SOURCE: "Disraeli's Coningsby: Political Manifesto or Psychological Romance?," Victorian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, Autumn, 1979, pp. 57-78.

[In the following essay, O'Kell interprets Coningsby as an attempt by Disraeli to clarify his developing Tory ideology by "replacing the actuality of his struggle to transcend his alienation from the establishment … with ideal versions of the past as it should have been."]

Coningsby; or, the New Generation, written in the autumn and winter of 1843-44, has traditionally been seen as the first example of a subgenre, the political novel, and, as such, part of a trilogy that is overtly propagandist in conception. Further, most critics, of whom Robert Blake is the most eloquent and representative, have agreed that Benjamin Disraeli's trilogy made up by Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred "is quite different from anything he had written before" and that "a wide gulf separates them from his silver fork novels and historical romances of the 'twenties and 'thirties."¹ This view has been largely derived from Disraeli's retrospective statements of intention, first in his preface to the fifth edition of Coningsby in 1849 and later in the general preface to the 1870 collected edition of his novels, wherein he claims to have adopted "the form of fiction as the instrument to scatter his suggestions" about the "derivation and character of political parties; the condition of the people which had been the consequence of them; and the duties of the Church as a main remedial agency."² There is, of course, some validity for this post hoc authorial perspective. The world of Tadpole and Taper clearly reflects Disraeli's disenchantment with the Conservative party of the 1840s, and the portrayal of Young England's characters and ideas in Coningsby at least partially reflects his involvement in that movement.

But Coningsby, which is significantly subtitled: by the "author of 'Contarini Fleming,'" also reflects the relation between Disraeli's private and public lives and is, I think, more concerned with the development of a compensatory, ideal, heroic, political identity than it is with the contemporary state of political parties. The structure of the novel confirms this claim, for the careful reader can see that although Coningsby is, in fact, part fiction and part tract, the portion of it that takes the form of political essays is very much subordinate to the bildungsroman in which Harry Coningsby, Esq. finds the sources of his fulfillment. Yet, in resolutely attempting to elucidate the message of the roman à thèse which they take the novel to be, most critics have rested heavily upon those essays—chapters 1 and 7 of Book I, chapters 1 and 5 of Book II, and, to a lesser extent, chapter 4 of Book V. The message is, of course, there. But the reason it becomes a critical synecdoche is perhaps that few readers of Coningsby have read all or even some of Disraeli's early novels and that most have an imperfect understanding of his political thinking in the 1830s. Because there seems to be no appreciable distance between the authorial voice and Disraeli's own, it is easy to conclude that the novel is indeed little more than a "manifesto of Young England."³ The difficulty with this argument, however, is that, as the novel progresses, the voice of the essayist is increasingly subsumed in the romance of Coningsby's private and public self-fulfillment. Far from the implicit assumption of most previous critics, that the romance is merely an illustrative embellishment of the narrator's political philosophy, the essays seem, rather, to form a context for the romance, which, once established, carries on with its own momentum in Books VI through IX. Thus, to overcome one's reluctance to treat the work as fiction is to be forced to the conclusion that there is a strong continuity between it and Disraeli's earlier works, from Vivian Grey and The Young Duke through Contarini Fleming, Alroy, and Henrietta Temple.⁴

For all the emphasis upon the duties of the "New Generation," Coningsby is in essence a fiction that looks retrospectively upon the period of the formation of Disraeli's Tory ideology in the 1830s, replacing the actuality of his struggle to transcend his alienation from the establishment—the basic terms of which were his racial heritage, his literary improprieties, and his reputation for insincerity—with ideal versions of the past as it should have been. As much as anything else, it is a romance of fictional wish fulfillment, so purified that elements of the author's internal conflicts are projected upon characters other than his nominal hero rather than embodied in him as had been the case with Vivian Grey, Contarini Fleming, David Alroy, and Ferdinand Armine. This is the most plausible explanation of the insipid and almost completely passive character of Coningsby and of the bizarre projection of supernatural powers on to his alter-ego, Sidonia. Lest this notion seem extreme, it should be pointed out that the fictional split personality is also a feature of two of Disraeli's other works, "The Rise of Iskander" and Tancred, and that the central theme of both is also the conflict between principle and expediency, or altruism and betrayal.

While the discussion of politics in Coningsby is an expression of this theme, it might be said to serve four aesthetic functions. First, it creates a topicality designed to enhance the matter of the actual fiction. Second, and more importantly, it creates the vacuum that Disraeli's hero is ultimately to fill: "No one had arisen," we are told, "either in Parliament, the Universities, or the Press, to lead the public mind to the investigation of principle; and not to mistake, in their reformations, the corruption of practice for fundamental ideas" (Bk. II, chap. 4). Third, both in satirical and expository terms, the political analysis helps to define by contrast Coningsby's true nature. Fourth, the political ideology itself works to shape the thematic impact of the romance's controlling fantasy. The first two of these functions are quite obvious and require little comment, but both the matter of characterization and that of the fantasy seem more complex.

I

Coningsby is initially presented in terms similar in some respects to those which describe both the Duke of St. James and David Alroy. Like them he is an orphan, and his situation is given a melodramatic cast. He is clearly in the clutches of the "sinister," "dishonest," and "innately" vulgar Rigby (Bk. I, chap. 1); Lord Monmouth's tyranny has occasioned Mrs. Coningsby's cruel fate of estrangement and death; and the moral is explicit in the narrator's intrusion: "the altars of Nemesis are beneath every outraged roof, and the death of this unhappy lady, apparently without an earthly friend or an earthly hope, desolate and deserted, and dying in an obscure poverty, was not forgotten" (Bk. I, chap. 2). But in thus establishing the exemplum of poetic justice, the implied author is led a step beyond the limits of his heroic conception. For, when Coningsby's tears fail to impress his grandfather in their first interview, the authorial voice intrudes once more:

How often in the nursery does the genius count as a dunce because he is pensive…. The school-boy, above all others, is not the simple being the world imagines. In that young bosom are often stirring passions as strong as our own, desires not less violent, a volition not less supreme. In that young bosom what burning love, what intense ambition, what avarice, what lust of power; envy that fiends might emulate, hate that man might fear.

