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vi I coNTENTS
Chris Brown
David Armstrong
Chris Brown is Emeritus Professor of International
David Armstrong is Emeritus Professor of International
Relations at the London School of Economics and
Relations at the University of Exeter. His books include
Political Science and the author of International Re-
Revolutionary Diplomacy (California University Press
lations Theory: New Normative Approaches (Columbia
1977), The Rise ofthe International Organization (Macmil-
1992), Understanding International Relations (Pal-
lan 1981), Revolution and World Order (Clarendon Press
grave Macmillan 1997; 4th ed. 2009). Sovereignty,
1993), International Law and International Relations (co-
authored with Theo Farrell and Helene Lambert; Cam-
Rights and justice (Polity 2002), Practical judgement
bridge University Press 2007), and Routledge Handbook
in International Political Theory (Routledge 2010) and
International Society, Global Polity (Sage, 2015) as well
of International Law (editor; Routledge 2009).
as numerous book chapters and journal articles in
the field of international political theory. He edited
John Baylis Political Restructuring in Europe: Ethical Perspectives
John Baylis is Emeritus Professor at Swansea University. (Routledge 1994) and co-edited (with Terry Nardin
Until his retirement in 2008 he was Professor of Politics and N. J. Rengger) International Relations in Politi-
and International Relations and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at cal Thought: Texts from the Greeks to the First World
the university. His PhD and DLitt are from the Uni- War (Cambr idge 2002) and (with Robyn Eckersley)
versity ofWales. He is the author of more than twenty The Oxford Handbook of International Political Theory
books, the most recent of which are The Globalization (2018). A former Chair of the British International
of World Politics: An Introduction to International Re- Studies Association (1998/99). he was Head of the
lations (8th ed. with Steve Smith and Patricia Owens; Depar tment of International Relations at LSE from
OUP 2019), Strategy in the Contemporary World: An 2004 to 2007.
ix
X I ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael Cox has written and edited twelve books, including Inventing
Professor Michael Cox holds a Chair in International International Society: A History of the English School
Relations at the London School of Economics and Po- (Palgrave 1998), Liberal World Orders (co-edited with
litical Science. He is the author, editor, and co-editor of Trine Flockhart, Oxford University Press, in associa-
over twenty books, including Soft Power and US Foreign tion with the British Academy 2013), and The Handbook
Policy (Routledge 2010), The Global 1989 (Cambridge of the Responsibility to Protect (co-edited with Alex J.
University Press 2010), US Foreign Policy (Oxford Uni- Bellamy, Oxford University Press 2016).
versity Press 2008), Tiventieth Century International Re-
lations (eight volumes; Sage 2oo6), E. H. Carr: A Critical Stephen Hobden
Appraisal (Palgrave 2ooo), A Farewell to Arms: Beyond Stephen Hobden is Reader in International Relations
the Good Friday Agreement (2nd ed., Manchester Uni- at the University of East London, where he teaches
versity Press 2oo6), American Democracy Promotion courses on international relations theory. He is cur-
(Oxford University Press 2000), US Foreign Policy after rently working on a research project, together with his
the Cold War: Superpower Without a Mission? (Pinter colleague Erika Cudworth, on complexity theory and
1995), and The Interregnum: Controversies in World Poli- international relations. This has resulted in the publi-
tics, 1989-1999 (Cambridge University Press 1999). His cation of a number of articles, together with the books
work has been translated into several languages, includ- Posthuman International Relations: Complexity, Ecol-
ing Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, German, ogy and Global Politics (Zed, 2on) and The Emancipa-
Italian, French, and Spanish. Formerly Chair of the tory Project of Posthumanism (Routledge, 2017).
