write an essay on addison's prose style

Short Notes
Literary Terms
Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy

when I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in the Westminster Abbey : where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind o melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness that is not disagreeable."

"Upon this I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral ; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another ; and blended together in the same common mass ; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter

"The mind that lies fallow for a single day, sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous culture." "I shall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality, that my readers may, if possible, both ways find their account in the speculation of day."

"That vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of life."

"Women are armed with fans as men with swords, and sometimes do more execution with them.

"With what fluency of invention, and copiousness of expression, will they enlarge upon every little slip in the behaviour of another ; With how many different circumstances, and with variety of phrases will they tell over the same story!"

0 comments:

Featured Post

Geoffrey chaucer the father of english poetry.

Our App @ Play Store

Increase Font Size

34 Addison and Steele

Dr. Saradindu Bhattacharya

Section 1:Historical Background

In the last decades of the 17th century, the glory of English literature looked somewhat diminished as the literary output of post-Restoration Britain did not quite match up to the standards set by authors of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Though English theatre was revived by King Charles II, it differed greatly in terms of character and style from the popular drama of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Webster and Jonson and catered to a more elite, upper class audience. The English society itself was undergoing significant structural changes with an increasing number of people opting for professions outside the church and the farmland, which led to the emergence of a sizeable middle class. As more and more people could afford formal education, the rate of literacy rose sharply and there was a pressing demand for literature that would cater to the tastes of this newly emergent section of readers. In London society, clubs and coffee houses, which attracted people from various walks of life, became centres of political and commercial discussion, religious and philosophical debate, and exchange of news and gossip. It was in this context that the periodical essay emerged as a major literary genre in 18th century England. Newsletters and pamphlets had been appearing sporadically in England in the first half of the 17th century but their publication was often irregular and short-lived as editors lacked substantial subject matter and a loyal readership. In addition, the Parliament imposed a tax on such publications in 1647, which effectively rooted out the possibility of their evolution into a regular literary feature. The Puritan government of the time also sought to censor everything the public read, which hindered the creation of a discriminating audience with the freedom of choice to read and believe what they liked. It was only towards the turn of the century that publishers ventured to bring out magazines that carried not only news reports and advertisements but also more critical and imaginative pieces of writing that offered social commentary.

The first major publication of this kind was Richard Steele’s The Tatler , which first appeared in 1709. Steele’s stated agenda was “to hold a mirror” up to society, “to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour”. Evidently, the magazine was meant to guide its readers in matters of social and moral etiquette and reform the common errors of the age. The extravagance and indulgence that marked the previous decades were perceived as requiring correction and a general ethic of moderation was held up as a model in all domains of public and private conduct.With regular contributions from Addison, The Tatler gained immense popularity in a very short span of time. Most of the popular coffee houses in London subscribed to The Tatler (and subsequently to other magazines too) as a result of which the periodical essay reached out to a large number of people. Practically every notable author of the age – Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Oliver Goldsmith, to name a few prominent ones – tried his hand at the periodical essay, thereby giving the form literary respectability. In terms of frequency of publication, subject matter, style and brevity, the periodical essay offered the perfect reading material to the public. The authors of periodical essays, especially Addison and Steele, mostly dealt with topical issues relating to manners and morals without sounding pedantic or preachy. In 1711 Steele discontinued the publication of The Tatler and started publishing a daily magazine, The Spectator . While the former consisted mostly of news articles and a few pieces of political and literary criticism, the latter focused more on mundane concerns of social life and often dedicated an entire issue or sometimes a series of papers to the exploration of a single theme. The Spectator became very popular and rapidly evolved into a distinctly modern magazine, carrying more critical and moral pieces than informational news items.The essays featured a motley group of characters: Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, Captain Sentry and Will Honeycomb, representing the landed gentry, the commercial class, the army and the town respectively. The narrator, Mr. Spectator, was himself the authorial voice of reason and refinement, commenting subtly on the virtues and oddities of each of these characters in a way that encouraged the reader to identify with his perspective. The Spectator sought to initiate a public discourse about social morality beyond the limits of juridical and religious institutions by “reprehending those Vices which are too trivial for the Chastisement of the Law, and too fantastical for the Cognizance of the pulpit” (Steele, Spectator No.1).Addison and Steele successfully implemented their social agenda through this magazine, which was “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality. . .to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffee houses”. Through the periodical essay, they aimed to elevate public opinion and taste in matters of “manners, morals, art, and literature”. Yet, in spite of the reformist ideology underlying them, the Spectator essays never seemed prescriptive or dull. In fact, one of the chief features of The Spectator was that it managed to strike a delicate balance between its instructive import and its gentle, accessible style that made for light reading about very pertinent matters of social conduct and morality. The Spectator ran for 555 issues before being temporarily discontinued in 1712; another 80 issues were brought out by Addison in 1714.

Section 2: The Lives and Works of Addison and Steele

Richard Steele was born in Dublin in 1672. He had a difficult childhood as his father died when he was only five years old. He studied at Charterhouse School and then joined Merton College, Oxford in 1690. Thereafter, he joined the British army as a cadet and was promoted to the post of Captain when he wrote a funeral poem for Queen Mary. He made his first foray into the world of literature with The Christian Hero (1701), a prose work that had for its hero an idealized man whose virtuous nature reflected the author’s reformist zeal. He also wrote three comedies for the stage, The Funeral (1701), The Lying Lover (1703) and The Tender Husband (1705), none of which were commercially successful. His literary career took off in 1709 when he started publishing TheTatler with the help of Addison; subsequently, the two also collaborated on The Spectator and made the periodical essay a popular literary form in England. Steele followed this up with the publication of The Guardian and The Englishman in 1713. In the same year, he was also elected to the Parliament from Stockbridge. Following the accession of King George I to the throne, Steele was appointed as the supervisor of Drury Lane Theatre and was awarded a knighthood in 1715. He published his last comedy, The Conscious Lovers , in 1722. He died in Carmarthen in 1729. Though considered by many to be a lesser writer than Addison, Steele’s contribution to the formation of a popular, genteel, middle class sensibility through his plays and essays was significant enough for him to be remembered as a master of 18th century English literature.

Joseph Addison was born in 1672 in Wiltshire. He was educated at Charterhouse School, where he first met Richard Steele, with whom he shared a lasting professional and personal association. He attended Queen’s College, Oxford, where he achieved distinction in classical studies, and subsequently studied at Magdalen College. His first major literary work, An Account of the Greatest English Poets , was published in 1694. Through the 1690s, Addison published several Latin poems, which brought him to the notice of John Dryden. Between 1699 and 1703, he toured the Continent, where he met many political leaders and diplomats. In 1705 he published a poem called The Campaign , celebrating the recent victory of the allied forces over

France in the Battle of Blenheim, which secured him the position of the Commissioner of Appeals and subsequently Under-Secretary of State in the ruling Whig government. His political career reached its zenith in 1708 when he became a member of the Parliament. Addison’s literary career entered a productive phase in 1709, when Steele started publishing The Tatler . Addison’s regular contributions to the periodical soon became indispensable to its success. In fact, though Addison contributed fewer essays to The Tatler than Steele, his reputation soon overtook his friend’s. In 1711, they co-founded The Spectator , which was an instant hit with readers and ran to a total of 555 issues. Addison also wrote a neo-classical tragedy, Cato , which was produced in 1713. He died in 1719 at the age of 48 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Section 3: Characterization of Sir Roger

One of Addison and Steele’s most enduringly popular creations is the character of Sir Roger, a benign old landlord whose good nature and odd habits make him the subject of Mr. Spectator’s kind yet humorous observations. In ‘A Sunday at Sir Roger’s’ ( Spectator No. 112), Mr. Spectator draws a character sketch of Sir Roger as the well-meaning but eccentric leader of a small village community. Sir Roger is characterized as a man who is sensible of his duties towards his parishioners in his capacity as their landlord. As a figure of authority to his tenants, Sir Roger combines qualities of firmness and generosity in dealing with them. Thus, he takes the initiative to decorate the interiors of his church with Biblical texts, in addition to railing in the communion table and buying a beautiful pulpit-cloth at his own expense. This reveals his attention to good form and his willingness to contribute to the improvement of the church in order to inspire in the villagers a sense of admiration and respect for it. He also implements simple but effective plans to make his parishioners attend church more regularly: he gives each of them a hassock and a Common Prayer Book and employs a wandering singing master to instruct them correctly in the tunes of the psalms. In addition, he rewards children who answer well on catechism day with a copy of the Bible and sometimes sends a portion of bacon to their mothers by way of encouragement. He also increases the clerk’s annual salary by five pounds and promises to consider further increments in order to encourage young people to offer their services to the church. These constitute Sir Roger’s subtle strategy of encouragement to his villagers to attend church, as he refrains from using his position of authority as their landlord to enforce compulsory attendance and instead makes church-going a more attractive proposition for them. His keen attention to their material needs also indicates a very pragmatic approach to the actual practice of religion rather than a theoretical understanding of it.These strategies reflect his determined, commonsensical, enterprising approach to his responsibilities as the landlord and establish him as a man who is capable of using his superior economic and social power to the advantage of his villagers.

This impulse to help his dependents also characterizes Sir Roger’s conduct with his servants in the private domain of his home. In ‘The Coverley Household’ ( Spectator No. 107), Mr. Spectator observes with admiration the mutual regard and affection that exists between Sir Roger and his staff in his country house, evident from the way they eagerly wait to perform some service for their master rather than dread or resent being assigned some work:

A man who preserves a respect founded on his benevolence to his dependents lives rather like a prince than a master in his family; his orders are received as favours, rather than duties; and the distinction of approaching him is part of the reward for executing what is commanded by him.

Mr. Spectator believes that it is Sir Roger’s calm and kindly disposition, as well as his efficient management of his finances, that ensures the smooth running of the household. The fact that unlike many men in his position, Sir Roger never treats his servants with contempt and is always reasonable in his orders to them inspires in them a feeling of respect rather than fear towards their master. Thus, even when they are summoned by Sir Roger, the servants do not fear being reprimanded for some slight error on their part but know that he means to ask after some of his tenants. Sir Roger’s general attitude of paternal concern for his household staff and his parishioners is indeed the basis of a harmonious atmosphere at his home as well as in his village. Sir Roger’s genuine desire to assist the lesser privileged improve their lot also manifests itself in the way he rewards his staff for their good service. Mr. Spectator observes that contrary to the practice common to many men and women of his social class, Sir Roger does not distribute discarded clothes to his servants by way of rewards; rather, he helps them find independent livelihood should they so desire. Sir Roger’s economical management of his estate gives him the financial liberty to settle a tenement to an ambitious servant eager to make a living in the world outside or to pay him better for his services should he choose to stay back in the household. As a result, many of Sir Roger’s old servants have been in the employ of his family for generations, and many of his tenants are his former servants or their children, all of whom owe to him a sense of reverence and allegiance. Sir Roger is also presented as a man who does not boast of his acts of generosity to his servants – thus, though he introduces one of his tenants to Mr. Spectator as a “a very worthy gentleman”, he does not reveal that the man used to be his servant before being given the position of a tenant. The unassuming fashion in which Sir Roger takes on the responsibility of promoting the welfare of his dependents indicates the genuineness of his concern for them.Sir Roger is thus portrayed as a benevolent father-figure who holds the entire village community together.