(Bk. I, chap. 3)

It does not take an astute critic to realize that this passage, with its increasing intensity and emotional violence, quickly becomes tangential to the characterization of Coningsby. In so doing, it casts an autobiographical reflection, given what we know of Disraeli's adolescence, that collapses whatever aesthetic distance might have been presumed to exist between the author and his narrator and that suggests the nature of the creative inspiration which shapes the novel. Interestingly, Coningsby, who is, of course, devoid of "avarice," "lust of power," "envy," and "hate," finds an early recognition, as Disraeli did not, of his preeminence and nobility in the form of adulation from his schoolboy peers following his heroism in saving Oswald Millbank's life. But what is equally striking is that at the time of his initiation into the realm of social and political action (in Book III), the narrator describes Coningsby's feelings in terms virtually identical to those of the internal struggle that characterizes the protagonists of Contarini Fleming (1832) and Henrietta Temple (1836).

Coningsby's "pure and innocent" heart, we are told, "notwithstanding all his high resolves and daring thoughts, was blessed with that tenderness of soul which is sometimes linked with an ardent imagination and a strong will" (Bk. III, chap. 1). And, although his "noble aim" demands "absolute, not relative distinction," he feels in his isolation the need for a companion for his heart as well as for his intellect (Bk. III, chap. 1). In short, he longs for a heroic role in which the struggle for "purity" and the struggle for "success" are blended and the two made manifest by the recognition of his own genius.⁵ For example, immediately following the delineation of the hero's aspirations, the author turns to an account of Rigby's feeblemindedness ("he told Coningsby that want of religious Faith was solely occasioned by want of Churches"). This suggests that Disraeli's satirical portraits are primarily designed to define by contrast his protagonist's character: "His deep and pious spirit recoiled with disgust and horror from such lax, chance-medley maxims" (Bk. III, chap. 2). Similarly, the point of the portrait of life at Coningsby Castle is to establish the hero's true sensibility. The other guests, however distinguished and graceful, are caught up in an artificial world of questionable motives, dubious propriety, and studied effects the very opposite of his innocent spontaneity and tender affection.

It is important to recognize that Coningsby, rather like the Duke of St. James in The Young Duke and Ferdinand Armine in Henrietta Temple, is ultimately accepted as a hero because of his innate, natural superiority. Action on his part is superfluous and unnecessary, as is, indeed, stressed by the fact that the only active demonstrations of his heroic sensibility occur when he saves Oswald Millbank from drowning at Eton and when he solaces the actress, Flora. The point of the fantasy is that he is accepted for what he is—noble and pure of heart—and not for what he does. That is why his rewards of political preferment, marriage to his true love, and enormous wealth have the miraculous quality of wish fulfillment. It is also why Disraeli's characterization, with its emphasis upon the youth's nobility, innocence, virtue, and sensibility, can justly be seen in part as a compensatory version of the potential political protagonist. The very traditional quality of the ideal—grandson of a marquis, hero of Eton, Cambridge undergraduate—was for the author, however, a denial of a large part of his imaginative self.

The other side of Disraeli's ambivalence is embodied in the characterization of Sidonia, which in psychological terms might be said to represent the projected ideal of his other, alienated self. As a member of the Jewish race, Sidonia, too, is innately superior, but his acceptance among the social and political elite is based upon his demonstrated superiority. Ultimately, it is not just his enormous wealth or his dazzling intellect but rather his power and success in exerting political control over the whole of Europe that gains him his welcome. It has been suggested that Sidonia is modelled upon Baron Solomon de Rothschild, with whom Disraeli had become familiarly acquainted during his marvellous visit to Paris in the fall of 1842.⁶ But there is no real similarity, other than their Jewishness and wealth, between Sidonia and his alleged model, so it is more sensible to argue that de Rothschild was merely the match that set Disraeli's imagination on fire. Sidonia was "descended from a very ancient and noble family of Arragon," who, "strange as it may sound, … secretly adhered to the ancient faith and ceremonies of their fathers—a Belief in the unity of the God of Sinai, and the rites and observances of the laws of Moses" (Bk. IV, chap. 10). Interestingly, Disraeli maintained that his own ancestors on his father's side of the family were aristocratic secret Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, and he included this highly romantic but false account of his origins in the memoir with which he prefaced his father's collected works in 1849.⁷ Moreover, the theme of a secret religious allegiance is an important feature of both Alroy and "The Rise of Iskander," and what I have termed "the Catholic disguise of his Jewish heritage" is embodied in The Young Duke, Contarini Fleming, and Henrietta Temple.⁸ Significantly, too, Sidonia constantly speaks with Disraeli's voice. Virtually all of his political opinions are taken, often word for word, from Disraeli's earlier expressions of his creed in the Morning Post articles of 1835, his early pamphlets, "A Vindication of the English Constitution," and "The Revolutionary Epick." For example, Sidonia tells Coningsby that: "'It is not the Reform Bill that has shaken the aristocracy of this country, but the means by which that Bill was carried'" (Bk. IV, chap. 11). By 1844 this may have become something of a Tory cliché, but in "What Is He?" (April 1833) Disraeli had written: "The aristocratic principle has been destroyed in this country, not by the Reform Act, but by the means by which the Reform Act was passed."⁹ Further, Sidonia's elaborate justifications of Hebrew superiority were to be repeated both in Tancred and in Disraeli's anomalous chapter on the Jewish Question in his political "biography" of Lord George Bentinck in 1852.¹⁰

