William Godwin

William Godwin:  The Radical and the Romantic

 
    William Godwin was one of the first individuals to embody the Romantic movement that became influential in the nineteenth century. Godwin’s independent spirit and radical mind helped to establish him as a prominent minister, writer, and voice in Great Britain. He did not have a typical, simple life that most people desired in the late eighteenth century. He instead embraced the radical and political movements that were shaping countries around the world.

    Godwin was born on March 3, 1756 in North Cambridgeshire, England. From the beginning of his life, Godwin was brought up in an atmosphere of passionate belief and politically compromising thought. Godwin’s father was a dissenting minister. Godwin had a strained relationship with his father, rarely coming into contact with him and seldom receiving any appreciation or respect from him. Godwin’s mother was more affectionate to him, often being the one that Godwin would approach in times of need.

   Godwin’s education laid the foundation for his later careers as minister and writer. As a young lad, Godwin learned from a Calvinist minister. From a very early age, he was taught to oppose the Anglican Church that was firmly established in Great Britain. As Godwin grew older, his beliefs became more solidified and more radical. He attended Hoxton Academy, an excellent school for the children of dissenters which was widely regarded as a superior institution than Oxford and Cambridge. Godwin studied classic literature as well as theology and philosophy. Godwin’s professors recommended that he pursue a career in the ministry.

    Godwin entered the ministry and soon became the minister of a dissenting church in Great Britain. Godwin considered himself a Sandemanian in contrast with the teachings of the Anglican Church. However, Godwin’s religious beliefs would be subject to a radical change throughout his life. As Godwin continued to study and develop his opinions on the divine, he eventually left the ministry, developing an agnostic and eventually atheistic religious attitude. Many years later, under the influence of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Godwin became a deist, although never reverted back to the Anglicanism of his childhood. 

     His ministry over, Godwin focused on political thought. He published a number of lectures and writings concerning various political issues in Great Britain at the time. At one point, Godwin produced six works (including three novels) in a few months. Godwin embraced a writing career and devoted most of his time to it. His writings were quite influential, eventually helping him become the editor for a significant journal, Political Herald. Godwin took great interest in foreign political affairs, especially in France and the newly-created United States.

     Godwin’s most important and celebrated work is the gothic novel Caleb Williams. Godwin criticized the government or government practices through his writings, and Caleb Williams continued Godwin’s condemnations. The novel condemned the power-abusive government, and the theme of “trial” throughout the novel embodies the tense atmosphere found in Great Britain at the time. Another of Godwin’s major works, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, received great praise from the dissenting and radical communities of the country. Godwin’s works embodied the Romantic attitude through their focus on nationalism and the search for an identity of the nation. Like many other Romantic writers of the time, Godwin analyzed the French Revolution. Godwin criticized the institutionalized governments and stressed the corruption and oppression that resulted from these governments. He hoped for a democratic government in order that the intellects and morals of the citizens of the country might be preserved and utilized. This idea tied together his political writings and linked him to the Romantic movement. Numerous other Romantics, including William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley, read Godwin’s political writings and based many of their own works on the ideas that Godwin outlines. Many of Godwin’s other works embraced the Romantic attitude of imagination and self-examination. Godwin, under the name Theophilus Marcliffe, wrote a children’s book entitled Looking Glass, which attempted to stimulate children’s ambition to live good and virtuous lives. Godwin published another children’s work, Fables Ancient and Modern (this time under the name Edward Baldwin), in the same month as Looking Glass. The fables, some by Aesop and others by Godwin, nurtured children’s imagination and furthered their moral development.

     Godwin’s attitudes concerning sex and marriage were quite unconventional for the time. He believed the sole purpose of marriage to be economic and that it did not represent anything sacred between the two spouses. Godwin also believed that sex was rather trivial and did not have to be tabooed as something forbidden outside of marriage. Godwin’s attitudes were soon reversed when he met Mary Wollstonecraft, a revolutionary for women’s rights and a free thinker of her time. Godwin was captivated by Mary’s spirits, and the two quickly found themselves in a sexual relationship. Months after Mary became pregnant, Godwin gave up his rigid attitude toward marriage and wed Mary on March 29, 1797. Wollstonecraft gave birth to a daughter, Mary, five months later and died due to complications ten days after the birth. Godwin published his Memoirs of her as an honor to his wife.

     Four years later, Godwin married the widow Mrs. Clairmont. Godwin cared for his daughter Mary, Mrs. Clairmont’s daughter Claire, and his stepdaughter Fanny Imlay. Godwin tutored the girls, instructing them in literature and philosophy, much like his deceased wife would have educated them. Godwin’s youth as a neglected child by his father greatly influenced the way in which he treated and cared for his daughters. He did not want them to experience the same hardships that he was forced to undergo. Both Mary and Claire went on to become successful and distinguished female authors, especially Mary (Shelley).

     As was mentioned earlier, Samuel Taylor Coleridge made a tremendous impression on William Godwin, and the two became quick friends. They moved into the same neighborhood, along with William Wordsworth. Coleridge and Godwin would debate many of the issues of the time. Godwin developed an appreciation for poetry from Coleridge, and Coleridge also helped him to further develop his speaking abilities. Coleridge was also responsible for Godwin’s return to Christianity. Godwin was amazed that someone with such great intellectual ability as Coleridge could accept Christianity.

     Godwin published dozens of works in his life. Many of them were obscure and have been forgotten. He continued writing and even held a local government position until his death in April 7, 1836 with his wife and Mary Shelley by his side. William Godwin contributed greatly to the formation of the Romantic movement. Other writers read his works and used his ideas as the basis for many of their political and Romantic ideas. His ideas concerning moral and intellectual preservation helped shape the lives of children through his imaginative fables and stories. His works held great political influence and were among the many radical cries for change when it seemed like the rest of the world was changing. William Godwin’s legacy will stand as one of the great political and independent Romantic thinkers of the time.

- by Andrew Medvecz

Bibliography
1. Godwin, William. Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. ed. Hindle, Maurice. London; New York: Penguin; 2005.
2. Godwin, William and Wollstonecraft, Mary. Godwin & Mary; Letters of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. ed. Wardle, Ralph Martin. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press; 1966.
3. Gordon, Lyndall. Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins; 2005.
4. St. Clair, William. The Godwins and the Shelleys: The Biography of a Family. New York: Norton; 1989.