Section 4: Language, Style and Tone

Both Addison and Steele use the English language in a way that sets their essays apart from the floral style adopted by many British prose writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. As their target audiences were ordinary middle class men and women, these writers adopted a simplicity of vocabulary and syntax that did not task the readers’ skills of comprehension nor abused their sense of genteel propriety. Addison’s style in ‘A Sunday at Sir Roger’s’ is representative of his usual manner of writing in most of the Coverley papers. He portrays Sir Roger as a well- intentioned and affable if slightly eccentric man, who has many typical behavioral traits of a country knight. Through the acutely perceptive voice of the narrator, Addison brings to the fore the little follies that distinguish Sir Roger’s social conduct and make him a more believable character than he would have been without these slight imperfections to set off his virtues. Thus, for instance, Mr. Spectator notes that Sir Roger “will suffer nobody to sleep in [the church] besides himself ”, and “if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servant to them” (emphases added). The tone of these lines is so gently ironic that one can almost visualize Mr. Spectator smiling to himself as he makes these humorous observations. There is no admonition or sarcasm in these lines, only a mildly amused indulgence that makes the narrator’s voice the prism through which the reader sees the world inhabited by Sir Roger and his villagers. In another instance, the narrator describes how Sir Roger loudly chides one of his parishioners for being distracted while the whole congregation was praying. By thus pointing out the contradictions between the intent of his words and the effects of his own actions, the narrator subtly describes, in a tone that is discerning yet not reprimanding, funny yet not mocking, Sir Roger’s conduct as marked by odd foibles that make him all the more likeable. As an outsider in Sir Roger’s world, Mr. Spectator serves as the perfect mouthpiece for Addison to express his assessment of the squire’s character in a manner that is neutral and objective without being overly critical or indifferent. Addison also highlights the importance of church-going in the communal life of villagers without sounding prescriptive or dull. Thus, even when he emphasizes the alleviating influence of the church on its members, he prefers to use a simple, homely metaphor – “Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week” – that effectively conveys his meaning without sounding overburdened with the seriousness of the lesson he seeks to impart. The careful choice of words here represents Addison’s larger purpose in writing such essays: that is, to instruct his readers in matters of manners and morals without sounding distant or condescending. In fact, this fine balance between the seriousness of meaning and the simplicity of form has been famously described by Samuel Johnson as Addison’s “middle style” and is indicative of his awareness of the tastes of his readers, a majority of whom were middle class people who wished to learn about proper social conduct.

In comparison to Addison, Steele has a more direct approach to his subject matter. The subtle irony and humour that characterize Addison’s style assume a more analytical edge in Steele’s hands. Thus, in ‘The Coverley Household’, Mr. Spectator makes several deductions about Sir Roger’s character based on the equation he shares with his servants rather than simply reporting what he sees. He begins with a general observation that sets the tone of the essay:

The reception, manner of attendance, undisturbed freedom, and quiet, which I meet with here in the country, has confirmed me in the opinion I always had, that the general corruption of manners in servants is owing to the conduct of masters.

The narrator presents a series of similar observations throughout the essay, using Sir Roger’s management of his household as an exemplary case to defend his central thesis, that goodness in a servant reflects the goodness of the master. He infers that Sir Roger’s equanimity in his dealings with his servants arises from his careful management of his estate, which ensures that he is never anxious or frustrated about the performance of his duties as landlord. Steele is more unreserved than Addison in praising Sir Roger’s performance of his duties as the lord and master of his household, just as he is more forthright with his censure of those gentlemen who are inconsistent or unfair in their conduct with their servants. Thus, Mr. Spectator reminds the reader of “the sense that great persons in all ages have had of the merit of their dependents, and the heroic services which men have done their masters in the extremity of their fortunes”. The balanced structure of the sentence here is typical of Steele’s style in the essay and reflects his appreciation of the mutual respect and harmony existing between social classes and his idealization of the master-servant relation in the specific context of Sir Roger’s household. The tone of the narrator is approbatory but not patronizing, as Sir Roger is held up as a role model for men of his position who often fail in their duties towards their servants and consequently lose the respect they consider to be due to their class.

Section 5: Social Commentary

In these essays, Addison and Steele paint a picture of everyday life in 18th century rural England, which would have had a certain appeal to the curiosity of their London readers. Both authors present a view of a small community in which class distinctions are maintained through the diligent performance of specific roles by the landed gentry as well as working class people and agricultural labourers. Thus, in both the essays, Sir Roger is characterized in the context of his relations with his social inferiors, either in the private domain of his home or in the public domain of the parish church, which gives the reader an insight into the customary beliefs and practices that defined power relations between the aristocracy and the landless folk. The almost competitive zeal with which Sir Roger’s servants perform their duties towards their master in ‘The Coverley Household’ is indicative of the degree to which their individual and social worth depends on the favour they receive from him. While the narrator concedes that fortune is often the only factor that distinguishes a master from his servants, he also reinforces the belief that it is the duty of the rich to set an example for their servants in matters of social conduct. Mr. Spectator’s appreciation of Sir Roger’s frugal management of his household and of his cordial generosity towards his servants reveals Steele’s essential conservatism, as he highlights the merits of a social structure in which the markers of class difference are clearly maintained. Thus, at the very outset, Mr. Spectator refers rather despairingly to “the general corruption of manners in servants”, which he then proceeds to contrast with the exemplary case of Sir Roger’s country house. The implied contrast here is between the changes in the social fabric the narrator witnesses in the city and the preservation of the traditional ways of communal life that he observes in the country. Though he approves of Sir Roger’s promotion of several of his servants to tenancy, Mr. Spectator still emphasizes how this “benevolence”ensures the continued loyalty of the servants to their master:

This manumission and placing them in a way of livelihood, I look upon as only what is due to a good servant, which encouragement will make his successor be as diligent, as humble, and as ready as he was. There is something wonderful in the narrowness of those minds which can be pleased, and be barren of bounty to those who please them.

Thus, while Steele admires Sir Roger for his willingness to let his servants move up the social ladder, he seems more impressed with the way in which such upward social mobility leaves the fundamental class structure of the village intact. In fact, the harmonious environment that the narrator enjoys so greatly in Sir Roger’s household and his village results from the common allegiance that its members feel towards the landlord. The fact that Sir Roger enjoys the loyalty of his dependents, some of whom belong to a long line of servants employed in the house for generations and others who owe their living as tenants to his financial support, firmly establishes him at the centre of social power. The “silly sense of equality” between master and servant that the narrator detects and condemns in other households is kept at bay in Sir Roger’s estate precisely through the squire’s performance of his duties as the leader of the village community.

Similarly, in ‘A Sunday at Sir Roger’s’, Mr. Spectator states that the rural society that Sir Roger lives in needs to be brought under the order of the church so that its members do not descend into uncivilized behaviour. Thus, the parishioners’ role is to not only attend church but also to perform the civilizing labour of appearing in their best clothes, engaging in polite conversation with their neighbours, encouraging fellow parishioners and family members to attend church regularly (like Sir Roger) so as to lead by example. The church functions not only as a religious institution but also as a space within which the parishioners learn the rules of proper social conduct and etiquette. By drawing a parallel between a city dweller at the stock exchange and a country fellow at the church, the narrator emphasizes the social significance of attending church in the lives of the villagers; the church serves – over and above its obvious religious function as a place of worship – as a secular, public space where the civic performance of belonging to a community is carried out by each individual parishioner. The narrator portrays Sir Roger’s parishioners as a fairly disciplined lot who are willing to be guided by their landlord, but who are not sophisticated enough to discern the peculiar contradictions between his own words and actions. Thus, when Sir Roger speaks up in the middle of a prayer, warning one of his parishioners not to disturb the congregation, his odd behaviour goes unremarked. Similarly, though the village community excels in singing psalms, they do not seem to mind the fact that the landlord himself occasionally draws out a song longer than the rest of the congregation. Such reverential acceptance of Sir Roger’s amusing eccentricities by the villagers suggests that they lack the critical acumen – displayed so subtly by the narrator himself through his ironic observations – to question the landlord or even detect the humorous aspects of his conduct. In fact, the authority of the church is conflated here with that of Sir Roger, who, by example, instils the virtue of regular attendance despite the peculiarities of this attendance.By way of offering a contrast to the harmonious state of affairs in Sir Roger’s parish, the narrator cites the instance of the neighboring village, where an ongoing feud between the landlord and the parson has resulted in an impasse, with the former discouraging his tenants from attending church and the latter taking jibes at him during the weekly service. The ordinary villagers, the narrator observes, are unable to adhere to religious faith or social discipline, when their betters set such bad examples. The implied social message here is that figures of authority in the village, whether they be respected for their wealth or their learning, ought to work in close cooperation in order that the common run of men and women follow the rules of proper conduct laid down for them by their superiors. The church is represented as a microcosm of the village community itself, where members/patrons can only contribute to its advancement and, more importantly, to the preservation of social order through a pledging or exerting of their best, most agreeable and acceptable “forms”.

Section 6: Conclusion

The turn of the 18th century was popularly perceived as marking a significant shift away from the decadence that characterized King Charles II’s reign and the beginning of a new “Augustan” age. Addison and Steele emerged as the social prophets of this new age, guiding their readers in matters of good manners, taste and morals in a mode that avoided the formality of a sermon and substituted it with the appeal of identifiable character ‘types’. Through the periodical essay, Addison and Steele addressed as well as created a new readership for literature in 18th century England, one whose members were mostly London-based professionals who desired to be entertained as well as instructed in matters of social decorum. By addressing issues that were topical and relevant to this emergent audience, Addison and Steele transformed the genre of the essay itself from a serious, lengthy, classical mode of philosophical or literary deliberation into something that was quick and easy to read and comprehend. These authors can also be credited with the evolution of a distinct prose style that eschewed the complexity of philosophy, law and religion and introduced a lighter register devoid of crudeness. The famous 18th century scholar and critic Samuel Johnson praised Addison’s prose style and said, “Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison”. While Addison’s style was certainly more technically refined than Steele’s, later critics like James Leigh-Hunt and George Sherburn have indicated a preference for the latter’s passion and spontaneity. Others like JurgenHabermas have suggested that the Spectator essays effected a “structural transformation of the public sphere” in 18th century England through their persistent engagement with matters concerning the emergent middle class. Scott Paul Gordon has argued that by presenting their subjects through the discerning gaze of Mr. Spectator, Addison and Steele introduced a form of modern subjectivity based on the readers’ anxiety about being constantly monitored and their resultant impulse to improve themselves. While critics like Stuart Sherman trace the evolution of a new form of private identity by examining the structural similarities between the periodical essay and the Puritan diary, others like Scott Black focus on the literary form as a site of confluence of print technology and urban culture that led to the creation of an urban “civil society”, one that was based on the transformation of a “private ethos of friendship” into a “public discourse of sociability”.