Despite the obvious sincerity of the latter statement of Disraeli's views, some critics would argue that the extravagant characterization of Sidonia is satirical. But it seems as much mistaken to judge the absurdity of his accomplishments by the test of verisimilitude as to restrict oneself to a literal definition of autobiography. It is clear that the two-fold essence of Sidonia's character, in both respects contrasting sharply with that of Coningsby, is that he is an outsider and that he is powerful. Consequently, he should be interpreted as an equally idealized counterassertion. Perhaps the conclusive pfoof of this ambivalence is the allegorical steeplechase in Book IV, chapter 14, where Coningsby, mounted on the best of his grandfather's stud, aptly called "Sir Robert," comes in second behind Sidonia on his gorgeous Arab "of pure race," again symbolically named "The Daughter of the Star" (Bk. III, chap. 1 and Bk. IV, chap. 14). In showing that the outsider, the alienated Jew, is equally "pure" and, indeed, superior to his nominal protagonist, Disraeli adopts an imaginative posture of defiance rather similar to that of taking up Alroy immediately after his defeat in the second Wycombe campaign of 1832, a campaign in which he was the victim of marked antiSemitism. The most important aspects of Sidonia's characterization, however, go well beyond such obvious compensation and confirm my claim that Disraeli's identity confusion manifested itself not only as a tension between conflicting views of himself but also as ambivalence within each one (O'Kell, "Psychological Romance," p. 35).

The ostensible political lesson that Sidonia teaches his youthful protégé concerns the inspirational potency of heroic individualism. Coningsby is, of course, an apt pupil, for, as an adolescent, he had indulged in "visions of personal distinction, of future celebrity, perhaps even of enduring fame." Thus Sidonia preaches to the converted when, in discoursing upon "the Spirit of the Age," he extols the "'influence of individual character'" (Bk. III, chap. 1). It is a doctrine of elegant simplicity. Power residing in institutions, whether nobility, monarchy, Church, or Parliament, brings opprobrium upon them (Bk. IV, chap. 13), but truly "great men, … prophets, … legislators, … conquerors," can control or create "a vast public opinion" and are "Divine" (Bk. III, chap. 1). For the present the "'age does not believe in great men, because it does not possess any,'" but the "'spirit of the Age is the very thing that a great man changes.'" According to Coningsby's alter ego, the function of institutions is subsidiary: "'From the throne to the hovel all call for a guide. You give monarchs constitutions to teach them sovereignty, and nations Sunday-schools to inspire them with faith'" (Bk. III, chap. 1). The hope of "'an age of social disorganisation'" is in "'what is more powerful than laws and institutions,'" in the regeneration of a sense of "community" based on "national character" and "public virtue" (Bk. IV, chap. 13). Perhaps most importantly, such a reconstruction of society can occur not from "'any new disposition of political power,'" nor "'on a purely rational basis'":

"A political institution is a machine; the motive power is the national character…. There has been an attempt to reconstruct society on a basis of material motives and calculations. It has failed…. Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions; never irresistable but when he appeals to the imagination…. Man is made to adore and obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions."

(Bk. IV, chap. 13)

This statement, with its division between mechanical and organic theories of society, its rejection of materialism, its doctrine of hero worship, and its fear of unregulated human nature, is so obviously resonant with the ideas of Carlyle that critics have often surmised that Disraeli was here borrowing directly from him. There is, however, no conclusive evidence that Disraeli had read Carlyle's works. When one recognizes that all of the elements of this political theory had found expression in The Revolutionary Epick, published in 1834 (considerably earlier than Carlyle's major works), the most sensible conclusion would seem to be that such ideas were, as much as their antithesis, a part of the spirit of the age, which found its most forceful expression in Carlyle's prose.

The ultimate simplicity and attraction of Sidonia's political theory resides in its seemingly magical quality. Among the most enchanting things he tells Coningsby are his convictions that "'Great men never want experience'" and that "'To believe in the heroic makes heroes'" (Bk. III, chap. 1). Such notions recall to mind The Wondrous Tale of Alroy in which the youthful, indeed adolescent, protagonist, empowered by his altruistic faith in his role as the spiritual leader of the Hebrew people, finds that his exertions result in almost miraculous conquests. But the point of such a comparison is not just a matter of the inherent egocentricity. The implicit assertion of Hebrew superiority in Alroy is matched in Coningsby by Sidonia's similar belief (given the sanction of "fact" by the implied author) that the Hebrews, along "with the Saxons and the Greeks," are "in the first and superior class" of the human species and as an "unmixed race of a first-rate organisation are the aristocracy of Nature" (italics mine, Bk. IV, chap. 10). Perhaps the intrusion of the authorial voice here is significant, for Alroy, though begun in 1829, was completed in 1833, only a year before Disraeli's first explicit advocacy of a natural aristocracy in The Revolutionary Epick. Thus, Sidonia's simple notion, however circular, of faith in one's own destiny as the motivating and creative source of the heroic sensibility, might be said to confirm the suspicion that there was a more than casual connection between Disraeli's egocentricity and the Ultra-Tory, paternalistic ideology he formulated in the 1830s from his understanding of Lord Bolingbroke's ideas.¹¹ In any case, Sidonia's ideas, when seen in the context of their first expression, confirm that Disraeli was drawing his inspiration for Coningsby as much from his experiences in the 1830s as from his circumstances in the 1840s.

As the collapse of the heroic fantasy in Alroy establishes, the imaginative links between Disraeli's egocentricity and his ideology were the issues of altruism and sincerity. In this respect Sidonia is also important, for the characterization suggests that the tension between "purity" and "success," between altruism and expediency, that distinguished David Alroy continued ten years later to be an ambivalence within the expression of the political ideal expressed by Sidonia and espoused by Coningsby. Although Sidonia's political theory embraces a nobility of character and an altruistic vision of an organic community, his political practice is a sanction of very different values. For one thing, his true self remains largely hidden; though he is, we are told, "affable and gracious," it is "impossible to penetrate him," and the dichotomy between his surface candor and underlying secrecy is expressed in explicit terms. Moreover, juxtaposed to Sidonia's sense of himself as the alienated outsider, looking upon life "with a glance rather of curiosity than content" and perceiving himself as "a lone being," are the compensatory gratifications of clandestine power.

