Review Article: Edmund Burke and the Importance of Context

N. Wood ( 1964) ‘The Aesthetic Dimension of Burke’s Political Thought’, Journal of British Studies 4(1): 42.

P. Hindson and T. Gray ( 1988) Burke’s Dramatic Theory of Politics, p. 5. Aldershot: Avebury.

A further dissatisfaction with approaching any past thinker in this way is that, by collapsing an author’s works into a single structure of meaning we are bound to suppress the subtleties and complexities evident in any work of political argument. Indeed, to maintain their sometimes creaking interpretations Burke scholars working within this paradigm often find it necessary to dismiss a passage, argument or even an entire text as an ‘aberration’, in which ‘Burke was somehow not himself’. For this particular assertion see R. Preece (1980) ‘The Political Economy of Edmund Burke’, Modern Age 24(3): 268.

See e.g. G. Claeys (1990) ‘The French Revolution Debate and British Political Thought’, History of Political Thought 11(1): 59-80. This does an excellent job of tracing the relationship between Burke’s Reflections and wider loyalist discourses in the French Revolution debate.

This is a particularly useful insight since recent assessments of Reflections have downplayed the extent to which Burke perceived the French Revolution as a democratic threat and, crucially, the importance of grasping this perception when seeking to understand Burke’s response to events in this period. In this vein, see J. C. D. Clark (2001) ‘Introduction’ pp. 23-111, in E. Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 23-111. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

In this sense, it is inaccurate to write in terms of distinct ‘textual’ and ‘contextual’ methods of researching since these must be considered complementary activities. For these categories see Q. Skinner (1969) ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, History and Theory 8(1): 3-53.

Likewise, there is no reason at all why Reflections’ ‘own historical context’ should be so immediate. To this end, surely investigating linguistic thinking in previous decades would have been more fruitful.

Burke’s most recent biographer has argued that ‘no selection of passages can adequately represent the style of the Reflections’. See F.P. Lock (1985) Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 124. London: George Allen & Unwin.

This is especially true for his appraisal of the proposed constitution of the French legislature, for which see E. Burke (1968) Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. C. C. O’Brien , pp. 286-97. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

The emphasis in these quotes is mine.

In private correspondence Burke revealed that Reflections was intended as a restatement of orthodox, moderate Whiggism, against ‘the principles of a new, republican frenchified Whiggism’ and expressed his fear that the ‘opinions, principles, and practices’ of the French Revolution ‘were gaining ground particularly in our party’. P. J. Marshall and J. A. Woods (eds) (1968) The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, vol. 7, pp. 52, 57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burke’s fellow MP, Edward Gibbon, stated ‘I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his chivalry’. For this, and other examples see G. Claeys (2000) ‘The Reflections Refracted: The Critical Reception of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France during the Early 1790s’, in J. Whale (ed.) Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France: New Interdisciplinary Essays, pp. 40-59. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

D. Musselwhite (1990) ‘Reflections on Burke’s Reflections, 1790-1990’, in P. Hulme and L. Jordanova (eds) The Enlightenment and its Shadows, pp. 159-60. London: Routledge.

J.G.A. Pocock (1971) ‘Burke and the Ancient Constitution: A Problem in the History of Ideas’, in Politics, Language and Time, p. 225. New York: Atheneum.