European Consortium for Political Research (2oo6-
2009) and Research Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel In- Darryl Howlett
stitute in 2002 and 2007, he is currently Chair of the Darryl Howlett is Senior Lecturer in the Division of
United States Discussion Group at Chatham House, Politics and International Relations at the University
London, and Co-Director of IDEAS, a Centre for the
of Southampton. His most recent publications include
Study of Strategy and Diplomacy at the LS E. NPT Briefing Book (2015 edition with John Simpson,
Devon Curtis Hassan Elbahtimy and Isabelle Anstey; Centre for Sci-
ence and Security Studies, King's College London,
Devon E. A. Curtis is Senior Lecturer in the Depart-
UK, in association with the James Martin Center for
ment of Politics and International Studies at the
Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Middlebury In-
University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel
stitute of International Studies at Monterey (MilS),
College. Her main research interests and publications
(US), (with Jeffrey S. Lantis), "Strategic Culture," in
deal with power-sharing and governance arrange-
Strategy in the Contemporary World (John Baylis, James
ments following conflict, UN peace-building, the
Wirtz, Colin S. Gray, editors; 5th ed., Oxford Univer-
"transformation" of rebel movements to political par-
sity Press 2016) and "Cyber Security and the Cr itical
ties in Africa, and critical perspectives on conflict,
National Infrastructure," in Homeland Security in the
peace-building, and development.
UK (Paul Wilkinson, editor; Routledge 2007).
Tim Dunne
Tim Dunne is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Hu- Richard Wyn Jones
manities and Social Sciences at the University of Richard Wyn Jones is Professor of Welsh Politics and
Queensland where he is also Professor of Interna- Director of the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff
tional Relations in the School of Political Science and University. He has written extensively on Welsh politics,
International Studies. Previously he was Director of devolution, nationalism, and security studies. His book
the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Pro- Security, Strategy and Critical Theory (Rienner 1999)
tect, where he continues to be a Senior Researcher. He is regarded as an important work in the area of critical
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Xi
theory. His most recent books are Wales Says Yes: The Tony McGrew
20u Referendum and Wdsh Devolution (University of Anthony McGrew is Pro Vice Chancellor and Direc-
Wales Press 2012-with Roger Scully); (in Welsh) ·y tor of the Confucius Institute, La Trobe University,
Blaid FfrJSFPidd yng Nghymru": Plaid Cymru a·r Cyltuddiad Melbourne and Emeritus Professor of Global Policy at
o Ffasgaeth (UniversityofWales Press 2013), and 'liu: Fascist Strathclyde University, Glasgow.
Party in Wales? Plaid Cymru, Welsh Nationalism and the
Accusation of Fascism (University of Wales Press 2014). Patricia Owens
Patricia Owens is Professor and Head of the Depart-
James D. Kiras
ment of International Relations at the University of
James D. Kiras is Professor at the School of Advanced Sussex. She was a Visiting Professor at UCLA and
Air and Space Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala- the University of Sydney, and has held research fel-
bama, where he has directed the School's course of lowships at Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, UC-Berkeley,
instruction on irregular warfare for over a dozen and the University of Southern California. Her most
years. He is a Senior Fellow of the Joint Special Op- recent book, Economy of Forr;e: Counterinsurgency and
erations University, Tampa, Florida, a Fellow of Ir- the Historical Rise of the Social won the 2016 Susan
regular Warfare Studies at the US Air Force Special Strange Prize for the Best Book in international
Operations School, Hurlburt Field, FL, and a found- studies, the 2016 International Studies Association
ing member of the Special Operations Research Asso- Theory Section Best Book Award, and was Runner
ciation and its peer-reviewed publication, the Special up for the 2016 Francesco Guicciardi ni Prize for Best
Operations Journa l. He worked for a number of years Book in Historical International Relations.
in the defense policy and consulting, counterterror-
ism, and special operations, and publishes and lec- Christian Reus-Srnit
tures regu larly on these subjects. His most recent Christian Reus-S mit is a Fellow of the Academy of the
book. co-authored with other contributors. is in its Social Sciences in Australia, and Professor of Inter-
revised second edition: Understanding Modern Warfare national Relations at the University of Queensland.