Points to Ponder

Influence of periodical essays on 18th century British urban culture
Representation of gender in 18th century periodical essays
The contribution of the periodical essay to the evolution of English literary criticism

Do You Know

Joseph Addison and Richard Steele appear as minor characters in William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel The History ofHenry Esmond .
Richard Steele wrote over 400 letters to Mary Scurlock in the course of their courtship and marriage.
Bloom, Edward A. and Lillian D. Bloom. The Critical Heritage: Joseph Addison and Richard Steele . London: Routledge, 1986. Print.
DeMaria, Robert, Jr. “The Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essay.” The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660-1780 . Ed. John Richetti. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 527-48. Print.
Justice, George. The Manufacture of Literature: Writing and the Marketplace in Eighteenth-Century England . London: Rosemont, 2002. Print.
Powell, Manushag N. Performing Authorship in Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals . Lanham: Bucknell University Press, 2012. Print.
Squibbs, Richard. Urban Enlightenment and the Eighteenth Century Periodical Essay .
New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014. Print.
Woodrum, Anne. “The Form of the Periodical Essay”. Politics, Literary Culture, and Theatrical Media in London: 1625-1725. Boston: University of Massachusetts.http://www.london.umb.edu/index.php/entry_detail/the_form_of_t he_periodical_essay/print_literature/, Accessed on September 14, 2014.Web.

M Ali Notes

Search this blog, addison as an essayist, post a comment.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literary Criticism of Joseph Addison

Literary Criticism of Joseph Addison

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on December 17, 2017 • ( 3 )

Though he was also a poet and dramatist, Joseph Addison (1672–1719) is best known as an essayist, and indeed he contributed much to the development of the essay form, which, like the literary form of the letter, flourished in the eighteenth century. Together with his friend and colleague Richard Steele whom he had known since his schooldays, he authored a series of articles in the periodicals the Tatler (1709–1711) and the Spectator (1711–1714). It was his ambition to bring philosophical, political, and literary discussion within the reach of the middle classes. He was a politician as well as a writer, holding positions of undersecretary of state, lord lieutenant, and then chief secretary for Ireland, as well as being a member of the Whig or Liberal Party from 1708 until his death. Steele too was a political liberal, and the two men used their periodicals for literary, moral, and educational purposes. To these ends, they offered character sketches of fictional personages which commented on contemporary issues and manners, and offered satiric portraits from a broadly humanitarian and largely middle-class framework of values. The “essay” as developed by these two writers – who wrote anonymously for their periodicals – was both a personal document as well as an attempt to probe the truth of things, in a dramatic and witty manner but ultimately for the moral enlightenment of their readers. The essays were journalistic inasmuch as they addressed a cross-section of topical events and concerns, ranging from codes of conduct, fashions in dress, marriage conventions, to political propaganda. Catering as it did for an increasingly literate middle-class readership, the Tatler was immediately popular and its undoing was its involvement in political partisanship; committed to Whig or Liberal causes, it saw the downfall of the Whig Party and was increasingly attacked by the Tory press, as the Conservative Party rose to power. Only two months after its demise in January 1711, the two writers launched the Spectator, which they managed to keep free of political partisanship. This latter periodical became famous for its characterizations of fictitious personae, such as Sir Roger, Sir Andrew, and Will Honeycomb, which were conducted with a vitality and coherence that affected subsequent novelistic writing.

Indeed, although these periodicals were addressed to the middle classes, their function was to reform the values of this class rather than merely to propagate or expound them. In the Spectator No. 6, Steele referred to his age as “a corrupt Age,” devoted to luxury, wealth, and ambition rather than to the virtues of “good-will, of Friendship, of Innocence.”1 Steele urges that people’s actions should be directed toward the public good rather than merely private interests, and that these actions should be governed by the dictates of reason, religion, and nature (Spectator, 68–70). In the Spectator there are several essays or articles dealing with specifically literary-critical issues, such as the nature of tragedy, wit, genius, the sublime, and the imagination. As far as tragedy goes, Addison and Steele advise following the precepts of Aristotle and Horace. Their general prescription is to follow nature, reason, and the practice of the ancients (Spectator, 87).

In 1711, the year in which Pope ’s Essay on Criticism attempted to distinguish between true and false wit, Addison attempted the same task in Nos. 61 and 62 of the Spectator. In the first of these, he argues that puns and quibbles are species of “false” wit; with the exception of Quintilian and Longinus, none of the ancient writers, he says, made a distinction between puns and true wit. In his second piece on wit, Addison finds Dryden ’s definition of wit as “a Propriety of Words and Thoughts adapted to the Subject” to be too broad: it could apply to all good writing, not merely to wit (Spectator, 108). He prefers John Locke’s distinction, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding , between wit and judgment, cited above. Locke had argued that those endowed with wit and those capable of judgment are not usually the same persons, since these involve diverse procedures. Wit consists in bringing together ideas which resemble one another, with “quickness” and “variety.” Under this general procedure fall the various rhetorical tropes such as metaphor and allusion. Judgment, on the other hand, lies in separating ideas carefully, such that one idea is not mistaken for another (Essay, II, xi, 2). Addison himself adds that not every resemblance of ideas can be termed wit: the resemblance must give delight and surprise to the reader (Spectator, 105). He includes under Locke’s definition of wit not only metaphor but also similes, allegories, parables, fables, dreams, and dramatic writing. He further adds that resemblance of ideas is not the only source of wit: the opposition of ideas can also produce wit (Spectator, 110).

On the basis of Locke’s definition of wit, Addison produces a definition of false wit: whereas true wit consists in the resemblance and congruity of ideas, false wit is produced by the resemblance and congruity of single letters, as in anagrams; of syllables, as in doggerel rhymes; of words, as in puns and quibbles; and of entire sentences. Addison suggests that, in addition to true and false wit, there is a hybrid species, which he calls “mixed wit,” which consists partly in the resemblance of words and partly in the resemblance of ideas. Such mixed wit, which he finds in writers such as Cowley and Ovid (but not in Dryden , Milton, the Greeks, and most Roman authors), is a “Composition of Punn and true Wit . . . Its Foundations are laid partly in Falsehood and partly in Truth” (Spectator, 107–108). Addison cites with approval the French critic Bouhours ’ view that “it is impossible for any Thought to be beautiful which is not just, and has not its Foundation in the Nature of Things: That the Basis of all Wit is Truth; and that no thought can be valuable, of which good Sense is not the Ground-work” (Spectator, 108–109). These remarks come strikingly close to Pope’s definition of true wit as “Nature to advantage dress’d”: both formulations ground wit in truth, the similarity here revealing the profoundly neoclassical disposition adopted by Addison. In No. 65 of the Spectator, Steele similarly states: “I shall always make Reason, Truth, and Nature the Measures of Praise and Dispraise,” urging the use of these standards rather than the “generality of Opinion” (Spectator, 111).

However, while Addison and Steele assume a neoclassical stance in invoking absolute standards rather than public opinion, they do in later essays somewhat anticipate the more modern tendency to appeal to the collective taste of a community of readers. In No. 409 of the Spectator, Addison defines taste as “that faculty of the Soul, which discerns the Beauties of an Author with Pleasure, and the Imperfections with Dislike.” The test of whether someone possesses this faculty, he says, is to read the “celebrated Works of Antiquity” which have withstood the test of time, as well as those modern works which “have the Sanction of the Politer Part of our Contemporaries” (Spectator, 202). The person of taste will appreciate the beauties of these texts. Like Dryden , and later writers such as Arnold and Eliot, Addison appeals here to the authority of a cultured community of readers, as well as to the “timeless” principles embodied in the classics. His position appears to straddle both a classical disposition centered on the authority of the text and a modern attitude that accords the readership an integral role in the assigning of literary value. With similar ambivalence, he views the faculty of taste as “in some degree born with us,” but as capable of cultivation through exposure to refined writings, to conversation with cultured people so as to rectify the partiality of our assessment, and to the best critics of both ancient and modern times (Spectator, 203– 204). Deepening this ambivalence still further, Addison states that although in poetry the unities of time, place, and action, as well as other classical precepts, are “absolutely necessary,” he also insists that “there is still something more essential to the Art, something that elevates and astonishes the Fancy, and gives a Greatness of Mind to the Reader, which few of the Critics besides Longinus have considered” (Spectator, 204). The insistence of the appeal to fancy as more essential than merely observing the classical rules, as well as the appeal to Longinus, suggests a dissatisfaction with the view of art as a purely rational, wholly explicable process. This kind of dissatisfaction, somewhat amorphous at this transitional stage of literary-critical history, will later blossom into certain Romantic formulations of art.

Such blossoming has one of its germs in Addison’s essay in No. 411 of the Spectator on the pleasures of the imagination. Addison suggests here that our sigh is the most perfect and delightful sense: “It fills the Mind with the largest Variety of Ideas, converses with its Objects at the greatest Distance, . . . spreads itself over an infinite Multitude of Bodies, comprehends the largest Figures, and brings into our reach some of the most remote Parts of the Universe” (Spectator, 205–206). It is the sense of sight that furnishes the imagination with its ideas. Addison defines the pleasures of imagination (a term he uses interchangeably with “fancy”) as arising “from visible Objects, either when we have them actually in our View, or when we call up their Ideas into our Minds” by various forms of art. While Addison acknowledges that there can be no image in the imagination which we do not first receive through our sight, he also points out that “we have the Power of retaining, altering and compounding those Images, which we have once received, into all the varieties of Picture and Vision that are most agreeable to the Imagination.” And through this faculty we can create scenes “more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole Compass of Nature” (Spectator, 206). These comments anticipate the formulations of many Romantic writers, suggesting as they do that we have a powerful faculty in imagination for transcending and transforming nature.

Addison obliquely anticipates Coleridge in distinguishing between the “primary pleasures” of imagination, which proceed from objects that lie before us, and “secondary pleasures” which flow from the ideas of visible objects, called up in our memories, in the absence of the objects themselves (Spectator, 206–207). Like Kant, Addison situates imagination somewhere between sense and understanding; it is higher than sense but lower than understanding. The pleasures of understanding are more “preferable” because they are based on new knowledge; yet the pleasures of imagination, Addison adds, are just “as great and as transporting”; they are also more accessible, inciting our immediate assent to beauty (Spectator, 207). Moreover, someone possessed of refined imagination “looks upon the World, as it were, in another Light, and discovers in it a multitude of Charms, that conceal themselves from the generality of Mankind” (Spectator, 207). He also points out that the pleasures of the fancy or imagination, derived from scenes of nature or art, have a healthful and restorative influence on our bodies and minds (Spectator, 208). Here we seem to reach a precarious balance between classical or neoclassical insistence on the superiority of reason and intellect and a Romantic insight into the transformative powers of imagination, a power that is potentially infinite, that can raise our insight above conventional perceptions of the world, and that can even exert a morally beneficent influence on our sensibilities.

