FISIOPATOLOGÍA DE LOS EPISODIOS DE VIREMIA INTERMITENTE

These factors bear on Fable 2’s introduction of ‘Associations’ as the organising unit. In the first occasion (the fourth resolution of the assembled bees) ‘Associations’ are in addition to ‘community’: ‘henceforth the “Nation of Bees” should be divided into different Associations, or Communities; each Association supporting itself by its own labour’ (p. 40). In the second occasion, ‘Associations’ replaces ‘communities’:

Working Men — follow the example of the Working Bees, and if the Rich will not give up the honey they unjustly possess, do ye commence making fresh honey, and consuming it — to obtain this object, form yourselves into Associations and no more sell your labour, but Exchange it for Equal Labour with your brother workmen. (p. 40)

I argue that this partial addition, partial substitution, of ‘association’ for ‘community’ relates to the development of the UTA, which formalised the association of trades societies using the NELE to exchange the products of their labour. Fable 2 appeared in the Crisis after this process had begun, from December 1832, but before the formal establishment of the UTA in the spring of 1833 (Prothero, pp. 251–52). This has consequences for means and ends in the context of this conjunction of Owenite socialism and radicalism.

Claeys made two claims in his analysis of the conjunction of socialism and radicalism between 1829 and 1835. One is that in 1829, ‘a co-operative turning

towards politics was […] a logical step’ following the collapse of communities in America (New Harmony) and Britain (Orbiston) (p. 176). Another is that although the Owenites ‘did not of course encourage class antagonisms’, they ‘refined the language of class to a much greater degree than the radicals’ (p. 183). Fable 1, therefore, appeared at a moment when the principle of community was waning and before the next phase of Owenism (1835–45), when Owen had abandoned the working-class movement, revived the principle of Owenite sectarianism, and returned to communities (Harrison, Robert Owen, p. 7). The Crisis published Fable 2 at a point when the trade societies were attempting to use Owenite institutions in the production and exchange of goods, bypassing the general capitalist economy. Fable 2 expressed this as ‘making fresh honey’ and not selling labour but ‘Exchange it for Equal Labour with your brother workmen’; ‘associations’, not ‘communities’, would enable this to happen.

The notion of ‘division’, introduced by Fable 1 and retained by Fable 2, undergoes a change in this shift from ‘communities’ to ‘associations; as Fable 2 had it, ‘henceforth, the “Nation of Bees” should be divided into different Associations, or Communities’ (p. 40). There is a difference between the division of the land into geographically situated communities and the division of the economic sphere, where the organising unit ‘associations’ brings together economic agents who were indentified in contradistinction to mainstream forms of production and consumption. While the Owenite community as a concept was committed to the principle of class reconciliation in a social space, an association like the UTA was so defined precisely because the classes were divided. As Prothero pointed out, the bazaars of the NELE were used by workers disadvantaged by the growing industrialisation of capitalist production (p. 251). The NELE did not have as its aim the promotion of class reconciliation.85

Other changes made to Fable 1 can also be explained in terms of the conjunction between Owenism and radicalism. Fable 1 was written in the context of this conjunction, and we can identify elements that expressed both radical and socialist concerns. From Owenism, there was a stress on knowledge and education as necessary for change, as well as an insistence that corrupted society harmed both rich

85 _{We might remember here that Godwin objected to association as ‘an instrument of a very dangerous}

nature’ in the text that influenced Shelley’s prose note on labour: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (I, 212). He also objected to Shelley’s use of association in an early prose work; as Wheatley noted ‘Reacting to an advertisement for the Proposals for an Association, Godwin wrote, “Shelley, you are preparing a scene of blood!”’ (p. 67). See The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. by Frederick L. Jones, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) I, 270.

and poor. From radicalism there was the identification of parasites (‘drones’) living off the labour of others, supplemented by the socialist identification of non- productive middle-men (the ‘sorting bees’, or shopkeepers) (Claeys, p. 178). As Claeys noted, the ‘rhetoric of parasitism formed an excellent bridge between the radical and socialist views of society’ (p. 178).