(Cambridge University Press 2016). Dr. Kiras's first He is author of Individual Rights and the Making of
book was entitled Special Operations and Strategy: From the International System (Cambridge 20tJ). American
World War If ta the War on Terrorism (Routledge 2oo6). Power and World Order (Polity Press 2004) and The
Moral Purpose of the State (Princeton University Press
Steven L Lamy
1999), co-author of Special Responsibilities: Global
Steven L. La my is Professor of International Relations Problems and American Power (Cambridge Univer-
in the School of International Relations at the Univer- sity Press 2012), editor of The Politics of International
sity of Southern California. He is writing a book on the Law (Cambridge University Press 2004), and co-edi-
English School theoretical traditions and the narratives tor of The Oxford Handbook of International Relations
that emerge from these theories and the role they play (Oxford University Press zoo&), Resolving Interna-
in shaping the foreign policies of nation-states. tional Crises of Legitimacy (special issue, International
Politics 2007), and Between Sovereignty and Global
John S Masker Governance (Macmillan 1998).
John S. Masker is Associate Professor of Political Sci-
ence at Temple University, where he teaches interna- Brian Schmidt
tional relations and political theory. He has had visiting Brian C. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Politi-
appointments at Williams College, Mount Holyoke Col- cal Science at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
lege, and Clark University. Masker has written about He is t he author of The Political Discourse of Anarchy:
nuclear nonproliferation, Russian foreign policy, and A Disciplinary History of International Relations (SUNY
U.S. foreign policy. 1998), Imperialism and Internationalism in the Discipline
xii I ABOUT THE AUTHORS
of International Relations, co-edited with David Long Paul Taylor
(SUNY 2005), and International Relations and the First Paul Taylor is Emeritus Professor of International
Great Debate (Routledge 2012). Relations and, until July 2004, was the Director of the
European Institute at the London School of Econom-
Len Scott ics, where he specialized in international organization
Len Scott is Emeritus Professor of International within the European Uruon and the Uruted Nations
History and Intelligence Studies at Aberystwyth Uru- system. Most recently he has published The End of
versity. His publications include: The Cuban Missile European Integration: Anti-Europea-nism Examined
Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal (London: Routledge, 2015), (Routledge 2oo8), International Organization in the Age
co-edited with R. Gerald Hughes; An International of Globalization (Continuum 2003; paperback version
History of the Cuban Missile Crisis: A 50-~ar Retrospective Jtme 2005), and The Careless State (Bloomsbury 2010).
(London: Routledge, 2014), co-edited with David He is a graduate of the University College of Wales,
Gioe and Christopher Andrew; Intelligence and Aberystwyth, and the London School of Economics.
International Security: New Perspectives and Agendas
(London: Routledge, 2011), co-edited with R. Gerald John Vogler
Hughes and Martin Alexander; The Cuban Missile John Vogler is Professor oflnternational Relations in the
Crisis and the Threat of Nuclear War: Lessons from School of Politics, International Relations and Environ-
History (London: Continuum Books, 2007). ment (SPIRE) at Keele University, UK. He is a member
of the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and
Steve Srruth Policy. His books include The Global Commons: Environ-
Sir Steve Smith is Vice Chancellor, and Professor of mental and Technological Governance (John Wiley 2000)
International Relations, at the University of Exeter. and, with Charlotte Bretherton, The European Union as
He has held Professorships of International Relations a Global Actor (Routledge 2006). He has also edited,
at the Uruversity of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the Uni- with Mark Imber, The Environment and International
versity of East Anglia and has also taught at the State Relations (Routledge 1996) and, with Alan Russell, The
University of New York (Albany) and Huddersfield International Politics of Biotechnology (Manchester Uni-
Polytechnic. He was President of the International versity Press 2000). His latest book is Climate Change in
Studies Association for 2003-2004 and was elected World Politics (Palgravef Macmillan 2016).
to be an Acaderrucian of the Social Sciences (AcSS)
in 2000. He was the editor of the prestigious Cam- Nicholas J Wheeler
bridge University Press f British International Stud- Nicholas J. Wheeler is Professor of International Rela-
ies Association series from 1986 to 2005. In 1999 he tions and Director of the Institute for Conflict, Cooper-
received the Susan Strange Award of the International ation, and Security at the University of Bi rmingham.
