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ARCHIVE
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October 2006
THOSE OF US who have studied English literature at university cannot
help but take a few courses in the Romantics. Such courses
usually lump Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Keats, Blake, Byron and
Shelley together.
Those who hike yet further down the trail soon learn that there are
distinct differences between the High Romantics (Coleridge,
Wordsworth and Southey) and the Low Romantics (Blake, Keats, Byron
and Shelley). The High Romantics, after their more radical
days, so we are taught, became rather smug and reactionary Tories,
whereas the Low Romantics were more radical (which usually means
anarchist and anti-Anglican).
It is rare, though, when studying the High Romantics to linger long
over their commitment to the Anglican tradition. This
prejudice at many universities has done much to distort, dim and
diminish the full-orbed thinking and vision of the High Romantics.
It is impossible to fully understand the High Romantics until we see
through their eyes, and such men saw life in its deepest and most
demanding through the time-tried tradition of their Anglican
heritage.
Robert Southey (1774-1843) had thought of becoming a cleric
when young, but decided against the priestly life; he was the poet
laureate of England for many a decade until his death. Southey
and his family lived most of their mature years in Keswick and
attended the parish there. The ever-prolific Southey wrote a
fine and provocative biography of John Wesley (1820), an insightful
book on John Bunyan (1830) and an even better book on the poetry and
life of Wm. Cowper (1835). Southey also penned two challenging
histories of the Church of England: The Book of the Church
(1824) and Vindiciae Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1826). Both
of these volumes argued, in cogent and convincing detail, the
reasons why the Anglican tradition positioned itself as the via
media between Roman Catholic and Protestant extremes. Southey,
in most university courses on the Romantics, is often ignored, yet
in his day he was front and centre in English and Anglican life.
His political thought, although most Tory, had a strong social
conscience, and some of his writings border on a socialist vision.
Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834) is never missed in a class on
the Romantics, but his deeper commitments to the Anglican way are
usually ignored. Poems such as the “Rhyme of the Ancient
Mariner,” “Kubla Khan” and “Christabel” are read faithfully as part
of the Romantic canon, but most scholars seem to miss, even in the
young Coleridge, his faith in the Church in the final lines of the
Mariner. The further Coleridge travelled through life, the
more he wrote about the Church. There are many fine sentences
in the Biographia Literaria and The Constitution of Church
and State that make it quite clear where and why Coleridge
rested his head at day’s end. He had the highest admiration
for Richard Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, and he wrote some compelling
essays about the two divines. Coleridge also penned many a
convincing line on the Book of Common Prayer. It is not often
in classes on the Romantics that a student is walked along the path
of Coleridge’s theological and ecclesial writings. We
might ask “why?”
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born earlier than Southey
and Coleridge, and outlived them both. Wordsworth succeeded
Southey as poet laureate of England. Most, of course, know
Wordsworth as a pioneer poet in the turn to nature and to the common
person. The publication of Lyrical Ballads in the late
1790s catapulted Wordsworth and Coleridge to national fame in
England. It is often the same situation with Wordsworth as it
is with Southey and Coleridge: their deeper commitments to the life
of the Anglican Tradition is censured in most courses. And yet
it is impossible to miss Wordsworth’s passion for the Church, and
his Ecclesiastical Sonnets are a charming and informative
walk through Anglican history. Many of Wordsworth’s poems deal
with both parish life and larger Anglican issues.
The High Romantics are the spiritual and intellectual fathers of the
Oxford Movement, and Keble, Pusey and Newman had no doubt whose
shoulders they stood on and why. The High Romantics also
played their role in engaging the moderate Evangelicals in the early
years of the 19th century. Southey was never hesitant about
supporting the best of the English Evangelicals, although he did
question some of the more extreme tendencies in the tribe.
It is intellectually irresponsible to teach the High Romantics and
ignore the obstinate fact that the Anglican tradition was their
hearth and home. As Anglicans we do well to heed and hear what
the High Romantics have yet to teach us in these our times.
 Ron Dart
has taught in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, and
Religious Studies at University College of the Fraser Valley
(Abbotsford, B.C.) since 1990. He attends St.Matthew’s Anglican
parish in Abbotsford, BC.
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