The Philosophical and Literary Anarchism of William Godwin

242 Pages·2017·1.39 MB·English

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Jared M. McGeough, University of Western Ontario
Supervisor: Dr. Tilottama Rajan, The University of Western Ontario
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree
in Theory and Criticism
© Jared M. McGeough 2011
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ROMANTIC ANARCHE: THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND LITERARY ANARCHISM OF
WILLIAM GODWIN

(ROMANTIC ANARCHE: WILLIAM GODWIN)

Monograph

by

Jared McGeough

Graduate Program in Theory and Criticism

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctorate of Philosophy

The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada

© Jared McGeough 2011
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO
School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION

Supervisor Examiners

______________________________ ______________________________
Dr. Tilottama Rajan Dr. Orrin Wang

Supervisory Committee ______________________________
Dr. Mark Franke

______________________________
Dr. Joel Faflak ______________________________
Dr. Monika Lee

______________________________
Dr. ______________________________
Dr. Jan Plug

The thesis by

Jared Michael McGeough

entitled:

Romantic Anarche: The Philosophical and Literary Anarchism of
William Godwin

is accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Theory and Criticism

______________________ _______________________________
Date Chair of the Thesis Examination Board

ii
Abstract
This study examines the philosophical and literary anarchism of William Godwin. Through
an analysis of several of Godwin‘s major works, including Political Justice (1793, 1796,
1798), ―Of History and Romance‖ (1798), and his novels Caleb Williams (1794), St. Leon
(1799) and Mandeville (1817), I argue that Godwin‘s relationship both to the intellectual
history of anarchism and its literary expression in the form of the historical romance is more
complex than has been recognized. In order to tease out this complexity, I approach Godwin
from the perspective of recent critics who reread the ideals of classical anarchism through
post-structuralist theory. Rather than reduce Godwin to contemporary approaches to
anarchism, however, this study demonstrates that Godwin‘s texts anticipate and participate in
a continuing dialogue with, and deconstruction of, the Enlightenment suppositions of his own
anarchism.
This questioning leads to a conception of anarchy in Godwin that comes to mean
something quite different from ―anarchism.‖ Anarchy, rather, designates something closer to
its root sense in the term anarchē, an existence without archē: principle or origin. Anarchē
less names a political ideology so much as a ―negativity‖ in the heart of archē that refuses
any sanctioning of things as they are, embracing an idea of history and subjectivity
predicated on contingency. The anarchē evidenced within Godwin‘s corpus unworks the
possibility of any rational politics from within, showing rationality itself to be interminably
afflicted by its own ―groundlessness.‖ In this respect, Godwin can be read alongside a
broader shift in the history of ideas, beginning in romanticism, which traces a growing
skepticism towards the emancipatory projects of Enlightenment. One of the tributary aims of
this study is therefore to make a case for Godwin as a romantic writer, if by ―romantic‖ we
refer to a ―literature involved in the restless process of self-examination‖ (Rajan, Dark
Interpreter 25). By examining this ―restless process‖ in several of Godwin‘s works, this
study contributes both to the fields of contemporary anarchist theory as well as romantic
studies by extending a conceptual bridge between the political and literary histories of ideas
in which Godwin himself participates, but is often marginalized.

iii
Keywords

Godwin, William; Anarchism; Romanticism; Deconstruction; Enlightenment; Post-
Structuralism; Post-Anarchism; Hume, David; Deleuze, Gilles; Derrida, Jacques
iv
Acknowledgments
This work would simply not have been possible without the support, guidance,
understanding, and especially, the patience of my supervisor Dr. Tilottama Rajan. To say that
Dr. Rajan has had a profound impact on my own thought would be an understatement: her
intellectual rigor and sophistication has been nothing short of inspiring. Dr. Joel Faflak must
also be recognized, whose advice and warm encouragement over the years has been
invaluable for the completion of this project. I would also like to express my gratitude to the
prior and current directors of the Centre for Theory and Criticism at the University of
Western Ontario, Dr. Calin Mihailescu and Dr. Veronica Schild, for allowing me to be part
of such a stimulating and unique intellectual environment. I also acknowledge the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship for helping
fund this project.
I am forever indebted to those professional colleagues, friends, and family whose
understanding and kindness I can never hope to adequately repay: Dr. Lynn Wells, Dr. Peter
Schwenger, Matthew Austin, Jason Dockstader, Matthew Sang, the Romanticism at Western
Reading and Research Group (Joshua Lambier, Christopher Bundock, and Naquaa Abbas),
my parents Lorie and Mick, my brother Luke, and my sister Kara. Finally: this, and my love,
are and always will be for my partner Shannon.
An earlier version of Chapter 4 was published in CLIO 39.3 (2009): 269-92.