Studies Association for the person who has most His publications include: (with Ken Booth) The Se-
challenged the received wisdom in the profession. curity Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation, and Trust in World
He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2oo8) and
(with the late Professor Martin Hollis) Explaining and Saving Strangers: Huma-nitarian Intervention in In-
Understanding International Relations (Oxford Uruver- ternational Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
sity Press 1989) and (co-edited with Ken Booth and 2ooo). His new book, Trusting Enemies: Interper-
Marysia Zalewski) International Theory: Positivism and sonal Relationships in International Conflict was pub-
Beyond (Cambridge University Press 1995), and some lished by Oxford University Press in March 2018. He
one hundred acaderruc papers and chapters in major is co-editor with Professor Christian Reus-Smit and
journals and edited collections. From 2009 to 2011 he Professor Evelyn Goh of the prestigious Cambridge
was President of Uruversities UK. Series in International Relations.
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PREFACE
e have written this ~ition of Introduction to Global Politics with an increas-
W ingly interdependent world in mind. Perhaps the word "globalization" has
become so overplayed that it has not retained much of its original force. Certainly,
recent elections in the United States, the Brexit vote in Great Britain, and elections
across Europe suggest that many citizens fear globalization and have reacted by
demanding more nationalis t and protectionist policies. In some cases this nation-
alism has become both militant and violent, and the victims are the "other"-the
refugee, the immigrant, and the minority. At the same time, there is no unifying
topic more important than globalization, no political trend of the same magnitude.
Even our everyday decisions-those as seemingly trivial and isolated as what food
to eat, what clothes to wear, what books to read, or what movies to see-affect the
quality oflife of everyone around us and of billions of people in distant countries.
Meanwhile, decisions made around the world affect our daily lives. Not only is the
world changing, becoming more complex and interconnected than ever before, but
also the nature of this course is evolving. No matter what it is called-international
relations, world politics, or global politics-the course has transformed in recent
years, asking us to examine not only relations among countries but also a broader
context of global events and issues. In this book, we therefore take a global ap-
proach that fosters an awareness of and appreciation for a variety of worldviews. To
quote the French writer Marcel Proust, we believe that "the real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
A Global Approach
So what does it mean to take a "global" view of world politics? By this, we mean
two things: First, this textbook brings together academics from around the world,
drawing from a diversity of thought unmatched by other textbooks. Despite
the range of views represented here, all of the contributors teach international
relations courses, and we agree on emphasizing the challenges we all face as
members of a global community. This book thus introduces students not only to
the diversity of th inking in our field but also to its common elements.
Second, we discuss in some detail the various critical actors in global politics.
We explore the role of individual nation-states, as well as international institutions
such as the United Nations and the European Union, and critically important eco-
nomic institutions, including the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organi-
zation. We carefully assess h ow different groups and individuals have shaped these
global institutions, holding different views on how best to govern this world of nearly
two hundred independent nation-states. We also explore the growing number and
significance of nongovernmental actors, both multinational corporations, such
xxii as Nike and Starbucks, and nongovernmental organizations, such as Oxfam and
PREFACE I xxiii
Doctors Without Borders. The entire world saw how important these actors were as
we experienced several significant events early in the m•enty-first century: the 2008
global economic crisis; the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, :and nuclear crisis in Japan,
estimated to be the most expensive disaster in history; the 2015 terror attacks in
Paris, which demonstrated that the Islamic State is more than just a regional threat;
the 20 15 Paris Climate Change Conference; and the current migrant and refugee
crisis fueled by the ongoing conflicts and violence in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and
parts of Africa. The field is changing as the world changes. With this fifth edition of
Introduction to Global Politics, we hope to improve on the standard conversation, to
bring the introductory course more in line with today's research and to ask (and try
to answer) the kinds of questions most relevant for students of world politics today.
This textbook will introduce students to the ma instream theoretical tradi-
tions of realism and liberalism and to critical approaches that are often left out
of other tex ts, including constructivism, Marxism, feminism, and utopianism
(Chapter 3). Our goal is to introduce students to all relevant voices so they can
make an informed choice about how best to both explain and understand our
world. We clearly lay out important theories so that they illuminate the actors and
issues we discuss, rather than cloud them in ftuther mystery. In short, we hope
these pages will help each student develop a more informed worldview.