In a second essay on imagination, in No. 412 of the Spectator, Addison deals briefly with both beauty and sublimity. The primary pleasures of imagination, he says, arise from the sight of objects that are great, uncommon, or beautiful. The first of these attributes, greatness, he defines as the “Largeness of a whole View, considered as one entire Piece,” as exemplified by vast uncultivated stretches of desert or mountain. Again, somewhat anticipating Kant, he suggests that our imagination “loves to be filled with an Object, or to grasp at anything that is too big for its Capacity.” At such unbounded views, we experience a stillness and amazement of the soul, in virtue of our hatred of confinement and our profound desire for freedom. Kant’s view will be somewhat different, but nonetheless grounded on our desire for freedom: while the immensity of nature exceeds the power of imagination, that immensity is itself comprehended by a higher power, the faculty of reason. For Addison, the pleasure in such unlimited views derives from the fact that the eye can expatiate on the immensity of its vision and lose it self amidst the Variety of Objects” (Spectator, 209). While Kant thus restrains the boundaries of imagination, subordinating this faculty to reason, Addison postulates a more Romantic attitude, almost Keatsian, whereby the perceiving subject merges with the objects of its vision.

Also Romantic is Addison’s view that we derive imaginative pleasure from whatever is new or uncommon; such novelty offers “agreeable Surprise” and gratifies our curiosity because we are “tired out with so many repeated Shows of the same Things,” and welcome “Strangeness of . . . Appearance” (Spectator, 210). We enjoy scenes that are perpetually shifting and dynamic rather than static. This insistence on novelty, strangeness, and the dynamism of nature was to be an integral element of many Romantic visions of the world. The third kind of primary pleasure of imagination is caused by beauty. Again, like Kant, and anticipating modern Romantic conceptions, Addison views the perception of beauty not in the objective terms inherited from medieval aesthetics – harmony, proportion, order – but as a process bypassing reason entirely and as governed by imagination. The effect of beauty is immediate and definite: beauty “diffuses a secret Satisfaction . . . through the Imagination . . . there are several Modifications of Matter which the Mind, without any previous Consideration, pronounces at first sight Beautiful or Deformed” (Spectator, 211). However, Addison acknowledges that there is a second kind of beauty that consists in “the Gaiety or Variety of Colours, in the Symmetry and Proportion of Parts, in the Arrangement and Disposition of Bodies, or in a just Mixture and Concurrence of all together” (Spectator, 212). What is interesting about this definition is that it preserves some of the elements of classical notions of beauty (symmetry, order, proportion) but locates these not exclusively in objects but in our subjective response, which he characterizes as a “secret Delight,” a pleasure beyond the explanatory range of reason. Finally, he points out that, while objects that are great, uncommon, or beautiful all produce pleasure, this pleasure is multiplied and intensified when these qualities merge, and when the senses on which they are based, such as sight and sound, enter the mind together.

All in all, the views of Addison and Steele express an interesting combination of neoclassical values with dispositions that, in their more sustained treatment by later writers, will be articulated into elements of a Romantic vision of the world and the human self. Addressing themselves to a broad middle-class public immersed in the materialist and pragmatist ideologies of bourgeois thought, their insistence on classical values might be seen as part of their endeavor to cultivate the moral, religious, and literary sensibilities of this class; they were nonetheless obliged, however, to accommodate the more recent attitudes toward beauty and the imagination, attitudes gesturing in the direction of Romanticism , which equally undermined the conventional values of this political class.

Notes 1. Addison and Steele, Selections from the Tatler and the Spectator, ed. Robert J. Allen (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961), pp. 67–68. Hereafter cited as Spectator.

Joseph Addison

Addison’s satiric approach.

Addison is one of the greatest prose satirists of the golden age of satire, namely the era of Queen Anne. He was a great critic and social reformer and he was dissatisfied with the departure of the people from common sense, reason, and refinement, as was apparent from their manners of dress and behaviour. He tried his best in The Taller and The Spectator "to banish vice from the territories of Britain." This reformative intention found a very eligible weapon in satire. But Addison’s style and diction of satire is fundamentally different from his contemporaries like Pope, Dryden, Defoe and Swift - other great satirists. Unlike others, Addison (and Steele) wrote in an easy, conversational prose style, and he is never personal in his attack. His approach is much milder in tone, his intention being “to satirise the vanity of the society”, not to ridicule an individual.

Addison’s satire is neither too particular nor too general. He attacks neither individual men nor man but, to use his own expression, "multitudes." He ridicules the groups of people who patronise numerous follies, fopperies, and frivolities which offend good taste. He lashes the vice but "spares the man". He is basically critical not of people but the follies they patronise. It goes to the credit of Addison that as a satirist he never indulged in clashes of personalities.

The character of Sir Roger de Coverley was created by Addison and Steel. Through him, Addison launched his good natured satire at the Tory country gentleman stereotype of his age. While the healthy living and paternalistic communal relations demonstrated by Sir Roger are portrayed with subtle admiration, his dealings with the local church are highly satirized in “Sir Roger at Church”. Mr. Spectator could not suppress a hint of bemusement over Sir Roger’s complete authority in the church writing that, ‘As Sir Roger is Landlord to the whole Congregation; he keeps them in very good Order, and will suffer no body to sleep in it besides himself…’ The squire routinely caused disruptions such as lengthening the verses of psalms, standing while others were kneeling so as to note any absences and interrupting the sermon to tell people not to disturb the congregation with fidgeting or making noise. Mr. Spectator opines that the worthiness of his character made these behavioural oddities seem like foils rather than blemishes of his good qualities. He also notes that none of the other parishioners were polite or educated enough to recognise the ridiculousness of Sir Roger’s behaviour in and authority over the church. These observations of Sir Roger’s love of the high-Anglican church in the countryside are essential to the authors’ original purpose for creating the character, to mock the seemingly backwards rural Tory. During the decades following the writing of The Spectator , religious toleration gradually replaced strict conformity. Like the rest of the Tory party, Sir Roger de Coverley stubbornly resisted this change. Besides he had vested interest in Church’s authority.

In Sir Roger at Home , Fielding’s purpose is twofold. He focuses on what was good in the old order of things; at the same time he shows that such relations are things of the past. Sir Roger’s ruling his household and the village with a genial yet somewhat autocratic sway, is a relic to be adored, but impossible to emulate.

The idea that Sir Roger and the country were frozen in a previous era demonstrates why Sir Roger de Coverley received such satirical treatment. He had the ability to represent both the positives and negatives of England’s past, as evidenced by his paternalistic charity and derided etiquette. Despite being light-heartedly satirised as a symbol of a past way of life, Sir Roger was an admirable pastoral character with a nostalgic appeal. Nonetheless, Sir Roger de Coverley served as both the lovable outdated Tory and, more importantly, also the epitome of those Addison and Steele did not want governing the nation.

Two hallmarks of Addison's satire are "irony and urbanity". Most of Addison's satiric essays are ironical in tone. But, Addison is kind, gentle and generally tolerant. He satirises because he loves humanity. To sum up, Addison was a great satirist of his age who wanted to correct his society through mild satire.

English Department SSMV

Tuesday 23 december 2014, joseph addison as an essayist, 7 comments:.

Sir its very helpful for us.... we want to know about English literature

It is very helpful.

Elegantly and elaborately analytical article... See my article : Adison's Prose Style in Sir Roger at Home

It is so useful

very useful for new blogger

Privacy Policy
Terms and Conditions

Poets and Writers

Short stories, literary essays, india today english lit 1, joseph addison’s graceful and admiring prose style, introduction: .

Addison has been most admired for the graces of his style which are doubtless the expression of his character. His love of moderation and reasonableness and his genuine good nature are reflected in the purity, regularity, clearness and felicity of his style. He is regarded as one of the masters of English prose and as one of the greatest prose stylists. What strikes us most about his style is clearness or lucidity, as well as naturalness. Addison does not strain after effects. There are no rhetorical flourishes in his prose, nothing pretentious or pompous, no affectation. It is a straight style, without any obscurities of complexities or superfluities. These qualities in his style reflect the qualities of his character like sincerity, honesty, modesty, reserve and piety. His is not a laborious style, not an involved style. The following features of his prose style are being given below:

1. Clarity and Lucidity:

The striking features of Addison's style are clarity and lucidity. There is no ambiguity. There is no obscurity or complexity. There is no superfluity. He is not difficult to understand. Even a long sentence does not present any difficulty to the understanding of the reader.

2. Marked with Exactness:

His prose is marked by exactness of expression. Nothing purposeless and superfluous in it . Everything is systematically arranged and is in its right place. Each word is a brick supporting the arch of each sentence, and each sentence supporting the whole paragraph.

3. Compactness:

Addison is equally capable of expressing himself in short and compact sentences. These sentences are neat and highly effective. In the essay, The Scope of Satire, we have the following sentence which exemplifies his ability to write in a short and neatly compact style:

“That vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous station of life.”

The following sentence from the essay, Fans , is equally effective in its brief and compact nature:

“Women are armed with fans as men with swords, and sometimes do more execution with them.”

4. The Use of Allusions and Quotations:

Addison uses several allusions in the course of his essays. He uses them to illustrate, convince add force to his argument, and enhance the ironic and satiric effect. The variety of allusions is great. There are historical allusions, Biblical, literary, and mythological allusions. Quotations too are given from many sources. The essay Female Orators has references to Socrates, his teacher Aspasia. Hudibras, the hero of Samuel Butler's satiric poem of the same name, a reference and quotation from the wife of Bath's tale, a quotation from the ancient Latin poet, Ovid. In the same essay we have also an allusion to the French philosopher, Descartes. In the essay, On Witchcraft, we have a quotation from Thomas Otway.

5. The Use of Anecdotes:

Addison uses anecdotes very successfully, mostly, of course to enhance the humour. But he also uses them to illustrate and lend greater force to his point. Sometimes these anecdotes are taken from older literature or popular stories. Mostly we have imaginary anecdotes about imaginary characters invented by Addison himself to suit the purposes of illustration of a point, or for satiric purposes. An imaginary incident is given in the essay, On Witchcraft , when Addison describes the visit to Moll White's hovel. This kind of imaginary incidents and anecdotes give vividness and colour to the essays. He also uses the device of a letter from an imaginary correspondent sometimes.

6. The Use of Similes, Metaphors and Antitheses:

Addison's style is not highly figurative. There are no high - flown or fanciful similes and metaphors in his writings. But he does use similes, metaphors, antitheses, etc. in his own homely and modest way, and very effective they are, too, in driving a point home to the reader. Nor does he work out his figures of speech in an elaborate or detailed manner:

“As the finest wines have often the taste of the soil, so even the most religious thoughts often draw something that is particular from the constitution of the mind in which they arise.” (Uncharitable Judgement)

Addison mostly uses similes and metaphors for humorous effect and in this he is very successful. Note the humour of the statement that Whigs and Tories engage when they meet as naturally as the elephant and the rhinoceros. He often borrows simile from other writers as he does in Female Orators . He quotes Hudibras- “The tongue is like a race horse, which runs the faster the lesser weight it carries.” In the essay, Fans , fans are compared to weapons in the hands of a soldier.

7. Irony, the Essence of Addison's Humour:

Humour is an important quality of Addison's style. The essays like Valetudinarians and The Cries of London are excellent examples of Addison's humour. His ironical and satirical observations on women in A Lady's Library , French Fopperies, Fans, Ladies’ Head - Dresses and The Philosophy of Hoods are most delectable, but Female Orators is a masterpiece from this point of view. Addison attacks vice and folly without trying to hurt the person or the individual. His essential humanity is seen in the nature of his irony which is directed against classes, groups or multitudes of persons and never against particular men or women. His anecdotes allusions, metaphors and similes are often used to contribute to humour and irony. But humour and irony are never allowed to get out of control. They are there for a purpose namely for the purpose of instruction and reformation.