No Minister of State had such communications with secret agents and political spies as Sidonia. He held relations with all the clever outcasts of the world. The catalogue of his acquaintance in the shape of Greeks, Armenians, Moors, secret Jews, Tartars, Gypsies, wandering Poles and Carbonari, would throw a curious light on those subterranean agencies of which the world in general knows so little, but which exercise so great an influence on public events…. The secret history of the world was his pastime. His great pleasure was to contrast the hidden motive, with the public pretext, of transactions.

(Bk. IV, chap. 10)

The content of this fantasy, in contrast to the ideals of Young England, is obviously manipulative and subversive, but it is the implied author's subordinate reference to "subterranean agencies" that suggests the imaginatively autobiographical links.

Perhaps more substantial than the contrasting gratifications of alienation from society and of engagement in its affairs is Sidonia's inconsistency on the Jewish Question. For, however much he believes in the superiority of the Jewish race as a "fact," he puts the argument against anti-Semitic prejudice and discrimination in purely pragmatic and expedient terms. When Coningsby suggests that it would be easy to repeal any law embodying "so illiberal" a conception, Sidonia replies:

"Oh! as for illiberality, I have no objection to it if it be an element of power. Eschew political sentimentalism. What I contend is, that if you permit men to accumulate property, and they use that permission to a great extent, power is inseparable from that property, and it is in the last degree impolitic to make it the interest of any powerful class to oppose the institutions under which they live."

(Bk. IV, chap. 15)

He then goes on to assure his protégé that the Jews "'are essentially Tories'" and "'Toryism … but copied from the mightly prototype which has fashioned Europe.'" This opinion is supported by a very egocentric account of the way in which the intellectual and political affairs of Russia, Spam, France, and Prussia are all interconnected through his financial manipulations and by the narcissistic conclusion that "'the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes'" (Bk. IV, chap. 15). To fully explore the implications of this vision for Disraeli's later political career, especially his involvement in foreign affairs, is well beyond the scope of this essay. But it is important to recognize that the characterization of Sidonia does contain a conspiratorial theory of politics that gives a legitimacy to the kind of secret manipulation and intrigue that is the antithesis of the ideals Disraeli has traditionally been thought to have been propounding in this "manifesto of Young England."

On the other hand, however extravagant a creature, Sidonia also represents, through the conception of his "natural aristocracy" and his demonstrated success, an attempt to blend the conflicting claims of altruism and expediency. While the justification of his identity rests upon his undeniable genius, the rationalization of his conduct rests upon his indisputable power. For this reason Sidonia, as much as Coningsby himself, can be seen as part of the heroic fantasy of wish fulfillment, the content and scope of which, in comparison with those of Alroy and Henrietta Temple, reflects Disraeli's increasing confidence in his sense of himself.

II

To fully appreciate the continuity of Disraeli's fiction, it is essential to examine the way in which politics in an ideological sense supports Coningsby's central theme of heroic individualism. In Contarini Fleming, the conflicting worlds of the hero's public and private fulfillment are conceived to be mutually exclusive. Contarini finds erotic fulfillment of his purest feelings in the love of his cousin Alcesté, who is explicitly portrayed as a mother substitute. But this expression of the true self necessitates an exile from the realm of political success in his father's world and from what he feels is the hypocritical behavior essential to it. Importantly, the contrast between the two worlds is presented as a dichotomy between Catholic and Protestant cultures in such a marked manner that the use of the religious motif must be seen as a reflection of the author's ambivalence about his racial heritage. With this in mind, it is interesting to notice that Sidonia, the exemplum of demonstrated success, is an exile from the possibility of erotic or romantic involvement. Indeed, his emotional impotence confirms that the tension between "purity" and "success" which is the essence of the earlier work continues to exist in Disraeli's imaginative shaping of Coningsby. For, though it is true that this characterization partially resolves the political expression of that tension by means of the notion of natural aristocracy, it is also true that the unsatisfactory explanation of Sidonia's emotional aridity is that he "notoriously would never diminish by marriage the purity of his race" (Bk. VI, chap. 2). But the fact that the religious dimension of Sidonia's character is both part of the attempted resolution of the conflict between altruism and expediency and part of the renewed expression of that tension's power is suggestive of the continuing complexity of Disraeli's own attitudes toward his Jewish heritage, essentially a hostile symbiosis capable of producing both pride and despair.

The passage describing Sidonia's emotional deprivation is in the voice of the implied author. The conception of romantic love it contains is, not surprisingly, perfectly consistent with that inherent in the earlier fictions and with what we know of the emotional currents of Disraeli's own involvement with Henrietta Sykes and with his wife Mary Anne. Clearly, the disconcertingly strong emphasis upon the consolatory nature of love—with its "profound sympathy," softening of "sorrows," counseling in "cares," and support in "perils"—is a vision in which "the lot the most precious to man" is to find in unquestioning acceptance the antidote to frustrated genius and fear of failure (Bk. IV, chap. 10). With respect to Sidonia, the effect of the passage is to deny any such vulnerability, a denial that is later confirmed in the plot by his immunity to the passionate advances of the Princess Lucretia and his purely avuncular affection for Edith Millbank. The Princess Lucretia, who later marries Lord Monmouth and conspires to cheat Coningsby of his inheritance, is an interesting character, rather like Mrs. Felix Lorraine in Vivian Grey. In their treachery, both seem to display the dangers of unromanticized sexual passion. But the main point is that, through the portrayal of Sidonia, the imaginative conflict between love and power that was the mainspring of the plot in Contarini Fleming continues to exist in Coningsby.

The alternative, a vision in which love and power are blended, was for Disraeli an equally compelling fantasy. It finds its expression in the almost miraculous unfolding of Coningsby's destiny, and, not surprisingly, that expression bears comparison with the earlier novels. When, for example, Coningsby first visits Millbank, he is fascinated by a portrait of a beautiful young woman. He later finds out, upon opening a box of his father's papers held in trust for him and discovering there a locket containing the same likeness, that this woman is his deceased mother. This use of the portrait-locket-mother detail, while admittedly a romance convention, is clearly a repetition of that in Contarini Fleming where at the conclusion the hero discovers in the same way that his magdalen-cousin-bride was physically identical to his deceased mother. Moreover, in Coningsby, Edith Millbank, while not literally the hero's sister, is, as the daughter of the man who first loved his mother, nevertheless an imaginative variant of Miriam in Alroy, whose devotion to her brother is the emblem of his purity of motive. The variations of the fantasy elements are, of course, important in that they ultimately permit the marriage of Edith and Coningsby, but the similarities are equally so in that they imaginatively confirm the purity of that union.