Learning Goals
An important assumption of this text is that theory matters. Every individual sees
the world through theories and uses them to organize, evaluate, and critically review
contending positions in controversial policy areas. Unfortunately, many people take
positions that Jack supporting evidence; they accept a statement or position as true
or valid because it fits with their beliefs or reinforces what they believe to be true.
After completing a course using this text, students will know more about the global
system, the most important global actors, and the issues that shape the priorities and
behavior of states and other actors in that system. This text encourages students to
approach global politics in an informed, well-reasoned, and theoretically grounded
manner. Overall, the chapters in this edition focus on four core learning objectives:
Language: English
LONDON,
PARTRIDGE & OAKEY.
MEMOIRS
OF
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
COMPILED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES;
WITH
BY JANUARY SEARLE,
——
LONDON:
PARTRIDGE & OAKEY, PATERNOSTER ROW.
——
MDCCCLII.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
William Wordsworth is the father of a new school of Poetry, and his name
marks an era in the literature of England, which is full of deep interest to the
philosophical inquirer. He began his career with profound convictions
respecting the nature and functions of poetry; its dignity as an art, and the
immense capabilities it afforded for the utterance of sublime and ennobling
truths, and for the furtherance of human liberty and happiness. He saw, too,
that the old Harp of the Bards was profaned by the touch of uninspired, and
even frivolous hands; and he determined, if possible, to rescue it from their
keeping, and restore it once again to its divine uses, and ancient melody. To
accomplish this grand object, he devoted all his faculties and culture, and
was so deeply impressed with the idea that this was his especial mission
upon earth, that he retired amongst the mountains and lakes of
Westmoreland—a solemn and lonely man—holding converse with the
Invisible through the Visible forms of Nature, and thus fitting himself for the
priestly office to which he aspired. And in all the years of his noviciate—
through all the time when, by universal acclamation, he stood crowned with
the sacred laurels of the Bard—and his mission was accredited by all men—
he never for a moment flagged in his purpose, or stooped to the garlands of
fame,—but gathering his prophet’s mantle around him, he pursued his
undeviating course, alike regardless of applause, condemnation, and
persecution. He had looked well into his own heart, before he set out on his
perilous enterprise; had measured well his own strength of purpose, and
capability of performance; knew, in short, what he had to do, and did it.
To appreciate fully, however, the historical position of William
Wordsworth, and the value of his labours, it will be necessary to take a
retrospective view of the literature which preceded him, or at least to state its
leading characteristics. The grand old era of Shakspeare and his
cotemporaries had long since passed away, and the noble music of Milton’s
song had ceased to thrill the hearts and souls of men. The brilliant, half-
inspired writers in the reign of Queen Anne, who came to represent the
national mind at the close of our Augustan epoch, had formed a school of
Poetry in England,—at once witty and sententious, profound and hollow;
without heart or genius; and with nothing but talent and culture to
recommend it. Pope, who may be considered the head of this school, set the
seal of his intellect upon the cotemporary and subsequent literature of that
era. He had rivals whom he stung to silence, and covered with contempt by
his satires, and imitators whom he fondled and despised. Pope and his
compeers were, however, kings and priests of song, compared with the herd
of twangsters who succeeded them. The fancy and wit, the philosophy and
refinement of Pope, were sunk and lost in the barrel-grinding of these
imitators of his style; and Poetry was stripped of its subjective attributes, and
lived only as a mechanical form.—This at all events is true of the writers
professedly of the Pope school; and the few exceptions, for upwards of fifty
years after his death, owe what little fame they possess to their own little
originality.
