ABSTRACT
In the roster of eighteenth-century revolut ions and uprisings, Great Britain seems conspicuous by its absence. In an era in which states from the Americas to France, Ireland to Pol and, were swept by insurrection, British revolutionaries and reformers alike were effectively isolated, harassed, and finally crushed. The popu lar success of repeated editions of Thomas Paine' s The Righls of Mall, the monster rallies of the London Corresponding Society. and the naval mutinies at Spithead and the Norc remind us, however. that the revoiUlionary movements of the day had a powerful impact on British society. Artisans and intellectuals, artists and writers sought-with varyi ng degrees of commitment, for differing lengths of time-to champion the cause of a more democratic Britain, in the face of ferocious repression. ]
Over that period. supporters of the state and the established church contested with the opposition on a broad range of fronts; among these was the attempt to employ visual and literary symbols . both to defend and to attack. Typically. the regime mobilized artists and intelleclllais to invoke traditional patriotic and re ligious icons which had proven effective in the pasl as props for the reigning social order. Reformers. by contrast. sought in some cases to appropriate these symbols, to establish themselves (as had proven effective in France and the United States) as the genuine guarantors of patriotism and faith. ! In other cases. artistic and literary opponents of dominant society made use of what can be termed "dispropriation"-not merely claiming and employing traditional icons but inverting them, reinventing them to produce a radically new sign system. based on new values and goals. This disappropriative process was particularly evident in the case of visual artists. for whom its usc was most likely prompted in part by political circumstances. Several prominent arlis ts-James Barry, Henry FuseH, George Romney. and William Blake-took an active oppositional stance, linked for whatever period of time to support for both the American and French Revolut ions. Yet explicit support for the French Revolution in particular was largely suppressed by 1793-95. a vic tim of massive repression. including the "Church and King" riots and the Treason Trial s of 1794. Under the circumstances. oppositional art ists. especially Barry and Blake. drew increasingly on allegorical, especially biblical, imagery to express their revolutionary aspirations.l
We can identify this process of cultural struggle (and attendant use of biblical imagery) in the case of late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century British depictions of Satall or Lucifer. Here. a traditional equati on by conservatives that modern revolution equals Lucifer's rebellion met with a
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variety of responses from the disparate opposition forces. An examinat ion of the manner in which the symbol of Lucifer/Satan was employed in Britain over this period can help to delineate the manner in which systems of representation can become unstable in periods of social and political struggle, as signs are appropriated and reappropriated by contending factions, mutating in the process as they are modified, reversed, and reinvented.
