Godwin, William

Godwin, William, 1756–1836, English author and political philosopher. A minister in his youth, he was, however, plagued by religious doubts and gave up preaching in 1783 for a literary career. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) recorded the view that men are ultimately guided by reason and therefore, being rational creatures, could live in harmony without laws and institutions. His views are also reflected in his novels—Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), St. Leon (1799), and Fleetwood (1805). In 1797, Godwin married Mary Wollstonecraft, who died the same year after giving birth to a daughter, Mary. He remarried in 1801 and in 1805 established a small, juvenile publishing business. His last years were an unceasing struggle against poverty and debt. Godwin's works strongly influenced his younger contemporaries, particularly Shelley, whose elopement with Mary (1814) drew from Godwin an exhibition of sternness at variance with his earlier views. However, he was later reconciled to their marriage.

Bibliography

See biographies by F. K. Brown (1926) and E. K. Paul (2 vol., 1896; repr. 1970); studies by H. N. Brailsford (2d ed. 1951), D. H. Munro (1953), J. P. Clark (1977), A. E. Rodway, ed. (1977), D. T. Hughes (1980), and M. Philp (1986).

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Godwin, William

(born March 3, 1756, Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, Eng.—died April 7, 1836, London) British writer. He became a Presbyterian minister but soon lost his faith. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) captivated Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, and Percy B. Shelley (who was to become his son-in-law), condemning the institution of marriage, among other things. The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) was his masterpiece. He married Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, but she died soon after the birth of their daughter, Mary (see Mary Shelley), conceived before their marriage.

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Godwin, William 

Born Mar. 3, 1756, in Wisbech; died Apr. 7, 1836, in London. English publicist, writer, and historian.

Godwin was born into the family of a minister. After graduating from a seminary he was a pastor for several years. Under the influence of French thinkers of the Enlightenment (J. J. Rousseau, P. Holbach, C. Helvétius) he broke with the church in the early 1780’s. Although he looked favorably on the Great French Revolution, Godwin remained an opponent of revolutionary violence. Godwin’s political views were expressed in his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (vols. 1–2, 1793), where, after criticizing the existing social order linked with private property and state power—state power that gives rise to violence and deceit—he describes a petty bourgeois utopia of a free community of independent workers, the products of whose labor would be distributed among all according to each person’s needs. F. Engels noted that in certain aspects of the Enquiry Godwin “borders on communism,” although he is “decidedly antisocial” because of anarchistic traits in his political program (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 27, p. 26). Godwin’s petty bourgeois utopia had considerable influence on the formation of various trends of Utopian socialism, in particular, that of Owen, and also of anarchism.

Godwin’s best novel is The Adventures of Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are (vols. 1–3, 1794; Russian translation, 1838, 1949). In depicting the fate of a poor man, Godwin demonstrates that the law justifies force when exercised by the rich, while it perpetuates the powerlessness of the poor. This critical motif is expressed more mildly in the novel St. Leon (vols, 1–t, 1799) and still more mildly in the novels Fleetwood (vols. 1–3, 1805) and Mandeville (vols. 1–3, 1817). In the composition of his works Godwin followed the traditions of the Gothic novel. His passionate criticism of the social order prepared the way to a great degree for the social theme in the works of romantic writers of the mid-19th century (such as E. Sue and G. Sand).

WORKS

The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the Early English Poet, vols. 1–4. London, 1803.
In Russian translation:
O sobstvennosti. Moscow, 1958.

REFERENCES

Belinskii, V. G. “Kaleb Villiams.” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 3. Moscow, 1953.
Chernyshevskii, N. G. Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 16. Moscow, 1953.(See Index of Names.)
Ramus, P. Vil’iam Godvin kak teoretik kommunisticheskogo anarkhizma. Moscow, 1925.
Alekseev, M. P. “U. Godvin.” In his book Iz istorii angliiskoiliteratury. Moscow-Leningrad, 1960.
Woodcock, G. William Godwin. London, 1946.
Rodway, A. E. Godwin and the Age of Transition. London-NewYork [1952].
Grylls, R. G. W. Godwin and His World. London, 1953.
Monro, D. Godwin’s Moral Philosophy. London, 1953.
Pollin, B. R. Godwin Criticism: A Synoptic Bibliography. [Toronto, 1967.]

I. M. KATARSKII