The structure and diction of the story make much the same point. When Coningsby realizes at the ball given by the Baroness S. de R-d. in Paris that the beautiful young woman he has fallen in love with is none other than the girl who had so charmed him at Millbank, we are told she had "a face of sunshine amid all that artificial light." His conversation with her recalls the "high, and pure" ideas which bind him in friendship to her brother. Yet, juxtaposed to this scene is a long passage that reiterates Sidonia's indifference to the heart's affections as "one of those men … who shrink … from an adventure of gallantry" with "neither time nor temper for sentimental circumlocutions," and who "detested the diplomacy of passion" and found its "studied hypocrisies … wearisome" (Bk. VI, chap. 2). This sharply contrasting vision of love as a social game strongly reflects precisely the sort of ambivalence the subject occasions in Disraeli's earlier fiction, the more so since the following chapter begins with Coningsby's "agitated slumber" in which he is "haunted" by dreams of a "beautiful countenance that was alternately the face of the mysterious picture, and then that of Edith" and from which he awakes "little refreshed; restless, and yet sensible of some secret joy" (Bk. VI, chap. 3).

The presence of the mother-motif, soon elaborated as "fanciful speculations which connected Edith and the mysterious portrait of his mother," is sufficient to establish this development of the plot as an extension of the imaginative shaping not only of Contarini Fleming but also of Henrietta Temple in which Ferdinand Armine is similarly haunted in dreams by the apparently conflicting claims of his pure, filial devotion to his mother, associated with the family's restoration, and his equally pure passion for Henrietta. The depth of the imaginative connection between Henrietta Temple and Coningsby is also suggested, however, by the voice of the narrator, who intrudes at this point in the latter work to philosophize upon love: "Ah! what is that ambition that haunts our youth, that thirst for power or that lust of fame that forces us from obscurity into the sunblaze of the world, what are these sentiments so high, so vehement, so enobling? They vanish, and in an instant, before the glance of a woman!" (Bk. VI, chap. 3). This passage has a strikingly similar theme to that in Book II, chapter 4, of Henrietta Temple where the narrator intrudes to say that to behold a beautiful being and sense the bliss of love is "to feel our flaunty ambition fade away like a shrivelled gourd before her vision; to feel fame a juggle and posterity a lie." The difference in language between the two would seem to reflect that as a protagonist, Coningsby embodies none of the guilt occasioned by hypocritical or calculating motives that characterizes Ferdinand. Yet, despite this purification of the hero in Coningsby, the most convincing evidence of the close imaginative affinity with Henrietta Temple can be found in the very much related characterizations and plots.

Among the obvious instances of such similarity are Coningsby's alternations between a sense of his innate helplessness and a resolution to confront his destiny with Byronic defiance (Bk. VIII, chap. 4). His changes of affect are less reckless, but in despair at thinking Sidonia is his rival for Edith's love, he, very much like Ferdinand Armine (and David Alroy, too), confesses, "'I am nothing.'"¹² Also, like Ferdinand, he sees himself as a victim of his hereditary position, thwarted in love by his grandfather's actions.¹³ Further, Coningsby responds to the threat of failure, just as does Ferdinand, by denying the reality of his circumstances and living for the pleasures of the enchanting moment. In Edith's presence, he wishes that the party should never end: "All mysteries, all difficulties, were driven from his recollection; he lived only in the exciting and enjoyable present."¹⁴ Just as Ferdinand procrastinates leaving Henrietta to return to Bath, so Coningsby postpones his departure for Cambridge.¹⁵

All of these relatively minor details suggest the true nature of Coningsby's imaginative ancestry. But perhaps more convincing evidence of the affinity between the two works is the plot contrivance in both whereby the lovers are separated by rumors of their respective engagements to others—Coningsby to Lady Theresa Sydney, Edith to Lord Beaumanoir, Ferdinand to his cousin Katherine, and Henrietta to Lord Montfort. Moreover, in both novels the hero is then shown to be completely altruistic and lovable, and the disentanglement of the romantic complication is occasioned by the intervention of a circle of his friends who gladly conspire to remove all obstacles to his felicity. Interestingly, both Coningsby and Ferdinand are completely passive protagonists in the unfolding of these events. This is not to argue that this plot mechanism is more than the hackneyed convention of the comedy of manners, but that it is significant that the pattern of wish fulfillment in the two works is identical.

III

Having recognized the parallels between Henrietta Temple and the first volume of Disraeli's "trilogy," it is instructive to look again at the relation between the politics and the romance in Coningsby. The argument that the political ideology serves to define an ideal identity or role of heroic individualism can best be sustained by citing the passage which describes Coningsby's aspirations at the moment he moves from adolescence to manhood.

It was that noble ambition, the highest and the best, that must be born in the heart and organised in the brain, which will not let a man be content, unless his intellectual power is recognised by his race, and desires that it should contribute to their welfare. It is the heroic feeling; the feeling that in old days produced demi-gods; … without which political institutions are meat without salt; the Crown a bauble, the Church an establishment, Parliaments debating clubs, and Civilisation itself but a fitful and transient dream.

