Freudian Contrasts
The Angel-Makers: A Study in the Psychological Origins of Historical Change, 1750-1850. By Gordon Rattray Taylor. (Heinemann, 42s.) MR. RATTRAY TAYLOR is a wholehearted believer in the sexual interpretation of history. In his new book he sets out to apply his theories to (or, as he would maintain, to test his theories by examin- ing) the contrasts between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The one, we all know, has the reputation of being licentious and classical, the other puritan and romantic. How and why did this fundamental change come about? The answer, he would have us believe, lies deep in human psychology, and he proceeds to excavate it with Freudian zest and Freudian tools.
I am sceptical myself of the idea that history can be interpreted in terms of fixations, anal-erotic character traits, oral frustrations and the like. There are questions of methodology which, in my view, make it impossible to apply criteria of individual psychology to a collectivity. But when he shakes loose from his Freudian preoccupations, Mr. Rattray Taylor has some thought-provoking things to say. The idea of the eighteenth century as licentious and the nineteenth century as puritan is, after all, only a stereotype; and Mr. Rattray Taylor, who has read with great enterprise in the minor literature of the period, helps to break down the stereotype and bring us closer to his- torical reality. Even if his discoveries are not as novel as he thinks, we have reason to be grateful to him; for the reality is always more diverting, as well as more instructive, than the myth.
In the first place, Mr. Rattray Taylor insists, what we call Victorianism is not Victorian. We must alter our time-charts and our scale of values. Already about 1770 people were speaking of 'this grave, this moral pious age.' The decisive change in moral tone, it would seem, took place 'during the decade 1790-1800.' We must dismiss the idea that 'the Regency was a period of peculiar immor- ality.' But there were 'signs that the moral revolu- tion was beginning to fail' during the 1830s, and the Victorian period which followed was 'a period
of let-downs, of relaxing controls.' For exam]] women's costume, which was at its most mod about the time of Victoria's accession, 'the earlf became increasingly provocative' and '113 evening decolletes are as low as today, or lo Prostitution in London around the middle of nineteenth century was proportionally far than a hundred years before or after, while production of pornographic literature reached? all-time high. These facts have contemporary as well as 1`, torical connotations. If by comparison with I 1860s, Edwardian England was `goody-goody'll Mr. Rattray Taylor says), there are also good sons to reconsider current denunciations of cd temporary morality. The pity is that Mr. 1301 Taylor broke off to indulge in speculation, WO of carrying his social history forward beyond The facts have a tang and impact by compari5 with which psychological theorising is insipid' GEOFFREY BARRACJ Oth
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