I argue that Fable 2’s additions and alterations to Fable 1, however, reinforce radical rather than Owenite socialist values. Its use of prose note seven from Shelley’s

Queen Mab stressed the radical criticism of ‘wealth-as-money’, where the rich appropriated wealth created by the working class, rather than the socialist criticism of ‘wealth-as-labour’, where the privileged did not contribute labour-power to the production of society’s material goods (Claeys, p. 178). While Shelley’s note in its entirety provides ammunition for both analyses, the lines reproduced in Fable 2 condemn the accumulation of wealth to facilitate the enjoyment of luxury: ‘The poor are set to labour, — for what? Not the food for which they famish […] no; for the pride of power, for the miserable isolation of pride, for the false pleasures of the hundredth part of society’ (Poems, I, 365).

Fable 2 also expressed radicalism’s moral critique of exploitation in its frequent references to the lack of ‘justice’ in the Nation of Bees, the way the drones ‘slily’ tasted the honey, the dominance of ‘evil selfish passion’, and the unjust possession of wealth by the parasites (p. 40). Radicalism’s focus on political representation was present in the substitution of ‘Government’ for ‘care’ in the description of the drones’ management of wealth; Claeys notes that the BAPCK issued its first petition to government in 1830 (p. 180). Fable 2 also significantly introduced vocal agency: ‘a mighty voice […] shouting for a gathering together of the “Nation of Bees” under the mantles of truth, of equality, and of Justice’.86 _{Conceptual relations}

between politics and aesthetics on the matter of ‘representation’ in this period have been explored in the secondary literature of recent years.87 _{Finally, there was the}

frequent stress on the need for ‘knowledge’ to change this state of affairs. This may be taken as emphasising Owenism, but it might equally refer to the need to pay attention to what radicalism ‘knew’ as a result of its own social analysis.

86 _{The revised Fable also had an additional stress on vocal agency in its arrangements of the original}

Fable and Shelley’s prose note. In the Crisis, Shelley’s text appears more oral than it does in Queen Mab, as an end note to a philosophical poem: ‘The poor are set to labour, — for what? Not the food for which they famish […] no; for the pride of power’ (p. 39).

87 _{See Armstrong, Victorian Poetry; Timothy Simon Randall, ‘Towards a Cultural Democracy: Chartist}

Literature, 1837–1860’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Sussex, 1994); John Plotz, The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics (California: University of California Press, 2000); and Sanders, Poetry.

Shelley’s multifaceted ‘commerce’ fragmented

To return to Shelley, I contend that Fable 2’s use of poetry and prose from Queen Mab associates Shelley with radical rather than socialist elements within the co- operative movement of this period. Shelley was an overt presence in Fable 2, with his prose on the appropriation of labour’s produce and lines from his poem offering a hopeful vision of the future beginning and concluding the fable, respectively. The parable itself did articulate the consequences for the ‘unfortunate Drones (who were themselves made miserable by the possession of the honey)’ (p. 40). Shelley was also concerned in prose note seven with the negative consequences for the rich, who were ‘heaping up for their own mischief the disease, lassitude and ennui by which their existence is rendered an intolerable burthern’ (Poems, I, 366). Shelley’s name,

however, was attached only to the selections that supported a radical critique of wealth. Given the alterations discussed above, which stressed other aspects of radical discourse, Fable 2 associated Shelley more effectively with the co-operative movement’s radical rather than its socialist strand.

This makes sense within the publication history of Queen Mab, given the fact that the radical Carlile had been pirating the text for over a decade before the appearance of Fable 2. Acknowledging this provenance, however, demands recognition that Fable 2 did not take up other aspects of Shelley’s notion of ‘commerce’. Shelley’s critique of commerce as a multi-faceted phenomenon, for example, condemned its pernicious effects on gender relations. One of the other prose notes attached to Queen Mab’s canto five was the ninth (‘Even love is sold!’) in which Shelley defines prostitution as ‘the legitimate offspring of marriage and its accompanying errors’ (Poems, I, 371). Fable 2 did not take up this aspect of Shelley’s

critique of commerce, highlighting the more straightforwardly economic strand. Carlile’s Republican of 6 May 1825 reprinted a handbill circulating at the time, offering advice on family planning: ‘To the Married of Both Sexes of the Working People’.88 _{In his comments on the piece Carlile promoted contraception as benefitting}