(Bk. V, chap. 1)

This is strong stuff; but, as the rhetorical flourish of the passage implies, a full appreciation of Disraeli's use of the political theme requires further analysis of the ideology itself. In this respect, the ambivalence of Disraeli's role in the Young England movement is worth noticing. George Smythe, the most wordly of the partie carrée composed also of Lord John Manners and Alexander Baillie-Cochrane, instinctively understood Disraeli better than the others, and he was not really disconcerted by the possibility that their leader might have ulterior political motives.¹⁶ Cochrane, on the other hand, was much disturbed by Disraeli's performance in Paris during the parliamentary recess of 1842, by his "self-aggrandisement" and the "phantasmagoria of politique legerdemain" in which he pictured himself "the founder of some new dynasty with his Manfred love-locks stamped on the current coin of the realm" (Whibley, I, 148-149). Even the gentle and unsuspicious Manners confided to his diary: "Could I only satisfy myself that D'Israeli believed all that he said, I should be more happy: his historical views are quite mine, but does he believe them?" (Whibley, I, 149). The full extent of Disraeli's ambivalence is revealed, however, in his own words. Seizing the opportunity of an audience with Louis Phillipe, he wrote the King a lengthy memorandum in which he embodied his plans for an Anglo-French alliance. He proposed to initiate a Commons debate on the subject which would see his voice "echo in every Cabinet in Europe," to organize a party of Conservative members who "full of youth and energy and constant in their seats, must exercise an irresistable control over the tone of the Minister" and "dictate the character of his foreign" policy, and, finally, to coordinate the "Press of England in favour of the … alliance" and make "the ideas of a single man … the voice of the nation." (Monypenny and Buckle, II, 409-413). This is more than the euphoric posturing of a naive egotist; for all its sublime egotism, the memorandum is really a fantasy embodying Disraeli's conception of his own potential, though it certainly confirms Cochrane's worst fears of his manipulative intentions. But to assert this is not to deny that Disraeli was equally and genuinely attracted by the purity and nobility of Young England's motives and ideals and, in particular, that he shared the others' conception of patriotism as the antidote to the battle of warring factions that early nmeteenth-century society seemed to them to have become.

Indeed, the essence of Coningby's new Toryism, derived largely from Bolingbroke's On the Spirit of Patriotism and The Idea of a Patriot King, is trust.¹⁷ The vision that compels Coningsby is that of the necessity of undertaking the heroic struggle to restore the ancient solidarity of the governed and the governing classes. Most of the elements of that vision Disraeli had expressed as early as 1834 in The Revolutionary Epick. But the struggle now requires a modern "demigod" because in the current state of affairs all of the political institutions, monarchy, Church, Lords, and Commons, have become debased by either the Whigs' "Destructive Creed" or the Conservatives' "Political Infidelity." Indeed, the only weapons that the ideal political protagonist has at his command are the conviction of his own genius and the power to influence public opinion. Here Disraeli steps beyond the Tory orthodoxy of the Vindication, where he had argued that Parliament was the constitutional representative of the estate of the Commons and the monarchy and Church the representatives of the people. For Coningsby, echoing Sidonia, tells Oswald Millbank:

"Representation is not necessarily, or even in a principal sense, Parliamentary…. a principle of government is reserved for our days…. Opinion is now supreme, and Opinion speaks in print. The representation of the Press is far more complete than the representation of Parliament. Parliamentary representation was the happy device of a ruder age … but it exhibits many symptoms of desuetude. It is controlled by a system of representation more vigorous and comprehensive; which absorbs its duties and fulfills them more efficiently."

(Bk. VII, chap. 2)

This "polity" is, Coningsby argues, "'capable of great ends and appealing to high sentiments.'" The means by which it is to "'render government an object of national affection'" is the symbolic restoration of the power of the sovereign, who is both to lead and yet be restrained from arbitrary action by public opinion (Bk. VII, chap. 2).

As a political theory, this argument is based entirely upon subjective qualities. When Oswald Millbank objects that "'public opinion may be indifferent. A nation may be misled, may be corrupt,'" Coningsby urges in reply a faith in the "national character." He then goes on to justify that conception in terms of individual nobility: "'If a nation be led to aim at the good and the great, depend upon it, whatever be its form, the government will respond to its convictions and its sentiments.'" In short, the political ideology Coningsby advocates depends for its efficacy entirely on the integrity or the purity of the hero. Interestingly, too, there is in this conception a noticeable detachment from the constitutional focus of government. Coningsby goes on to assure Oswald that "'true wisdom lies in the policy that would effect its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of existing forms'" (Bk. VII, chap. 2). The idea that these "forms," the monarchy, the Church, and Parliament, are but "means" to the "ends" of "the good and the great" throws an entirely new light upon both the consistency of Disraeli's later political practice and the satirical portrait of the Conservative party's expediency. Indeed, from such a perspective, the latter has a cogency very much related to Coningsby's destiny.

What I am arguing is that Disraeli's satirical treatment of the Conservatives' "Political Infidelity" in abandoning the constitutional forms that should support the cause of true Toryism is not implicitly a defense of those institutions for their own sake. It is their symbolic power to effect the heroic vision that interests Coningsby and, by implication, Disraeli. Thus, at the climax of the novel, Book VIII, chapter 3, the central issue is Coningsby's purity. At this point, his political ideology and his love for Edith are blended into one theme. The essence of the climax is Coningsby's resolution to defy his grandfather and to refuse to be the family's Conservative candidate at Darlford. Lord Monmouth's aim in returning Coningsby to Parliament is overtly selfish; he believes that such expedient support of the Conservative cause will result in a dukedom for himself and the revival of a family barony in his grandson's name. Coningsby, however, confesses that he has "'for a long time looked upon the Conservative party as a body who have betrayed their trust; more from ignorance … than from design; yet clearly a body of individuals totally unequal to the exigencies of the epoch, and … unconscious of its real character'" (Bk. VIII, chap. 3). In contradicting his grandfather's pragmatic cynicism by demanding political "faith," he does, admittedly, seem to shift the basis of his thinking and refer to the "rights and privileges" of the Crown, the Church, and the House of Lords as if they were political ends in themselves. But his final words in this scene revert to the conception of trust, or social harmony, at the center of his ideology.

"What we want, sir, is … to establish great principles which may maintain the realm and secure the happiness of the people. Let me see authority once more honoured; a solemn reverence again the habit of our lives; let me see property acknowledging, as in the old days of faith, that labour is his twin brother, and that the essence of all tenure is the performance of duty."

