Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb - cehum - Universidade do Minho

162
GEORGINA ABREU
that the prosecution of Mrs. Carlile produces just the same eff ect as my prosecution
did – it quadruples the sale of all her publications (R, vol. iii: 116).
Th is attitude of defi ance was Carlile’s contribution to the democratisation
of the public sphere. Th e counterpart was an exacerbated individualism
which, despite its caveats, might have been the intellectual precondition
for the independent [1] occupation of the public sphere. William Cobbett
(1763-1835) forsook his initial ‘toryism’ to become an outstanding radical
leader. [2] As a Tory, he founded the Political Register in 1802, but from 1804
onwards he began writing in the radical interest. Th ereaft er, the PR became
the most infl uential radical periodical among the working people. His political
discourse interwove a violent oppositional rhetoric with a direct and
lively relationship with his readers and a clear purpose of popular political
enlightenment and instruction. Th e constant presence of the author in the
fi rst person, the dramatisation and personalisation of the discourse of ‘us
against them’ created communal identity and cohesion.
Th omas Jonathan Wooler (1786?-1853), the editor, printer, and publisher
of the Black Dwarf, was a Yorkshire-born printer who moved to
London to make a living as a book seller and publisher; in the process, he
became one of the most infl uential political writers and publishers of his
day (Epstein, 1994: 36). Wooler was a former theatre critic, [3] and for Calhoun
and McQuarrie (2004: 3) he was one of the most important radical
intellectuals of the early nineteenth-century.
Th e ‘Black Dwarf ’ was at once the name of the periodical and Wooler’s
literary persona. Th e ‘Black Dwarf ’ wrote letters – to the ‘Yellow Bonze’ in
Japan, the ‘Green Goblin’ in Ireland, and the ‘Blue Devil’ at St. James. His
apparently naïve viewpoint granted a sharp edge to the satirical discourse
of the periodical. Th e ‘Black Dwarf ’ was not the only character created
by Wooler. During the Aff air, other more ephemeral voices occasionally
appeared as readers’ letters to the editor.
Wooler’s style off ers a combination of erudition with a farcical and
melodramatic vision of political discussion. It is popular political discourse
1 Th e term ‘independent’ conveys the idea of creative and contentious participation in the public
sphere. For a brief discussion of the tensions between access to / exclusion from the public
sphere in early nineteenth-century British society, see Calhoun and McQuarrie (2004).
2 An interesting discussion of Cobbett’s evolution from conservatism to radicalism is found in
Dyck (1989).
3 Th e Stage (1814-16) was Wooler’s fi rst important weekly. Hendrix (1976: 110) considers it ‘a
superior journal of dramatic criticism’. Wooler was known as a debater in London societies like
the Socratic Union and the British Forum.
Diacritica 25-2_Filosofia.indb 162 05-01-2012 09:38:27