Choice of Words and Phrases:

Addison is said to have been so fastidious in his composition that he would often stop the press to alter a preposition or conjunction. He is never slipshod of flaccid. He was an elegant craftsman who chiselled his sentences and they achieved the best possible finish. His style is marked by a free, unaffected movement, graceful transitions, delicate harmonies, an appropriateness of tone, an effortless mystery, a sense of quiet power, an absence of exaggeration or extravagance, a light and playful fancy. He obeyed the laws of literary art and his style was shaped and guided by a sense of literary beauty.

Thus, it can be observed that almost every critic has lavished praise on Addison for his style. Prof. Courthope remarks: “Addison may be said to have almost created and wholly perfected English prose as instrument for the expression of social thought.” Dr. Johnson remarks on Addison's style: “Whosoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse and elegant but not ostentatious, must give days and nights to the volume of Addison.”

Saurabh Gupta

You may like these posts, social plugin, popular posts.

Joseph Addison’s Female Orators—Summary and Critical Analysis

Francis Bacon, the Father of English Essays—His Prose Style

Bacon’s Essay Of Regiment of Health: A Critical Study

Walt Whitman’s Poem On the Beach at Night—Summary and Critical Analysis

Joseph Addison’s Essay Popular Superstitions—Summary and Critical Analysis

Charles Dickens
Francis Bacon
Jack London
Jane Austen
John Galsworthy
Joseph Addison
Walt Whitman
William Shakespeare
William Somerset Maugham
O Captain! My Captain!
Ode on A Grecian Urn
On the Beach at Night
Oliver Twist
Pride and Prejudice
The Family Reunion
The Tempest
Female Orators
Popular Superstitions
To Build A Fire
Charles Dickens 4
English Novels 7
English Plays 12
English Poetry 5
English Short Stories 9
Female Orators 1
Francis Bacon 3
Jack London 3
Jane Austen 3
John Galsworthy 5
John Keats 2
Joseph Addison 4
Literary Essays 7
O Captain! My Captain! 1
Ode on A Grecian Urn 2
Of Regiment of Health 1
Of Studies 1
Oliver Twist 4
On the Beach at Night 1
Poets and Writers 32
Popular Superstitions 1
Pride and Prejudice 2
Salvatore 3
T S Eliot 2
The Family Reunion 2
The Tempest 4
To Build A Fire 3
Walt Whitman 3
William Shakespeare 8
William Somerset Maugham 3

Most Recent

Footer Copyright

Contact form.

Search Menu
Browse content in Arts and Humanities
Browse content in Archaeology
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
Archaeology by Region
Archaeology of Religion
Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
Biblical Archaeology
Contemporary and Public Archaeology
Environmental Archaeology
Historical Archaeology
History and Theory of Archaeology
Industrial Archaeology
Landscape Archaeology
Mortuary Archaeology
Prehistoric Archaeology
Underwater Archaeology
Urban Archaeology
Zooarchaeology
Browse content in Architecture
Architectural Structure and Design
History of Architecture
Residential and Domestic Buildings
Theory of Architecture
Browse content in Art
Art Subjects and Themes
History of Art
Industrial and Commercial Art
Theory of Art
Biographical Studies
Byzantine Studies
Browse content in Classical Studies
Classical History
Classical Philosophy
Classical Mythology
Classical Literature
Classical Reception
Classical Art and Architecture
Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
Greek and Roman Papyrology
Greek and Roman Epigraphy
Greek and Roman Law
Greek and Roman Archaeology
Late Antiquity
Religion in the Ancient World
Digital Humanities
Browse content in History
Colonialism and Imperialism
Diplomatic History
Environmental History
Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
Historical Geography
History by Period
History of Emotions
History of Agriculture
History of Education
History of Gender and Sexuality
Industrial History
Intellectual History
International History
Labour History
Legal and Constitutional History
Local and Family History
Maritime History
Military History
National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
Oral History
Political History
Public History
Regional and National History
Revolutions and Rebellions
Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
Social and Cultural History
Theory, Methods, and Historiography
Urban History
World History
Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
Language Learning (Specific Skills)
Language Teaching Theory and Methods
Browse content in Linguistics
Applied Linguistics
Cognitive Linguistics
Computational Linguistics
Forensic Linguistics
Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
History of English
Language Evolution
Language Reference
Language Acquisition
Language Variation
Language Families
Lexicography
Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic Theories
Linguistic Typology
Phonetics and Phonology
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Translation and Interpretation
Writing Systems
Browse content in Literature
Bibliography
Children's Literature Studies
Literary Studies (Romanticism)
Literary Studies (American)
Literary Studies (Asian)
Literary Studies (European)
Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
Literary Studies (Modernism)
Literary Studies - World
Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
Literary Studies (19th Century)
Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
Literary Studies (African American Literature)
Literary Studies (British and Irish)
Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
Literary Studies (History of the Book)
Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
Literary Studies (War Literature)
Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
Mythology and Folklore
Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
Browse content in Media Studies
Browse content in Music
Applied Music
Dance and Music
Ethics in Music
Ethnomusicology
Gender and Sexuality in Music
Medicine and Music
Music Cultures
Music and Media
Music and Religion
Music and Culture
Music Education and Pedagogy
Music Theory and Analysis
Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
Musicology and Music History
Performance Practice and Studies
Race and Ethnicity in Music
Sound Studies
Browse content in Performing Arts
Browse content in Philosophy
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
Epistemology
Feminist Philosophy
History of Western Philosophy
Metaphysics
Moral Philosophy
Non-Western Philosophy
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Perception
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Action
Philosophy of Law
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
Practical Ethics
Social and Political Philosophy
Browse content in Religion
Biblical Studies
Christianity
East Asian Religions
History of Religion
Judaism and Jewish Studies
Qumran Studies
Religion and Education
Religion and Health
Religion and Politics
Religion and Science
Religion and Law
Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
Religious Studies
Browse content in Society and Culture
Cookery, Food, and Drink
Cultural Studies
Customs and Traditions
Ethical Issues and Debates
Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
Sports and Outdoor Recreation
Technology and Society
Travel and Holiday
Visual Culture
Browse content in Law
Arbitration
Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
Commercial Law
Company Law
Browse content in Comparative Law
Systems of Law
Competition Law
Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
Government Powers
Judicial Review
Local Government Law
Military and Defence Law
Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
Construction Law
Contract Law
Browse content in Criminal Law
Criminal Procedure
Criminal Evidence Law
Sentencing and Punishment
Employment and Labour Law
Environment and Energy Law
Browse content in Financial Law
Banking Law
Insolvency Law
History of Law
Human Rights and Immigration
Intellectual Property Law
Browse content in International Law
Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
Public International Law
IT and Communications Law
Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
Law and Politics
Law and Society
Browse content in Legal System and Practice
Courts and Procedure
Legal Skills and Practice
Primary Sources of Law
Regulation of Legal Profession
Medical and Healthcare Law
Browse content in Policing
Criminal Investigation and Detection
Police and Security Services
Police Procedure and Law
Police Regional Planning
Browse content in Property Law
Personal Property Law
Study and Revision
Terrorism and National Security Law
Browse content in Trusts Law
Wills and Probate or Succession
Browse content in Medicine and Health
Browse content in Allied Health Professions
Arts Therapies
Clinical Science
Dietetics and Nutrition
Occupational Therapy
Operating Department Practice
Physiotherapy
Radiography
Speech and Language Therapy
Browse content in Anaesthetics
General Anaesthesia
Neuroanaesthesia
Clinical Neuroscience
Browse content in Clinical Medicine
Acute Medicine
Cardiovascular Medicine
Clinical Genetics
Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Dermatology
Endocrinology and Diabetes
Gastroenterology
Genito-urinary Medicine
Geriatric Medicine
Infectious Diseases
Medical Toxicology
Medical Oncology
Pain Medicine
Palliative Medicine
Rehabilitation Medicine
Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
Rheumatology
Sleep Medicine
Sports and Exercise Medicine
Community Medical Services
Critical Care
Emergency Medicine
Forensic Medicine
Haematology
History of Medicine
Browse content in Medical Skills
Clinical Skills
Communication Skills
Nursing Skills
Surgical Skills
Browse content in Medical Dentistry
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Paediatric Dentistry
Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
Surgical Dentistry
Medical Ethics
Medical Statistics and Methodology
Browse content in Neurology
Clinical Neurophysiology
Neuropathology
Nursing Studies
Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Gynaecology
Occupational Medicine
Ophthalmology
Otolaryngology (ENT)
Browse content in Paediatrics
Neonatology
Browse content in Pathology
Chemical Pathology
Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
Histopathology
Medical Microbiology and Virology
Patient Education and Information
Browse content in Pharmacology
Psychopharmacology
Browse content in Popular Health
Caring for Others
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Self-help and Personal Development
Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
Cell Biology
Molecular Biology and Genetics
Reproduction, Growth and Development
Primary Care
Professional Development in Medicine
Browse content in Psychiatry
Addiction Medicine
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Forensic Psychiatry
Learning Disabilities
Old Age Psychiatry
Psychotherapy
Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
Epidemiology
Public Health
Browse content in Radiology
Clinical Radiology
Interventional Radiology
Nuclear Medicine
Radiation Oncology
Reproductive Medicine
Browse content in Surgery
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
General Surgery
Neurosurgery
Paediatric Surgery
Peri-operative Care
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Surgical Oncology
Transplant Surgery
Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
Vascular Surgery
Browse content in Science and Mathematics
Browse content in Biological Sciences
Aquatic Biology
Biochemistry
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Developmental Biology
Ecology and Conservation
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology
Molecular and Cell Biology
Natural History
Plant Sciences and Forestry
Research Methods in Life Sciences
Structural Biology
Systems Biology
Zoology and Animal Sciences
Browse content in Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Computational Chemistry
Crystallography
Environmental Chemistry
Industrial Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry
Materials Chemistry
Medicinal Chemistry
Mineralogy and Gems
Organic Chemistry
Physical Chemistry
Polymer Chemistry
Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
Theoretical Chemistry
Browse content in Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Architecture and Logic Design
Game Studies
Human-Computer Interaction
Mathematical Theory of Computation
Programming Languages
Software Engineering
Systems Analysis and Design
Virtual Reality
Browse content in Computing
Business Applications
Computer Security
Computer Games
Computer Networking and Communications
Digital Lifestyle
Graphical and Digital Media Applications
Operating Systems
Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
Atmospheric Sciences
Environmental Geography
Geology and the Lithosphere
Maps and Map-making
Meteorology and Climatology
Oceanography and Hydrology
Palaeontology
Physical Geography and Topography
Regional Geography
Soil Science
Urban Geography
Browse content in Engineering and Technology
Agriculture and Farming
Biological Engineering
Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
Electronics and Communications Engineering
Energy Technology
Engineering (General)
Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
History of Engineering and Technology
Mechanical Engineering and Materials
Technology of Industrial Chemistry
Transport Technology and Trades
Browse content in Environmental Science
Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
Environmental Sustainability
Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
History of Science and Technology
Browse content in Materials Science
Ceramics and Glasses
Composite Materials
Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
Nanotechnology
Browse content in Mathematics
Applied Mathematics
Biomathematics and Statistics
History of Mathematics
Mathematical Education
Mathematical Finance
Mathematical Analysis
Numerical and Computational Mathematics
Probability and Statistics
Pure Mathematics
Browse content in Neuroscience
Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
Development of the Nervous System
Disorders of the Nervous System
History of Neuroscience
Invertebrate Neurobiology
Molecular and Cellular Systems
Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
Neuroscientific Techniques
Sensory and Motor Systems
Browse content in Physics
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Biological and Medical Physics
Classical Mechanics
Computational Physics
Condensed Matter Physics
Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
History of Physics
Mathematical and Statistical Physics
Measurement Science
Nuclear Physics
Particles and Fields
Plasma Physics
Quantum Physics
Relativity and Gravitation
Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
Browse content in Psychology
Affective Sciences
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Criminal and Forensic Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Educational Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology
Health Psychology
History and Systems in Psychology
Music Psychology
Neuropsychology
Organizational Psychology
Psychological Assessment and Testing
Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
Psychology Professional Development and Training
Research Methods in Psychology
Social Psychology
Browse content in Social Sciences
Browse content in Anthropology
Anthropology of Religion
Human Evolution
Medical Anthropology
Physical Anthropology
Regional Anthropology
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Theory and Practice of Anthropology
Browse content in Business and Management
Business Ethics
Business Strategy
Business History
Business and Technology
Business and Government
Business and the Environment
Comparative Management
Corporate Governance
Corporate Social Responsibility
Entrepreneurship
Health Management
Human Resource Management
Industrial and Employment Relations
Industry Studies
Information and Communication Technologies
International Business
Knowledge Management
Management and Management Techniques
Operations Management
Organizational Theory and Behaviour
Pensions and Pension Management
Public and Nonprofit Management
Strategic Management
Supply Chain Management
Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice
Criminology
Forms of Crime
International and Comparative Criminology
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
Development Studies
Browse content in Economics
Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
Asian Economics
Behavioural Finance
Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
Economic History
Economic Systems
Economic Methodology
Economic Development and Growth
Financial Markets
Financial Institutions and Services
General Economics and Teaching
Health, Education, and Welfare
History of Economic Thought
International Economics
Labour and Demographic Economics
Law and Economics
Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
Microeconomics
Public Economics
Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
Welfare Economics
Browse content in Education
Adult Education and Continuous Learning
Care and Counselling of Students
Early Childhood and Elementary Education
Educational Equipment and Technology
Educational Strategies and Policy
Higher and Further Education
Organization and Management of Education
Philosophy and Theory of Education
Schools Studies
Secondary Education
Teaching of a Specific Subject
Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
Teaching Skills and Techniques
Browse content in Environment
Applied Ecology (Social Science)
Climate Change
Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
Natural Disasters (Environment)
Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
Browse content in Human Geography
Cultural Geography
Economic Geography
Political Geography
Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
Communication Studies
Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
Browse content in Politics
African Politics
Asian Politics
Chinese Politics
Comparative Politics
Conflict Politics
Elections and Electoral Studies
Environmental Politics
European Union
Foreign Policy
Gender and Politics
Human Rights and Politics
Indian Politics
International Relations
International Organization (Politics)
International Political Economy
Irish Politics
Latin American Politics
Middle Eastern Politics
Political Behaviour
Political Economy
Political Institutions
Political Methodology
Political Communication
Political Philosophy
Political Sociology
Political Theory
Politics and Law
Public Policy
Public Administration
Quantitative Political Methodology
Regional Political Studies
Russian Politics
Security Studies
State and Local Government
UK Politics
US Politics
Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
African Studies
Asian Studies
East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Latin American Studies
Middle Eastern Studies
Native American Studies
Scottish Studies
Browse content in Research and Information
Research Methods
Browse content in Social Work
Addictions and Substance Misuse
Adoption and Fostering
Care of the Elderly
Child and Adolescent Social Work
Couple and Family Social Work
Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
Emergency Services
Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
International and Global Issues in Social Work
Mental and Behavioural Health
Social Justice and Human Rights
Social Policy and Advocacy
Social Work and Crime and Justice
Social Work Macro Practice
Social Work Practice Settings
Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
Welfare and Benefit Systems
Browse content in Sociology
Childhood Studies
Community Development
Comparative and Historical Sociology
Economic Sociology
Gender and Sexuality
Gerontology and Ageing
Health, Illness, and Medicine
Marriage and the Family
Migration Studies
Occupations, Professions, and Work
Organizations
Population and Demography
Race and Ethnicity
Social Theory
Social Movements and Social Change
Social Research and Statistics
Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
Sociology of Religion
Sociology of Education
Sport and Leisure
Urban and Rural Studies
Browse content in Warfare and Defence
Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
Land Forces and Warfare
Military Administration
Military Life and Institutions
Naval Forces and Warfare
Other Warfare and Defence Issues
Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
Weapons and Equipment