women especially and concluded ‘by quoting from Shelley’s Queen Mab, his corresponding note on love’ (pp. 565–69). Most of Shelley’s prose note followed. The leading article of that issue of the Republican, ‘What is Love?’, asserted the rights of women to the expression of sexual feeling, promoted contraception, and criticised Malthus’s theory that population, left unchecked, would increase beyond the means

of sustenance.89 _{Fable 2’s use of Queen Mab, though predominantly radical rather}

than socialist in character, only emphasised the economic within ‘commerce’. This means that Fable 2 did not make Shelley available to readers of the Crisis as a feminist resource; the following chapter argues that Concordia’s contributions to the

Crisis established the link between Shelley’s poetry and Owenite feminism.

The other aspect of Shelley’s metaphor of ‘commerce’ that did not appear in the Crisis was its critique of religion. Shelley had described commerce as springing from ‘selfishness’ which was religion’s ‘twin-sister’, the complicity of ‘priests’ in the worship of gold as ‘a living god’ in the ‘temple of their hireling hearts’, and the ‘slavish priest’ selling forgiveness since he ‘sets no great value on his hireling faith’ (V.22, 58–

62, 198–99). As argued in the previous chapter, Shelley’s relation to organised religion was the main concern of the American Owenite periodical Free Enquirer. This sense is entirely absent in its British counterpart, the Crisis, which may be explained with reference to the disapproval of many co-operators of Owen’s atheism. Prothero noted that Owen’s statements to the effect that religion was error ‘alienated many co-operators’ (p. 258). Harrison and Saville noted that Smith and Morrison, in Harrison’s words, ‘resented the intrusion of Owen’s religious views’, as well as ‘his dominance of the executive committee of the Union’ (Robert Owen, p. 212; Saville, ‘J. E. Smith’, p. 143). It is unlikely that the ‘Disciple’, who contributed Fable 2 to the

Crisis, would have reinforced an aspect of Owen’s doctrine that was problematic for many co-operators.

Conclusion

In this chapter I established the orthodox Owenite approach to language and conflict, arguing that this impacted on poetry’s status in the Crisis. Smith’s period as editor of the periodical led to both the increase in the quantity of poetry in its pages and the transgression of Owenite values regarding language use. During this period of Owenism, closely associated with the working-class and co-operation, a more class- conscious discursive form appeared in the main Owenite journal. I argued that this orthodox position on language and conflict was a major sticking point between Owen and his faithful followers, and more politically militant Owenites. As Smith’s work on the politics of language in the period just before Owenism has shown, there were other positions also indebted to Enlightenment philosophy (such as Paine and Cobbett’s) which were more open to the expression of social conflict. The politics of

periodical editorship was also important, as was evident in the relationship between Owen and his editor Smith. As Smith became more militant and aware of class oppression, his editorial style became more aggressive. I will argue in my chapters on Chartism that this continued in Chartist newspapers and in such a way that used Shelley’s poetry to articulate class identity.

I also accounted for alterations made to the Owenite tract A Fable for the Times in terms of the movement’s contemporary concerns, such as its focus on associations rather than communities. I argued that Fable 2 associated Shelley more closely with the radical, rather than the socialist, strand within Owenism in this period. Fable 2 also emphasised the economic aspects of Shelley’s metaphor of ‘commerce’, and deemphasised its religious and gendered aspects. The lack of the religious aspect can be related to disagreements between Owen and co-operators on the subject of the former’s atheism. The reasons for the lack of the latter — gender — will be explored in the following chapter.

Chapter 3: ‘Woman as She is, and as She Ought to Be’ — Shelley and Owenite Feminism

Introduction

This chapter examines another version of Shelley in Owenite periodicals: a feminist Shelley. Use of Shelley’s poetry in feminist arguments was begun in the Crisis by the correspondent ‘Concordia’ and developed further in the New Moral World by others. Concordia and Kate, Concordia’s counterpart in the New Moral World, wrote contributions supporting key tenets of Owenite philosophy. When they wanted to emphasise the ways in which unreformed society affected women in particular, they turned to Shelley’s poetry. Many of Concordia’s contributions to the Crisis took the form of fables. Formally, the fable was more acceptable than poetry in Owenism; its narrative, though a fiction, clearly illustrated Owenite principles. This did not prevent other correspondents from criticising Concordia’s writing for her use of ‘disguise’, provoking her to respond with a dream vision in which she used Shelley’s Revolt to assert women’s right to speak.