(Bk. VIII, chap. 3)

The blending of this nostalgic ideal with the rather practical assessment of the new social conditions under which a political leader must operate is by no means the least significant aspect of Coningsby's thinking. It not only embodies the ambivalence of Disraeli's role in Young England but also foreshadows the most controversial aspects of his later career. For this reason, it deserves more respect in our analyses of the Victorian political dilemma than it has received. But equally important to this study is the linking of the hero's public and private fulfillments.

Coningsby's first reaction to his grandfather's news is a vision of the strife and anguish that his rival candidacy to Millbank's would cause him: "The countenance of Edith … rose to him again. He saw her canvassing for her father, and against him. Madness!" (Bk. VIII, chap. 3). In other words, the fantasy is so constructed that the abandonment of his political faith would entail an alienation of his love. In this respect, Disraeli's choice of words is important. Near the end of the previous chapter, when Edith has just heard the rumor that Coningsby is engaged to marry Lady Theresa Sydney, the implied author summarizes Coningsby's feelings occasioned by the resultant change in his true love's demeanor:

he passed a sleepless night, agitated and distracted by the manner in which she had received him. To say that her appearance had revived all his passionate affection for her would convey an unjust impression of the nature of his feelings. His affection had never for a moment swerved; it was profound and firm…. whatever were the barriers which the circumstances of life placed against their union, they were partakers of the solemn sacrament of an unpolluted heart.

(Bk. VIII, chap. 2)

Quite apart from the fact that this passage closely resembles a description of Ferdinand's love for Henrietta, the phrase "an unpolluted heart" suggests the true motivating power and the ultimate shape of Disraeli's romance. For, when in double despair that both his political prospects and his personal happiness have been irrevocably damaged, Coningsby is suddenly seized with a heroic conception of his identity. Having compared himself to Caesar,

He thought of Edith in her hours of fondness; he thought of the pure and solemn moments when to mingle his name with the heroes of humanity was his aspiration, and to achieve immortal fame the inspiring purpose of his life. What were the tawdry accidents of vulgar ambition to him? No domestic despot could deprive him of his intellect, his knowledge, the sustaining power of an unpolluted conscience.

(Bk. VIII, chap. 4)

The language is indicative of the theme. From this it is obvious that the defining quality of the ideal political identity embodied in the characterization of Coningsby is purity of heart, conscience, and ambition. The shape of the fantasy is a testimony to the fact that such purity, at least in the realm of this romance which is indisputably the realm of the author's imagination, guarantees a transcendant success. The plot is, however, not without further complications. Before Coningsby finds himself possessed of that success, he is temporarily disinherited and plunged once more into profound gloom. At this moment, the implied author's language in describing his hero's thoughts has an anomalous extravagance that dissolves the screen of fiction and confirms again the imaginatively autobiographical nature of the romance:

Nothing is great but the personal…. The power of man, his greatness and his glory, depend on essential qualities. Brains every day become more precious than blood….

This conviction of power in the midst of despair was a revelation of intrinsic strength…. He felt that he must be prepared for great sacrifices, for infinite suffering; that there must devolve on him a bitter inheritance of obscurity, struggle, envy, and hatred, vulgar prejudice, base criticism, petty hostilities, but the dawn would break, and the hour arrive, when the welcome morning hymn of his success and his fame would sound and be re-echoed.

(Bk. IX, chap. 4)

Just as in the authorial intrusion in Book I, chapter 3, this reference to "a bitter inheritance" of "obscurity," "struggle," "envy," "hatred," "prejudice," "criticism," and "hostilities" steps beyond the limits of Disraeli's characterization of his hero. But the real significance of the passage lies in both its explicit and contextual egocentricity, for it is clear that here the issues of party ideology are absorbed in the destiny of the heroic role. Thus, Coningsby's election to Parliament in absentia, his reunion with Edith accompanied by the tangible blessing of Millbank's generosity, and his ultimate inheritance of his grandfather's fortune from the grateful Flora can legitimately be seen as the completion of the fiction's central fantasy of acceptance, one in which the melodramatic delight of revenge in destroying Rigby's venomous, self-serving career is combined with the gratifications of otherwise universal recognition of the hero's genius. In the end, the links between purity and power, love and success, sustain the argument that Coningsby, very much like Disraeli's earlier fictions, is chiefly concerned with his conflicts of identity; that politics, while an integral part of the work, is essentially a motif within the genre of the "psychological romance"; and, that "romance," however quixotic the struggles of Young England, was to be a shaping force in Victorian politics.

This analysis inevitably disturbs our assumptions about Disraeli's subsequent novels, particularly Sybil (1845) and Tancred (1847), which have been widely thought to complete a "trilogy" of sociopolitical themes. If the relationship between Coningsby and the earlier fiction is so much closer than has been previously granted, it is possible that Disraeli's later novels might also embody in significant ways a tension between public statement and private fantasy that cannot be understood as simply literal autobiography or roman à thèse.

In the "General Preface" of 1870, Disraeli says that he intended, when he began Coningsby, to treat all three of the "trilogy's" principal topics—the character of political parties, the condition of the people, and the duties of the Church—but found that "they were too vast for the space … allotted," so that only the first was adequately dealt with. Indeed, the favorable reception of Coningsby reflected a widespread conviction that he had produced a "manifesto of Young England" and, not so incidentally, a treatise upon the shortcomings of Peel's Conservatism. So, although the less flattering conclusion—that Disraeli found his "romance" had run off with his theme—seems valid, he undoubtedly set out to develop the implications of that theme in Sybil, his second "political" novel. Seeing, as he clearly did, the character of political parties, the condition of the people, and the duties of the Church as aspects of "the same subject" ("General Preface," p. x) and feeling that Coningsby's ostensible message did not need more than a resonant echo in his new work, Disraeli intended Sybil to be an illustration of the symbiotic nature of his thematic trinity. The success of the novel, however, reflected his readers' much narrower and more literal understanding of the story—a widespread failure to see that Disraeli's prime concern is the moral condition of parties, people, and Church and that he views the degradation of the people as a result of moral and spiritual inadequacy, not as a first cause of social unrest. Criticism of the novel, even to the present day, has often concerned itself with tracking down the author's many sources, with the historical inaccuracies of his treatment of economic distress, and with the aesthetic flaw of the culminating marriage of Sybil and Egremont. With few exceptions, critics have ignored the devastating conscious ironies that pervade the work.¹⁸