< Previous
Next chapter >

Introduction

Published: August 2021
Cite Icon Cite
Permissions Icon Permissions

The Introduction situates the fifteen chapters of the volume in the context of the sharp decline in Addison’s cultural and literary reputation since the beginning of the twentieth century, seeking to outline ways in which this collection might help reverse that decline, or at least challenge the ideological prejudices and critical misapprehensions that block a rounded appreciation of Addison and his writings. It is in three sections, each concerned with one of the subgroupings into which the volume’s chapters divide: first, the five chapters which treat Addison’s most definitive works, The Tatler, The Spectator , and Cato ; then the four which deal with his works (now largely neglected) in verse and prose before The Spectator ; and finally the five which assess his reception and influence in Britain and Europe from the eighteenth century through Romanticism to the Victorian age. This collection of essays, the first ever published on Addison that covers his career as a whole (rather than just the literary periodicals), reminds us of the range and variety of his work and of the correspondingly diverse responses it has occasioned through the ages. In doing so, the Introduction argues, it should help loosen the hold of the narrower conception of Addison as moral exemplar and epitome of bourgeois civility, deriving from partial constructions of The Spectator and Cato , which once underpinned his fame but now drastically imperils it.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

Google Scholar Indexing
GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]

Personal account

Sign in with email/username & password
Get email alerts
Save searches
Purchase content
Activate your purchase/trial code

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card Sign in with username/password Recommend to your librarian
Institutional account management
Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institutionâ€™s website and Oxford Academic.

Click Sign in through your institution.
Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institutionâ€™s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see â€˜Sign in through society siteâ€™ in the sign in pane within a journal:

Click Sign in through society site.
When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

About Oxford Academic
Publish journals with us
University press partners
What we publish
New features
Open access
Rights and permissions
Accessibility
Advertising
Media enquiries
Oxford University Press
Oxford Languages
University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
Cookie settings
Cookie policy
Privacy policy
Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

ABOUT US ABOUT US
EVENTS EVENTS
OUR TEAM OUR TEAM
CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS
PEER REVIEWERS PEER REVIEWERS
EDITING SERVICES
BOOKS BOOKS
Editorial Contact
Sales Contact
ONLINE ACCESS ONLINE ACCESS

Editorial board
Contributors
Online Access

Steele and Addison: the periodical essay and the rise of the domestic novel

ABSTRACT. The Review, The Tatler and The Spectator were major events in the history of English prose writing at the beginning of the eighteenth century. These publications made the periodical essay fashionable, providing a model of writing with style for many generations to come. The three main heroes of the imagination that made this project a reality were Daniel Defoe, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. In the present paper we address main issues related with Steele’s and Addison’s pioneering work in The Tatler (April 1709–January 1711) and The Spectator (March 1711–December 1712; 1714), in order to grasp how a project that was started mainly by the wish to bring cultural, intellectual, scientific, esthetic, social, critical and philosophical matters to the masses – usually gathering in public places such as coffee-houses and chocolate houses at the beginning of the eighteenth century (a social phenomenon that today reminds one of conventions and literary clubs) – came to have such an enormous historical significance for not only the emergence of literary journalism, but even for the rise of the British domestic novel, whose exquisite form was to be established by Samuel Richardson a few decades later, in the 1740s.

Keywords: essay; journalism; Enlightenment; imaginative literature; the Spectator Club; virtue versus vice; moderation; the short story; the domestic novel; Richardson

Preda IA (2019) Steele and Addison: the periodical essay and the rise of the domestic novel. Stroe MA, ed. Creativity 3(2): 3–27. doi:10.22381/C3220201 1-Preda Size: 2.43 MB Format: PDF Preview

IOAN AUREL PREDA Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, English Department, The University of Bucharest, Romania

Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison was an important theorist of sociability best known for his essays published in The Tatler (1709-1711) and The Spectator (1711-1712, 1714). His essays promoted and exemplified an ideal of polite sociability that became extremely influential in the eighteenth century and afterwards. His prose style was often emulated by later periodical essayists and his character was presented as exemplary of the polite manners that he sought to describe and defend in his works. Addison was also well known as a prominent Whig politician and his literary style exemplified Whig political ideals and practices, especially after the consolidation of Whig political hegemony after the Hanoverian accession.

People > Art and Literature

People > Politics

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) was an important theorist of English sociability in the early eighteenth century. He is best known for his contributions to the periodical essays, The Tatler (1709-1711), The Spectator (1711-1712, 1714), and The Guardian (1713), although Addison was also an accomplished poet and playwright as well as conducting a successful career as a politician. Addison composed a highly successful poem in praise of the Duke of Marlborough entitled The Campaign (1704) and the play Cato (1713), which was a surprise hit on the London stage and remained one of the most popular plays of the eighteenth century. He served as a Member of Parliament for the constituencies of Lostwithiel (1708-1709) and Malmsbury (1710-1719) and held the offices of Chief Secretary for Ireland (1708-1710; 1714-1715) and Secretary of State for the Southern Department (1717-1718). But it was his work as a periodical essayist for The Tatler and The Spectator that brought Addison his greatest acclaim both in his own life and posthumously.

Born into modest gentility as the son of the Dean of Litchfield, Lancelot Addison (1632-1703), Addison was educated first at Charterhouse School, where he met his lifelong friend and collaborator, Richard Steele , and later at Oxford University. After matriculating at Queen’s College, Addison was elected to a fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1689, just after the Glorious Revolution. During his time at Magdalen, Addison befriended the ambitious young cleric, Henry Sacheverell, who would later become a highly controversial Tory preacher in Queen Anne’s reign. 1 Addison’s own politics, however, remained resolutely Whig and his political career owed much to his connections to members of the Whig Junto such as John, Baron Somers, and Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax.

1 . Brian Cowan, ‘Mr. Spectator and the Doctor: Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell’, in Paul Davis (ed.), Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming).