In all the departments of literature, the same lifelessness and uniformity
were manifest. The deadest materialism prevailed both in science and
philosophy, and the national soul seemed paralyzed beneath the weight of a
dire, unknown, unseen incubus of death. In the meanwhile, however, there
were influences at work both in England and Europe, which were silently
preparing the way for a revolution in the thoughts and opinions of men. The
spiritual element awoke in Germany and France, and like a mighty, but half-
blind god, began to react upon the materialism of the age. Then, for the first
time since the close of the Commonwealth, did the pulse of England begin,
also, to beat with the music of life and health. The importations of German
sentimentality—mawkish and imbecile as they often were—touched the
right chords in the English heart, and roused it to consciousness. Men saw
that there was new life struggling under this ghastly utterance, and began to
lose their faith in the dead formalism, which they had so long hugged in their
idolatry. Their minds were gradually turned to the old grandees of
Elizabeth’s reign: to Shakspeare and rare Ben Jonson, and to Spenser,
Beaumont and Fletcher, until, at last, the reactionary currents had fairly set
in, which were to cleanse the national mind of its disease, and restore it to
health. Add to this, that the higher minds of England were already immersed
in those metaphysical speculations which, whilst they confirmed the
increasing spiritual tendency, gave earnestness to their aim and character.
And when, at last, after Rouseau and Voltaire—the two poles of the great
revolutionary idea of Europe—had flung their works into the cauldron of
this vast, seething, reactionary fermentation—the wonderous phenomenon,
which we call the French Revolution, burst upon the world—the reaction
was complete, and a new epoch dawned upon man—the epoch, viz., of
progress and humanity—which will never close until its mission is sealed
with the liberty and happiness of mankind.
Such, then, is a slight sketch of the characteristics of the age into which
Wordsworth was born. He came in time to catch the full surges of its
influence, and his spirit was one of the few destined to aid the onward tide of
events, and mould their flowing forms into a fixed and plastic beauty. Not,
however, by any active mingling with the affairs of men, for this was clearly
no part of his vocation, but by silent watching and contemplative thought,
and the faithful exercise of his poetic faculties. The political arena was open
to more daring, and less costly men, who could do their temporary work and
disappear without farther loss to the nation: but the poet had a greater and
more enduring work to accomplish; he was to become the architect of a new
literature and the singer of a new gospel of life to the world. The growing
earnestness of his age demanded a voice to speak for it—many voices,
indeed, each in its proper province of feeling and of thought. And in no
province was this voice more loudly called for than in that of poetry, for
death reigned in all the courts of the poetic temple, and every priest was a
corpse which the muse had stuck about with flowers, that she might conceal
even from herself the sorrowful fact of her desertion and utter misery.[A]
Wordsworth came to tear away the mask, and spurn the dead from her
temple.
The great object of Wordsworth’s life was to win men back, by his poetic
example, to an admiration and love of the natural in all its aspects. To him
nature is not only divine and glorious as a whole, but equally so in all her
parts. In the meanest worm that crawls, in the tinyest flower and the rankest
weed; in the summer foliage, and in the brown skeleton leaves of autumn; in
the lonely mountain, and the silent stream—he recognizes the spirit of
beauty, and she passes through his spirit into song, and becomes at once a
poem, and a grand moral gospel. All things in heaven and earth are
consecrated existences to him, no matter how profanely and lowly they may
rank with common observers.
