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Introduction
The writings of Edmund Burke are taken by many to represent one of the first and clearest statements of conservative politics. Whether in their attack on revolutionary action and reason or in their defence of a certain conception of private property and traditional authority, his writings are widely considered to be unsurpassed in the history of conservatism. As a confirmed part of the 'canon' of political thinkers, Burke's work has also been pored over for its explicit and implicit claims concerning revolution, rights, gender, sexuality, language, theatrical politics and a whole host of other issues. In this article, I aim to unpick a relatively unexplored dimension to Burke's thought: the monster.
The possible significance of the monster in Burke's work was first hinted at by one of Burke's contemporaries, Richard Payne Knight. Noting the connection drawn by Burke between terror and the sublime, he suggested the works of those who follow Burke 'teem with all sorts of terrific and horrific monsters and hobgoblins' (Payne Knight, 1808, 384). It was an astute comment for, as I shall show, it is not just the work of Burke's followers that teem with monsters, but Burke's works as well.
In a letter to his son from 1789 Burke comments on 'the portentous State of France -- where the Elements that compose Human Society seem all to be dissolved, and a world of Monsters to be produced in the place of it' (Burke, 1967, 30). This seemingly throwaway comment, in fact, picks up on a theme that resonates throughout Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Burke refers to the new 'monster of a constitution' composed from 'a monstrous medley of all conditions, tongues, and nations'. There is also a new 'spirit of money-jobbing and speculation' that creates a 'volatilized' form of property and 'assumes an unnatural and monstrous activity'. Similarly, the emerging 'military democracy' or 'municipal army' is described as 'a species of political monster'. All in all then, the new society is a 'monstrous tragi-comic scene', a 'monstrous fiction' in which 'publick measures are deformed into monsters' (1968, 92, 124, 160, 308, 313, 333, 350).
On a superficial level such claims may appear fairly innocuous. After all, it is generally accepted that much of Burke's attack...