Addison’s political affiliation remained with the Whig party throughout his life. His loyalty to the Whig cause served him well both in his lifetime as well as after his death. Addison’s political success owed less to his service as a MP or as an office holder than it did to his work in developing a Whig political ideology that was well suited to the party’s newfound position as the natural party of government after the Glorious Revolution. Addison’s writings articulated a new vision of Whig politics. He focused less on opposition to the crown and a fear of the encroachment of Popish tyranny on English liberties that had been at the heart of late seventeenth-century Whiggery and much more so on promoting moderation, trade, and sociable manners unmarred by the religious divisions that had spurred the development of the party in the age of Charles II and James II. In his periodical prose writings, Addison presented a social vision in which commercial prosperity and moderate Christianity provided the foundation for a peaceful and sociable future; this proved to be a popular foundation for a workable political consensus for the rest of the eighteenth century, and particularly after the Hanoverian accession in 1714. 2 In conjunction with the somewhat more rarified and elitist vision of his contemporary, Anthony Ashley Cooper the third Earl of Shaftesbury , Addison helped to develop the ideological foundations for a ‘culture of politeness’ that would achieve hegemony in the age of Whig oligarchy. 3

2 . Lawrence Klein, ‘Joseph Addison’s Whiggism’, in David Womersley (ed.), ’Cultures of Whiggism’: New Essays on English Literature and Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 2005).
3 . Lawrence Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994).

Addison promoted a vision of sociability that was urbane, polite, progressive and Whig. For these reasons, he has sometimes been misunderstood as a proponent of ‘middle class’ or ‘bourgeois’ ideology. 4 Such terms were foreign to Addison’s vocabulary, but he did believe that commerce had an important place in English society and there was little sense in Addison’s work that trade was a degrading or disgraceful activity. His social vision was nevertheless hierarchical. He supported the constitutional monarchy established after the Glorious Revolution; he cherished the social and cultural supremacy of the aristocracy and gentry and provided one of the eighteenth century’s most enduring gentry role models in the figure of his fictional character, Sir Roger de Coverley. Addison enjoined commoners to emulate their social betters, and to join them in his celebration of politeness.

Politeness is a key word in Addison’s vocabulary. He saw politeness as a form of social and cultural achievement. Politeness was social because it was based on manners, and especially the customs and mores that governed interactions between individuals and made them civilized. Politeness was cultural because it was also expressed through linguistic, visual and musical artistry. Politeness distinguished civilized people from rude, uncultured barbarism. In his periodical essays, Addison enjoined his fellow readers to embrace modern politeness in both their manners and their culture. He famously told his readers that his writings ‘shall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality’ ( The Spectator, n° 10, 12 March 1711). Tempering savage wit was key to Addison’s polite reformation of manners. He sought to restrain the impulse towards vicious satire that had been characteristic of Restoration-era literary expression. Addison’s polite wit was designed to be complaisant. ‘Good nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty’, he pronounced ( The Spectator , n° 169, 13 September 1711).

4 . Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom, Joseph Addison’s Sociable Animal: In the Marketplace, on the Hustings, in the Pulpit (Providence: Brown Univ. Press, 1971).

This pairing of pleasant entertainment and morality proved to be a successful recipe. Long after his death, Addison’s essays served as a guide for sociable behaviour and his friendly but stoic literary persona provided an example of polite sociability. Addison (or at least the Addisonian ideal) became the kind of person that others strived to emulate in the eighteenth century. He served as a role model. By the early 1760s, the young James Boswell could jest with his friends about their mutual desire to resemble Addison and Boswell confided to his journal that he ‘felt strong dispositions to be a Mr. Addison.’ 5 Addison extolled the virtues of modesty and a circumspect sociability: ‘True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions’, he declared ( The Spectator , n° 15, 17 March 1711).

5 . James Boswell, London Journal 1762-1763, ed. Gordon Turnbull (London: Penguin, 2010), p. 22, 23; Lawrence Klein, ‘Addisonian Afterlives: Joseph Addison in Eighteenth-Century Culture’, Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies (35:1, 2012), p. 101-118; Philip Carter, ‘James Boswell’s Manliness’ in Tim Hitchcock and Michèle Cohen (eds), English Masculinities 1660-1800 (London: Longman, 1999), p. 111-130.

With regard to his own sociable practices, Addison was well known for his friendliness, if not perhaps for his volubility, in company. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who boasted of having spent much time ‘with the wits’, recalled that ‘Addison was the best company in the world’. When looking back upon his time as a part of Addison’s London literary circle during the last years of Anne’s reign, Alexander Pope recalled that Addison regularly met ‘his party’ at Button’s Coffeehouse, and he ‘stayed five or six hours – and sometimes far into the night’. Before he married Lady Warwick, he would breakfast with one or another of his ‘chief companions’ at his lodgings in St. James’s Place, before dining with them at Button’s or a tavern. According to Pope, ‘this was then the usual round of his life. He ate full and drank his two bottles a day’. Later in the eighteenth century, Richard Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, remarked that ‘although Addison was timid and shy in public companies, yet no man was a more interesting companion in private’. Pope noted that ‘Addison was perfect good company with intimates and had something more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man. But with any mixture of strangers … he seemed to preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of silence’. Edward Young reiterated this impression: ‘Addison was not free with superiors, rather a mute. When he began to be in company, he was all so himself, or he went on in a noble stream of thoughts and language, and all the company were fixed in hearing him’. 6

6 . Joseph Spence, Observations, Anecdotes and Characters of Books and Men, James M. Osborn (ed.), 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 1:304; 1:77; 1:78; 1:62;, 1:333; Joseph Addison, The Works of Joseph Addison, ed. Greene, 6 vols., (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859), 6:728.

Unlike other contemporary theorists of sociability, such as the third earl of Shaftesbury , Addison’s polite social ideal was distinctly heterosocial: he believed that interactions between men and women improved the manners of both sexes. He thought that ‘women were formed to temper Mankind, and sooth them into Tenderness and Compassion; not to set an Edge upon their Minds, and blow up in them those Passions which are too apt to rise of their own Accord’ ( The Spectator , n° 57, 5 May 1711). In this way, Addison’s sociable ideal had an important influence on later theorists of polite sociability, such as David Hume, who also believed that heterosociability was a hallmark of polite culture. 7

7 . Brian Cowan, ‘Reasonable Ecstasies: Shaftesbury and the Languages of Libertinism’, Journal of British Studies (37:2, April 1998), p. 111-138.

Addison’s ideal of polite sociability is epitomized in what is perhaps his most famous sentence: ‘It was said of Socrates, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit among Men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-tables, and in Coffee houses.‘ ( The Spectator, n° 10, 12 March 1711 ) He imagined a society in which learning and moral improvement were widespread and sociable. Politeness should be philosophical, but it was not meant to be cloistered away in universities or monopolized by the clergy. It should prevail in cities as well as the countryside. It should be worldly but not vulgar; it should be popular but not demotic. To the contrary, it strove to bring the best of human wisdom and the most exemplary of moral precepts to everyone. It would not be the preserve of one sex, but rather would be enlivened by the sociable interactions of men and women when brought together.

This may explain why Addison chose to write periodical essays, as they were distributed regularly (six days a week) to coffeehouses and wealthy households throughout Britain. They would be read regularly by men and women throughout the British Isles. In collected form, Addison’s essays would be published as a set of volumes that would be reprinted constantly throughout the eighteenth century. In the early nineteenth century, Nathan Drake would declare that Addison and Steele were the ‘two mighty orbs’ who were the true ‘fathers and founders of Periodical Writing’, in his Essays, Biographical, Critical and Historical (1805). 8

8 . Nathan Drake, Essays, Biographical, Critical and Historical (1805), 3 vols. (London, 1805), 1:23–24; Brian Cowan, ‘Periodical Literature’, in Nicholas McDowell and Henry Power (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of English Prose, 1640-1714 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming, c. 2022).
Partager sur Facebook
Partager sur Linkedin
Partager sur Twitter
Partager par Email
Imprimer l'article

In the DIGIT.EN.S Anthology

Project Gutenberg
73,502 free eBooks
16 by Joseph Addison

Essays and Tales by Joseph Addison

Read now or download (free!)

Similar books, about this ebook.

Privacy policy
About Project Gutenberg
Terms of Use
Contact Information

Scientist’s Biography
Sports Person’s Biography
Uncategorized

Home » Write an essay on Addison’s prose style.

Write an essay on Addison’s prose style.

Introduction: Addison has been most admired for the graces of his style which are doubtless the expression of his character. His love of moderation and reasonableness and his genuine good nature are reflected in the purity, regularity, clearness and felicity of his style. He is regarded as one of the masters of English prose and as one of the greatest prose stylists. What strikes us most about his style is clearness or lucidity, as well as naturalness. Addison does not strain after effects. There are no rhetorical flourishes in his prose, nothing pretentious or pompous, no affection. It is a straight style, without any obscurities of complexities or superfluities. These qualities in his style reflect the qualities of his character like sincerity, honesty, modesty, reserve and piety. His is not a laborious style, not an involved style. The following features of his prose style are being given below:

1. Clarity and Lucidity: The striking features of Addison’s style are clarity and lucidity. There is no ambiguity. There is no obscurity or complexity. There is no superfluity. He is not difficult to understand. Even a long sentence does not present any difficulty to the understanding of the readers.

2. Marked with Exactness: His prose is marked by exactness of expression. Nothing purposeless and superfluous is in it. Everything is systematically arranged and is in its right place. Each word is a brick supporting the arch of each sentence, and each sentence supporting the whole paragraph.

3. Compactness: Addison is equally capable of expressing himself in short and compact sentences. These sentences are neat and highly effective. In the essay. The Scope of Satire, we have the following sentence which exemplifies his ability to write in a short and neatly compact style:

“That vice and foily ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous station of life.”

The following sentence from the essay, Fans, is equally effective in its brief and compact nature:

“Women are armed with fans as men with swords, and sometimes do more execution with them.”

4. The Use of Allusions and Quotations: Addison uses several allusions in the course of his essays. He uses them to illustrate, convince, add force to his argument, enhance the ironic and satiric effect. The variety of allusions is great. There are historical allusions. Biblical. literary, and mythological allusions. Quotations too are given from many sources. The essay Female Orators has references to Socrates, his teacher Aspasia. Hudibras, the hero of Samuel Butler’s satiric poem of the same name, a reference and quotation from the wife of Bath’s tale, a quotation from the ancient Latin poet, Ovid. In the same essay we have also an allusion to the French philosopher, Descartes. In the essay. On Witchcraft, we have a quotation from Thomas Otway.

5. The Use of Anecdotes: Addison uses anecdotes very successfully, mostly, of course to enhance the humour but he also uses them to illustrate and lend greater force to his point. Sometimes these anecdotes are taken from older literature or popular stories. Mostly we have imaginary anecdotes about imagery characters invented by Addison himself to suit the purposes of illustration of a point, or for satiric purposes. An imaginary incident is given in the essay. On Witchcraft, when Addison describes the visit to Moll White’s hovel. This kind of imaginary incidents and anecdotes give vividness and colour to his essays. He also uses the device of a letter from an imaginary correspondent sometimes.

6. The Use of Similes, Metaphors and Antitheses: Addison’s style is not highly figurative. There are no high-flown or fanciful similes and metaphors in his writings but he does use similes, metaphors, antitheses, etc. in his own homely and modest way, and very effective they are, too, in driving a point home to his readers. Nor does he work out his figures of speech in an elaborate or detailed manner:

“As the feist wines have often the taste of the soil, so even the most religious thoughts often draw something that is particular from the constitution of the mind in which they arise.”

