put the desired ideological spin on images during a heated political race

Consider his use of the dual meaning of this word Social and political convention is what

binds society and ensures peaceful, stable transitions from generation to generation

Literary conventions, however, are recognized structures of poetic or rhetorical traditions

Burke draws an explicit parallel between literary and political structures when he quotes Horace on the need for poems to have beauty and to raise affection: “The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states” (157)

Price puts forth his celebratory ideas in the form of an enthusiastic sermon, speaking to fellow dissenters who share his beliefs

Burke sends a chilling counter-message in an open letter meant to engage the sympathies of upper-class English men and women through emotional rhetoric and appeals to cherished values of chivalry Burke’s lament for the fallen queen is the

height of such sensationalism

Wollstonecraft repeatedly urges her lack of polish as a political statement, while Paine counters Burke’s “incivility” with the ostensible presentation of objective facts

However, each has his or her own rhetorical excesses: Wollstonecraft: European gentleman as

“artificial monster” Paine: French government as “augean

stable of parasites and plunderers”

The implication that the Revolution had for poets: convention belonged to the past, while innovation, new vision, and hope lay within their own imaginative enterprises

Consider how the political arguments authorize the texts’ departure from literary authorities