And this view of Nature he carries into the presence of man. It is not
kings and the mighty ones in the dream-play of Life whom he thinks to be
the only worthy subjects for poetry. If these people come in his way, he is
Catholic enough to admit them through his imagination, into the immortality
which awaits his books. But he does not seek them. He thinks they have
already had their full share of poetic honour, and perhaps more than their
due share; that so much dwelling upon such people, with their unrealities
and false glares of splendour, has diseased the holy faculty of the poet, and
turned his visions into morbid night-mares. It seems in short to be his
opinion, that the higher we advance in the social scale, the further we are off
from the sanities and truths of human life. He consequently looks for these in
ruder and humbler ranks: in the dwellings of the poor, in the hearts of the
peasantry, and the intuitions of uncorrupted childhood. He delights to sing of
the commonest things, and is ever happy in his delineations of the hopes and
fears, the loves, inquietudes, and disappointments of rustic existence. He has
the minute anatomical power of Crabbe, combined with a still higher
physiological and creative faculty, by which he not only lays bare the hidden
meaning and laws of natural objects, but transforms the objects themselves
into new beauty and significance. The grey light of morning breaking over
the hill tops of his chosen retreat—the hot sunshine burning in white molten
silver upon the bosom of his enchanted lakes—the lonely fisherman upon
their shores—look truer and more affecting objects, as we gaze upon them,
through the medium of his musical sorcery of words. His picture of the poor
wandering leech gatherer, over the deep black pools of the wild moor, with
the profound moral which he has attached to it, is an instance of his skill as a
painter, and of his divine insight as a man of genius. “The Idiot Boy,” is
another specimen of his consummate ability to render the most inert and
painful nature alive and glorious by the spiritual appliances of his art. This
boy, detached from the poet’s mind, is a gloomy and sorrowful spectacle; but
when he enters the shattered temple in which the Idiot dwells, and unites
him, by the magic of his presence, to the great universal temple of Nature, he
is no longer a gloomy insanity, but a poetically created existence. We see
that this Idiot also has a soul; a subject soul certainly, and bound to what we
might call hard conditions of capability and action, but a soul nevertheless:
vital with its own vagarious life, and rejoicing in it. Wordsworth’s
revelations of the inner workings of this Idiot’s mind—of the dark moon
glimmerings which break impulsively through the ruins of his intellect, and
make him wild with joy or ghastly with terror—are unsurpassable
achievements.
And yet Wordsworth is abused for his tameness and want of inspiration!
Dead asses and idiots, Peter Bells and Waggoners, it is said, are not elevated
facts enough for poetry! The foolish objectors do not understand how all
poetry is based upon facts, and how the most obscure things become purified
and poetic, when they are raised by imagination, and placed in new
connections of thought. It is the province of the Poet to elevate the homely,
and to beautify the mean. To him, indeed, nothing is mean, nothing
worthless. What God has made, he, the exponent of God, shall love and
honour.
It is our acknowledged want of sympathy with the common, which
induced Wordsworth to devote his life and attention to the awakening of it.
He knew that whatever is touched by genius is converted into gold, and
stamped thenceforth as sacred, by the impress of its image. The Betty Foys
of human existence, although they, too, are “encompassed by eternity,” and
destined to the same futurity as the Queens Elizabeth and Mary, have never,
before Wordsworth’s time, had a poetic priest high enough to make them
religious by his love and fidelity to them. It required immense faith and
majesty of mind to hazard the experiment; so plebeian are all Betsies that
wear red cloaks and black bonnets, instead of ermines and crowns.
Wordsworth, however, did not care for names and orders, but saw and
worshipped humanity alone. He has dared, therefore, to say and to maintain,
through a long and honourable life, that Elizabeth Foy was as much of a man
as Elizabeth Queen. He has linked together the throne and the cottage
through all their manifold gradations. He has, of course, had his full share of
abuse for this heroic and triumphant effort; but the good old Skiddaw-
granite-rock of a man was not to be moved by abuse, but continued to sing
and preach in his solitude, with the solemnity and witchery of a Memnon
statue.
It should be remembered, also, that Wordsworth purposely avoids the
florid style in the architecture of his verse. His ideal model is the plain
severity of the Saxon temple, in which the grand and the simple were united.
—He aims at clear and unmistakeable utterance. His chaste simplicity is the
work of an artist, and by no means the necessity of a limited intellect. If this
fact were borne in mind by his detractors, it is not unlikely that they would
be less furious when they speak of him. For an author should always be read,
measured, and judged by his own standard, and not by ours.—Nothing can
be more absurd than the subjection of a poet to any critical canon or
authority. Knowing his position as an expounder of the hidden truths of the
universe—as an oracle of the Infinite, and a revealer of the beauty and
mystery of nature and human life—he stands in our presence like the
Hebrew law-giver, covered with the golden glory and lightning of the
Highest, whom he has seen upon the summits of Sinai. Henceforth we are to
accept his law, not he ours.