It is this neglect, perhaps more than our excessive concern for the matter of his assimilation of his secondary sources, that has shaped the critical distortion by which we have come to assume Sybil to be Disraeli's most typical fiction. Rather, it would seem that in writing Sybil, his reaction to Coningsby's fame as a "political" novel, his reliance upon printed sources, and his haste (the novel was finished in less than a year, despite a very hectic political and social life) combined to free Disraeli to a considerable extent from the imaginatively autobiographical mode of fiction and to establish a greater aesthetic distance between himself and his characters. Thus it is that Disraeli's best and most widely read novel is the one least typical of his canon.

By the time he completed Sybil, Disraeli knew that he would need the space of a third novel to elucidate fully the themes begun in Coningsby, or so Sybil's narrator implies in the denouement. The best explication to date of the next novel, Tancred; or, the New Crusade, is undoubtedly Richard Levine's.¹⁹ The key to the novel, he suggests, is the theoretical basis of Disraeli's religious philosophy and its embodiment in Tancred's quest for the divine law that retrospectively sanctions the political creed and social message of Coningsby and Sybil. But, however clearly one extracts Disraeli's prophecy of the Hebraeo-Christian destiny, most readers find the relevance of the great Asian mystery to British politics obscure, the motivation of the characters implausible, and the exigencies of the plot baffling. Hence, the view that Tancred reflects a discontinuity in the trilogy would seem to be on good ground.²⁰

The present view of Coningsby and the obvious revival in the "New Crusade" of Sidonia's theory of Hebrew superiority suggest, however, that an analysis of the exotic fantasy structure in Tancred would confirm that the novel is a significant extension of Disraeli's use of the imaginatively autobiographical mode of fiction. Whether this is also true of his last two completed novels, Lothair (1870) and Endymion (1880), is an intriguing question. But, insofar as they embody ambivalence about the costs of such political success as their author had achieved, or still sought, they too would be works within the genre of the "psychological romance." As his speeches, letters, diaries, and actions show, romance also shapes, as well as reflects, Disraeli's political career. The fiction is not simply a gloss on the politics, nor the politics an explanation of the fiction. Both are enactments of the same urgencies and purposes. The political career, like the fiction, is an invention, and seen in the light of their common imaginative patterns, the novels and the political career will provoke a fuller understanding of Disraeli's achievements.

Notes

¹ Robert Blake, Disraeli (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1966), p. 190. Cf. Bernard Langdon-Davies, Introduction to Coningsby, by Benjamin Disraeli (New York: Capricorn, 1961), p. xxviii: "Disraeli has created a new type. The novel is essentially political, written to expound a political creed."

² Both prefaces are cited by Blake, pp. 193-194. Coningsby was published by Henry Colburn; the collected edition was published by Longmans & Co.

³ W. F. Monypenny and G. E. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, 6 vols. (London: Murray, 1910-20), II, 199.

⁴ Chapter references in parentheses are to The Bradenham Edition of the Novels and Tales of Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, 12 vols. (London: Peter Davies, 1927; New York: Knopf, 1927-29).

⁵ See Robert O'Kell, "The Autobiographical Nature of Disraeli's Early Fiction," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 31 (1976), 253-284.

⁶ For a brief account of the visit and its importance to the formation of the Young England movement, see Blake, pp. 173-175. Disraeli first met the baron's nephew, Antony de Rothschild, several years earlier at a dinner party in London.

⁷ Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature with a View of the Life and Writings of the Author by his Son, 3 vols., 14th ed. (London: Moxon, 1849), I, xx-xxi.

⁸ See Robert O'Kell, "The Psychological Romance: Disraeli's Early Fiction and Political Apprenticeship," (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1974).

⁹ "What Is He?" is reprinted in Whigs and Whiggism, ed. William Hutcheon (London: Murray, 1913), pp. 16-22. This quotation is from p. 19.

¹⁰ Benjamin Disraeli, Lord George Bentinck: A Political Biography (London: Colbum, 1852), chap. 24.

¹¹ See Robert O'Kell, "The Revolutionary Epick: Tory Democracy or Radical Gallomania?" Disraeli Newsletter, II, No. 1 (1977), 24-42. Chapter 5 of O'Kell, "Psychological Romance" also provides a detailed discussion of the development of Disraeli's political ideas in the 1830s.

¹²Coningsby, Bk. VI, chap. 7 and Henrietta Temple, Bk. II, chaps. 5 and 9. Cf. The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, Pt. V, chap. 6.

¹³Coningsby, Bk. VI, chap. 8 and Bk. VII, chap. 1; Henrietta Temple, Bk. II, chap. 9.

¹⁴Coningsby, Bk. VI, chap. 8; Henrietta Temple, II, chaps. 11 and 13.

¹⁵Coningsby, Bk. VI, chap. 8; Henrietta Temple, III, chap. 1.

¹⁶ Charles Whibley, Lord John Manners and His Friends, 2 vols. (London: Blackwood, 1925), I, 143-144.

¹⁷ See Richard Faber, Beaconsfield and Bolingbroke (London: Faber, 1961). In chap. 8 of "Psychological Romance," I argue that Disraeli's identification with Bolingbroke also involved a perception of their similar political roles.

¹⁸ The best discussion of irony in Sybil is Patrick Brantlinger's in The Spirit of Reform: British Literature and Politics, 1832-1867 (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1977).

¹⁹ Richard A. Levine, Benjamin Disraeli (New York: Twayne, 1968), pp. 114-134.

²⁰ Daniel R. Schwarz, "Progressive Dubiety: The Discontinuity of Disraeli's Political Trilogy," Victorian Newsletter, No. 47 (1975), 12-19.