v
Table of Contents
CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION ........................................................................... ii
Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii
Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi
List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... viii
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1
1 From Anarchism to Anarchē: Reconsidering William Godwin‘s Anarchism .............. 1
1.1 Classical Anarchism and/as Pragmatic Anthropology ............................................ 6
1.2 From Post-Anarchism to Anarchē: ....................................................................... 13
1.3 Chapter Outline ..................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 31
2 ―So Variable and Inconstant a System‖: the Enquiry Concerning Political Justice ... 31
2.1 Arrested Development: Epistemology and Institution .......................................... 36
2.2 The Anarchē of Perfectibility………………...…………………………………..43
2.3 Perfectibility and/as Potentiality ........................................................................... 51
Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 60
3 The History of an Error we Call Truth: Caleb Williams .............................................. 60
3.1 The (Im)Pure Principles of Ancient Gallantry ...................................................... 65
3.2 A Fatal Impulse ..................................................................................................... 76
3.3 Split-Ends: From Defeatism to ―Responsible‖ Anarchy ...................................... 86
Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 93
4 ―The Falsehood of History and the Truth of Romance‖: ―Of History and Romance‖ 93
4.1 General History, or, Nothing is New Under the Sun ............................................ 98

vi
4.2 Individual History, or, Nothing is Old Under the Sun ........................................ 103
4.3 Between Individual History and Romance ......................................................... 114
Chapter 5 ......................................................................................................................... 120
5 Gambling, Alchemy, and Anarchy in St. Leon ......................................................... 120
5.1 Just Gaming: Gambling as Simulacrum .............................................................. 127
5.2 Archē-Oikos: The Domestic Affections ............................................................... 136
5.3 Reverse Transmutations: Alchemy and ―Anarchy‖ ............................................. 143
5.4 ―The World is Open‖: Alchemy and Anarchē ..................................................... 150
Chapter 6………………………………………………………………………………..156
6 ―Not Competent to Exercise those Rights‖: Mandeville ............................................ 156
6.1 Armed Neutrality ................................................................................................ 161
6.2 Individual History as Institutional Typology: Audley, Hilkiah .......................... 167
6.3 Sympathy, Antipathy, and Eternal War .............................................................. 180
6.4 ―An Inferior Race for All Eternity‖ ..................................................................... 195
Chapter 7………………………………………………………………………………..202
7 (In)Conclusion: Towards a Theory of Romantic Anarchism ..................................... 202
Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 213
Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 233
vii
List of Abbreviations

Works by William Godwin

CW – Things as they Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. Ed. Gary Handwerk and A.A.
Markley. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2000.

―HR‖ – ―Of History and Romance‖ in Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are. Ed.
Gary Handwerk and A.A. Markley. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2000. 453-67.

Mand. – Mandeville, a tale of the seventeenth century in England. Ed. Pamela Clemit. The
Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin. Vol. 6. Ed. Mark Philp.
London: Pickering and Chatto, 1992. Print. 8 vols.

PJ – Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and
Happiness. All citations refer to the three-volume facsimile edition of 1798, edited by
F.E.L. Priestley (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1946). References are indicated by
volume, followed by page number.

St.L – St. Leon, a tale of the sixteenth century. Ed. William D. Brewer. Peterborough, ON:
Broadview, 2006.
viii
1
Chapter 1
1 From Anarchism to Anarchē: Reconsidering William
Godwin’s Anarchism
Humanity has no foundation and no ends, it is the definition of groundlessness.
- Costas Douzinas, ―The End(s) of Human Rights‖
Anarchy is, and always has been, a romance.
-Alan Moore, Interview
―The meaning ordinarily attached to the term anarchy,‖ according to Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon, ―is absence of principle, absence of rule, consequently it has been regarded as
synonymous with disorder.‖ Yet ―anarchy – the absence of a master, of a sovereign,‖
Proudhon continues, ―is the form of government to which we are every day
approximating. . . . Just as the right of force and the right of artifice retreat before the
steady advance of justice, and must finally be extinguished in equality, so the sovereignty
of the will yields to the sovereignty of reason. . . . As man seeks justice in equality, so
society seeks order in anarchy‖ (277, 277 n1). Proudhon‘s definition points to how the
ideals associated with the anarchist movement are closely interwoven with a post-
Enlightenment belief in history as the progressive unfolding of the ―sovereignty of
reason‖ as the means to the dissolution of all forms of instituted power. As the absence of
a master, anarchy becomes the sociopolitical paradigm connected with a belief in
humanity‘s inherent capacity to overcome the arbitrariness of power and to remake
society according to axiomatic principles of ―justice‖ and ―equality.‖ As George
Woodcock comments, such a paradigm ―springs from the belief that anarchism is a
manifestation of natural human urges, and that it is the tendency to create authoritarian
institutions which is the transient aberration‖ (Anarchism 35).
Implicit in this classical representation of anarchism, however, is a paradox that
goes deeper than Proudhon‘s half-ironic remark that ―society seeks order in anarchy.‖
Anarchism reverses the normative binary of order and disorder to reveal that anarchy is in
fact the ―true‖ order of society obscured by the artificiality of institutions. Yet, this
reversal also leaves the hierarchical structure of the binary intact by reasserting a