It is useless to question and criticise in our foolish manner the new bard
of God, whoever he may be, or under what circumstances soever he may
appear among us. He does not live by questionings and logical inductions,
but by faith and inspiration. Entranced in the miracle of his own existence,
with all these vast orbs of immensity pressing upon his brain, and the silent
creatures of the fair earth stealing like noiseless musical shadows into the
temple of his soul, he has no time to consult the critics whether this or that
mode of reproducing them is the orthodox one. He will speak in any way he
can; and if the old grey-beard world will be startled or shocked at his speech,
he has no other answer for it but this: “My utterance is the birth-cry of my
thoughts.”
Every new poet—every genius indeed that is divine—is a notification to
us that the world of things is about to be classified anew, and to assume a
deeper meaning. And certainly one would think that so great an
announcement might gladden the hearts of men, instead of making them
savage and ferocious at it. For of all men the poet is highest and noblest. He
is the awful Seer, who unveils the spirit of Nature and looks with solemn and
unscathed eyes upon her naked loveliness and terror. The Beloved of God,
he is admitted into the very presence of the Invisible, and reports, in such
wild and strange words as he can find, the sights he has beheld there. He is
the renovator of man and Nature. He lifts the human soul upon his daring
wings, and carries it into light and immortality. In his words we behold the
re-creation of the universe. We see Orion, like the starry skeleton of a mighty
giant, go forth into the solitudes of unfathomable space; we witness the
planting of the solar stars, and hear the everlasting roar of the vast sun, as it
wheels, seething from God’s hands, upon its fiery axis; and these
unspeakable sights are heightened in their magnificence and terrific grandeur
by the poet, who holds us fast to their symbolical meaning, and chains them
to the being of God, as the expressions in appearance of His thoughts and
will.
By virtue, therefore, of his mission, the poet is Antinomian. He is master
of all law, and no critic can trammel him. Let him try that, and the poet, like
the war-horse who snuffs the far-off battle, will say to the little man—“Ha!
ha!”
It is necessary that we here make a few extracts from Wordsworth’s
defence, if we may call it so, of his manner of writing, in order that the
reader may be prepared for a right appreciation of his poetry. In speaking of
his poems as a whole, he says:—
“The principal object proposed was to choose incidents and situations
from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was
possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same
time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby
ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and
further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting, by
tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our
nature; chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a
state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in
that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which
they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak in plainer
and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our
elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and,
consequently, may be more accurately contemplated and more forcibly
communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from these
feelings, and from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more
easily comprehended and are more durable; and lastly, because in that
condition, the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and
permanent forms of Nature. The language, too, of these men has been
adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all
lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust), because such men hourly
communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is
originally derived; and, because, from their rank in society, and the sameness
and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of
social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and
unelaborated expression. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of
repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far
more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it
by poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and
their art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of
men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to
furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation.”
It will be seen from this extract, that Wordsworth has no sympathy with
the inflammations of Literature. His mission is with the ordinary, the beauty
and philosophy of which he has devoted his life to expound. He has flung a
charm over existences which Nature did not seem before him to love as her
children; and we honour him for the great work which he has accomplished.
MEMOIR OF
That there are evidences of this healthful and pious faith, this holy and
beneficent teaching, in Wordsworth’s writings, every one acquainted with
them will admit; and the passage just quoted is more than ordinarily
interesting on this account, as an illustration of the force of early training.
His mother’s love haunts him in later years, although he is altogether silent
about his father, and only speaks of his mother twice in all his poems. The
hearth-stone, and its gods, seem to have been too sacred with him for parade.
When he appears before the vicar, with a trembling, earnest company of
boys about his own age, to say the catechism, at Easter, as the custom was,
the mother watches him with beating heart; and here is the second tribute of
affection to her beloved memory:
“How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me,
Beloved mother! Thou whose happy hand
Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie;
Sweet flowers, at whose inaudible command,
Her countenance, phantom like, doth reappear;
Oh! lost too early for the frequent tear,
And ill-requited by this heart-felt sigh.”