(Uncharitable Judgement)

Addison mostly uses similes and metaphors for humorous effect and in this he is very successful. Note the humour of the statement that Whigs and Tories engage when they meet as naturally as the elephant and the rhinoceros. He often borrows simile from other writers as he does in Female Orators. He quotes Hudibras “The tongue is like a race horse, which runs the faster the lesser weight it carries.” In the essay, Fans, fans are compared to weapons in the hands of a soldier.

7. Irony, the Essence of Addison’s Humour : Humour is an important quality of Addison’s style. The essays like Valetudinarians and The Cries of London are excellent examples of Addison’s humour. His ironical and satirical observations on women in A Lady’s Library. French Fopperies, Fans, Ladies Head-Dresses and The Philosophy of Hoods are most delectable, but Female Orators is a masterpiece from this point of view. Addison attacks vice and folly, without trying to hurt the person or the individual. His essential humanity is seen in the nature of his irony which is directed against classes. groups or multitudes of persons and never against particular men or women. His anecdotes allusions, metaphors and similes are often used to contribute to humour and irony but humour and irony are never allowed to get out of control. They are there for a purpose namely for the purpose of instruction and reformation.

Choice of Words and Phrases: Addison is said to have been so fastidious in his composition that he would often stop the press to alter a preposition or conjunction. He is never slipshod of flaccid. He was an elegant craftsman who chiseled his sentences till they achieved the best possible finish. His style is marked by a free, unaffected movement, graceful transitions, delicate harmonies, an appropriateness of tone, an effortless mystery, a sense of quiet power, an absence of exaggeration or extravagance, a light and playful fancy. He obeyed the laws of literary art and his style was shaped and guided by a sense of literary beauty.

Thus, it can be observed that almost every critic has lavished praise on Addison for his style. Prof. Courthope remarks: “Addison may be said to have almost created and wholly perfected English prose as instrument for the expression of social thought.” Dr. Johnson remarks on Addison’s style: “Whosoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse and elegant but not ostentatious, must give days and nights to the volumes of Addison.”

Discuss Rabindranath Tagore as a poet.

Write the critical appreciation of the poem No. 12 entitled Far Below Flowed.

Write the critical appreciation of the poem No. 11 entitled Leave this Chanting.

What is Grievance Redressal Letter?

Write some samples of Applications.

Write some model letters to editors.

Write some models of Informal letters.

Define Letter Writing and Its Types.

Define Microsoft Power Point. (Computer Skills in...

About the author.

Salman Ahmad

IMAGES

Prose: Definition and Helpful Examples of Prose in Literature • 7ESL
discuss essay
Prose Essay 1
How to Write Prose Poetry: a Six Step Guide
Probing Addison’s Prose Style
Addison's Prose Style B.A. part 1 paper 2

VIDEO

AP English Literature Prose Fiction Analysis Essay: Read the Prompt
AP English Literature Prose Fiction Analysis Essay: Read the Passage
Prose style of Joseph Addison
How to Ace the AP Literature Prose Essay
How to Write a SUCCESSFUL PROSE ANALYSIS (5 Tips)
AP English Literature Exam Prose Fiction Analysis Essay: Write a Thesis

COMMENTS

Addison's Prose Style in Sir Roger at Home
Addison has been considered the perfect model for those who wish to learn how to write English. Johnson has rightly observed, "whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.". The greatest style is the expression of the highest energy, intellectual and moral.
The Prose Style of Joseph Addison
That brings us to the most important aspect of Addison's style i.e., humour and irony. A special feature of Addison's manner of writing is his use of anecdotes. He uses them very successfully, mostly, of course, to enhance the humor. But he also uses them to illustrate and lend greater force to his point.
Addison and Steele: Contribution & Comparison to Prose
He lacks Addison's care and smoothly polite ironic insight; he is heedless, incautious in style, and inconsequent in the method. And so, in the final estimate, as the greater artist he fails." But one has to admit that Steele's writing has maintained a certain quality of freshness and charm which is lacking in Addison's.
Discuss Addison's prose style with reference to the essays prescribed
Addison's contribution to the development of English prose can not be overestimated. He perfected English prose as an instrument for the expression of social thought. Addison's prose style is what Dr. Johnson termed as the 'middle style'. A style which is not too informal, it is not rigidly formal either. A style which is free of levity and vulgarism, and at the same time easy and friendly ...
Addison and Steele
The careful choice of words here represents Addison's larger purpose in writing such essays: that is, to instruct his readers in matters of manners and morals without sounding distant or condescending. ... The famous 18th century scholar and critic Samuel Johnson praised Addison's prose style and said, "Whoever wishes to attain an English ...
Joseph Addison Analysis
Joseph Addison wrote in almost every genre common in British literature during the reigns of William III and Queen Anne. Besides poetry in Latin and English, Addison composed an opera, a tragedy ...
Addison as an Essayist
December 04, 2012. Addison, regarded as one of the greatest prose stylists in English literary history, and the 'founder of modern English essay and modern English prose, was the pioneer of a style that was very simple, lucid, natural, moderate, free from extravagant expression, and called 'middle style'. It is a style of straightness ...
Literary Criticism of Joseph Addison
In 1711, the year in which Pope's Essay on Criticism attempted to distinguish between true and false wit, Addison attempted the same task in Nos. 61 and 62 of the Spectator. In the first of these, he argues that puns and quibbles are species of "false" wit; with the exception of Quintilian and Longinus, none of the ancient writers, he says, made a distinction between puns and true wit.
Addison: Addison's Satiric Approach
Addison's Satiric Approach. Addison is one of the greatest prose satirists of the golden age of satire, namely the era of Queen Anne. He was a great critic and social reformer and he was dissatisfied with the departure of the people from common sense, reason, and refinement, as was apparent from their manners of dress and behaviour.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) IT is easy to perceive that the prose style of Addison is an extension of that of Dryden, in so far as it embodies the thought of an author directly. ... It is the supreme distinction of Addison, as the chief founder of English essay-writing, to have created in England a school of literary taste which, without ...
Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays
Abstract. Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays is a collection of fifteen essays by a team of internationally recognized experts specially commissioned to commemorate in 2019 the three-hundredth anniversary of Addison's death. Almost exclusively known now as the inventor and main author of The Spectator, probably the most widely read and imitated prose work of the eighteenth century, Addison ...
English Department SSMV: Joseph Addison as an Essayist
Addison, regarded as one of the greatest prose stylists in English literary history, and the 'founder of modern English essay and modern English prose, was the pioneer of a style that was very simple, lucid, natural, moderate, free from extravagant expression, and called 'middle style'. It is a style of straightness, without any ...
Joseph Addison's Graceful and Admiring Prose Style
Humour is an important quality of Addison's style. The essays like Valetudinarians and The Cries of London are excellent examples of Addison's humour. His ironical and satirical observations on women in A Lady's Library , French Fopperies, Fans, Ladies' Head - Dresses and The Philosophy of Hoods are most delectable, but Female Orators is a ...
Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays
Abstract. The Introduction situates the fifteen chapters of the volume in the context of the sharp decline in Addison's cultural and literary reputation since the beginning of the twentieth century, seeking to outline ways in which this collection might help reverse that decline, or at least challenge the ideological prejudices and critical ...
PDF "Pleasures of the Imagination" by Joseph Addison
Addison's optimistic writing style constructed with gracious mannerisms is a major reason for his abiding inﬂuence in English ... Addison's essays had great appeal to the rising middle class seeking to improve their reﬁnement and taste. Addison notes that of the pleasures of sense, the under-standing and the imagination, only the latter ...
Life and works of essayist and dramatist Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison, (born May 1, 1672, Milston, Wiltshire, Eng.—died June 17, 1719, London), English essayist, poet, and dramatist.His poem on the Battle of Blenheim, The Campaign (1705), brought him to the attention of leading Whigs and paved the way to important government posts (including secretary of state) and literary fame. With Richard Steele, he was a leading contributor to and guiding ...
Steele and Addison: the periodical essay and the rise of the domestic novel
These publications made the periodical essay fashionable, providing a model of writing with style for many generations to come. The three main heroes of the imagination that made this project a reality were Daniel Defoe, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. In the present paper we address main issues related with Steele's and Addison's ...
Joseph Addison Short Fiction Analysis
Joseph Addison's essays should not be read as profound pieces; they are meant as vehicles of instruction with two particular intentions. First, he wished to introduce his readers to the great ...
PDF Sir Franchise Bacon: A study of his writing style
In his essays Bacon has made use of prose style that has been variously estimated as Addison praises his grace, Sainsbury admires his dazzling power of rhetoric andHume calls him rather stiff and ... writing an essay. Style or expression or the formal element in literature is most important in dealing with the ...
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison was an important theorist of sociability best known for his essays published in The Tatler (1709-1711) and The Spectator (1711-1712, 1714). His essays promoted and exemplified an ideal of polite sociability that became extremely influential in the eighteenth century and afterwards. His prose style was often emulated by later ...
Essays and Tales by Joseph Addison
16 by Joseph Addison. Essays and Tales by Joseph Addison. Read now or download (free!) Choose how to read this book Url Size; Read online (web) ... Essays and Tales Contents: Introduction -- Public credit -- Household superstitions -- Opera lions -- Women and wives -- The Italian opera -- Lampoons -- True and false humour -- Sa Ga Yean Qua Rash ...
Write an essay on Addison's prose style.
Write an essay on Addison's prose style. Ans. Introduction: Addison has been most admired for the graces of his style which are doubtless the expression of his character. His love of moderation and reasonableness and his genuine good nature are reflected in the purity, regularity, clearness and felicity of his style. He is regarded as one of ...

0 comments:

Recent Post

Featured Post

Our App @ Play Store

34 Addison and Steele

M Ali Notes

Literary Theory and Criticism

Literary Criticism of Joseph Addison

Share this:

Related Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Joseph Addison

English Department SSMV

Poets and Writers

1. Clarity and Lucidity:

2. Marked with Exactness:

3. Compactness:

4. The Use of Allusions and Quotations:

5. The Use of Anecdotes:

6. The Use of Similes, Metaphors and Antitheses:

7. Irony, the Essence of Addison's Humour:

Choice of Words and Phrases:

Saurabh Gupta

Joseph Addison’s Female Orators—Summary and Critical Analysis

Francis Bacon, the Father of English Essays—His Prose Style

Bacon’s Essay Of Regiment of Health: A Critical Study

Walt Whitman’s Poem On the Beach at Night—Summary and Critical Analysis

Joseph Addison’s Essay Popular Superstitions—Summary and Critical Analysis

Most Recent

Footer Copyright

Introduction

Signed in as

Personal account

Institutional access

IP based access

Sign in through your institution

Sign in with a library card

Society Members

Sign in through society site

Sign in using a personal account

Viewing your signed in accounts

Signed in but can't access content

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Steele and Addison: the periodical essay and the rise of the domestic novel

Joseph Addison

In the DIGIT.EN.S Anthology

Essays and Tales by Joseph Addison

Read now or download (free!)

Write an essay on Addison’s prose style.

You may also like

What is Grievance Redressal Letter?

Write some samples of Applications.

Write some model letters to editors.

Write some models of Informal letters.

Define Letter Writing and Its Types.

Define Microsoft Power Point. (Computer Skills in...

Salman Ahmad

IMAGES

VIDEO

COMMENTS