I discuss these feminist pieces by Concordia and Kate to argue that, within the context of Owenism’s broader commitments and ambitions, the positions of women and the arts were related. In doing so I bring together Taylor’s arguments regarding the status of women within the movement and Murphy’s arguments about the development of a literary working-class canon. I argue that the perceived roles of women and the arts within Owenism were constructed around similar possibilities and limitations, and that this link is illustrated by dialogue between Concordia and her critics. While Owenism never fully reconciled to the value of the fictional, as warnings against the dangers of the ‘irrational’ continued to appear in the New Moral World throughout its print run, poetry and the imagination grew in status between 1834 and 1841. I argue that Owenite feminists were responsible for this shift and that Shelley’s poetry was central to their efforts. ‘A Review of Modern Poets, and Illustrations of the Philosophy of Modern Poetry’, intended to discuss poetry ‘which is identified with, and prophetic of, the redemption of the human race’; it only featured Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound and Revolt.1 _{Kate’s husband, John Goodwyn Barmby,}

used Shelley’s poetry and pointed to Shelley’s character in articles that I argue, following Taylor, attempted to resolve some of the contradictions in Owenite

1 _{‘A Review of Modern Poets, and Illustrations of the Philosophy of Modern Poetry. Article I.—Shelley’,}

feminism. I make the additional argument that such articles also aimed to address contradictions in the Owenism’s approach to the aesthetic.

It is also significant that this period of Owenism overlapped with Chartism. This chapter introduces my argument that the Owenite feminist Shelley developed between 1838 and 1841in dialectical relation to both Chartism and the Chartist Shelley of the same period. The ‘Review’ promoted a pacifist Shelley while Chartists discussed political violence and prepared for a General Strike in 1839. The New Moral World announced in October 1837 that it wanted to include more material (including literature) that attracted the ‘general reader’ in order to disseminate socialist ideas, reemphasising this policy a year later.2 _{I contend that this was in}

response to Chartism’s less equivocal and more positive relationship to poetry, which had emerged in the intervening period. After the Barmbys established the Communist Church and put their energies into their own periodical, the Promethean, the New Moral World reversed this policy at the end of its ninth volume. Thereafter, it would no longer print contributions that some thought had injured ‘the unity and consistency of the paper’.3 _{Shelley’s poetry and prose continued to appear in the New} Moral World until its closure in 1845, but the manner in which it was approached changed. Rather than appearing within arguments that the arts or imagination had an important social role to play, use of Shelley’s writing as illustration of an already known Owenite truth became dominant again.

Women’s moral mission: Concordia in the Crisis and Kate in the New Moral World

As Taylor noted, feminists identified a gendered aspect to the Owenite principle that character was made for and not by the individual (Eve, p. 25). If women were considered inferior to men it was because a limit had been put on the development of their capacities. So-called ‘natural’ differences between men and women were produced culturally, and need not continue. On the other hand, Owenites were also drawn to the argument that ‘women had a unique moral mission’ to perform in bringing about the new moral world. ‘Feminine qualities’, such as gentleness and kindness, were key aspects of ideal Owenite sociability. Women were also better placed to inculcate these values in the next generation as the primary carers of children. This, Taylor argued, created an ‘unresolved tension between the desire to

2 _{‘To the Readers of “The New Moral World”’, New Moral World, 28 October 1837, pp. 1–2 (p. 1); and}

‘Enlargement of The [sic] “The New Moral World”’, New Moral World, 20 October 1838, p. 417.

minimize sexual difference and the need to re-assert it in women’s favour’ (pp. 30– 31). I argue that this phenomenon was evident in the Owenite feminists’ use of Shelley and that where his poetry was quoted in these contexts it was caught up in this ambiguity. However enabling it was for Owenite feminists to quote Shelley’s heroines like Cythna from Revolt of Islam, such lines, abstracted from Shelley’s poem