Comparative Analytical Essay: Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli was a politically engaged man. He was a Member of Parliament, Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is relatively like the United States’ Secretary of the Treasury, and was twice the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Unlike many politicos of his day, however, Disraeli was heavily involved in issues of the common man of Victorian England, such as expanding suffrage to all taxpaying men, improving health facilities and practices, housing, trade unions, but most importantly, humanizing the working and living conditions of the lower-class in England. He addressed these issues with not only governmental involvement; Disraeli was a professional writer as well. He wrote both romantically and realistically, and molded public opinion with Cybil and Conigsby as much as he did with any legislation. The philosophies of this man are multifaceted, and his political experience combined with his influential literature give him no precise contemporary. However, there were many intellectuals of his time with whom he concurred and deterred about prevailing matters within Victorian England. There is the aspect of Disraeli’s actual writing style that could be considered superficially insignificant, but is, in fact, a quite important fe . . .
His philosophy on government and his actual writing style are both extremely intriguing. He, like intellectuals of his day such as Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens, addressed the issues of the people. However, Carlyle was much more radical, and did not share similar views with Disraeli about the necessity of democracy. And while Carlyle, and oftentimes Disraeli, did not necessarily take in hand the causes of those people, due to their respective interests in despotic government and aristocratic prevalence, the issues were attended to. He was a correspondent in Parliament as a young man, which gave him a direct, unsightly vision of the cynical mindset of Members of Parliament. Dickens did not have faith in politics. Additionally, in his literature, he speaks simply of the “two nations… the Rich and the Poor (23). He believed that telling stories, in which the reader could see, understand, and interpret the appalling conditions for themselves, his the best way to show the true nature of the unfortunate lives of those in the lower class. But Carlyle also disagreed with Disraeli about the aristocracy. Carlyle believed that the common man needs a strong and ruthless ruler, and that those people should obey him at all times. ” He believed that his philosophy would provide the necessary method to reunite these two nations. He believed as Disraeli did in that Carlyle’s ideal government would be one in which the common man has no right to be heard. As the nature of his writing style displays for itself, Carlyle believed that deep analytical writing is the key to explaining the nature of horrid settings such as Victorian England. Carlyle eventually came to the point where he considered the democratic system to be horrid, and considered a strong, strict government to be an absolute necessity. Disraeli's Tory vision of an England ruled by both aristocrats and "the common man" sparked what he called the Young England movement and redefined traditional Conservative party lines and ideology.
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