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The Repertory Reborn

Paul C. Gutjahr

in Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy

Chapter twenty-one tells the story of the changing nature of the Biblical Repertory. Upon his return from Europe, Hodge decides to rename and change the name of this periodical, attempting to make it ... More

Chapter twenty-one tells the story of the changing nature of the Biblical Repertory. Upon his return from Europe, Hodge decides to rename and change the name of this periodical, attempting to make it appeal to a wider audience. Popularizing the journal failed, but the Repertory did become a major theological voice within American Presbyterian circles.Less

Wonderful Event: The South Sea Bubble and the Crisis of Property

John O’brien

in Literature Incorporated: The Cultural Unconscious of the Business Corporation, 1650-1850

This chapter aims to recapture the way that the South Sea Bubble of 1720 was understood by contemporaries as an essentially theatrical event, one readable through the generic codes of comedy and ... More

This chapter aims to recapture the way that the South Sea Bubble of 1720 was understood by contemporaries as an essentially theatrical event, one readable through the generic codes of comedy and tragedy as understood in neoclassical dramatic theory. In particular, the chapter demonstrates how fully the theory of exemplarity as it relates to dramatic characters was translated (and continues to resonate) to the domain of the economic. The chapter focuses primarily on works by Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Eliza Haywood, each of which is marked by its relationship to the issues of property, speculation, theatricality, representation, and imitation that the South Sea Bubble brought into the public sphere.Less

Theopoesis: the Contest of Priest and Poet: BRITISH ACADEMY SPECIAL LECTURE

GEOFFREY HARTMAN

in Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 154, 2007 Lectures

This lecture presents the text of the speech about theopoesis and the contest of priest and poet delivered by the author at the 2007 British Academy Special Lecture held at the British Academy. It ... More

This lecture presents the text of the speech about theopoesis and the contest of priest and poet delivered by the author at the 2007 British Academy Special Lecture held at the British Academy. It discusses William Blake's thoughts about the identity of prophet and poet and explains his apodictic pronouncements contained in his All Religions are One. The lecture charts the complexity of the relation between poetry and both natural and revealed religion in the works of Joseph Addison, Blake, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Less

The Logic of Taste: The First Fifty Years

Peter Kivy

in The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

Deals with how the perception of beauty was conceived of, what its ‘logic’ was, in the first fifty years of modern aesthetic theory, or, rather, how it evolved, from Joseph Addison to David Hume.

Mr Spectator and the Doctor: Addison and Henry Sacheverell

Brian Cowan

in Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays

Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell were almost exact contemporaries. Born within two years of one another, both men attended Magdalen College, Oxford in their youth, and they both took up their ... More

Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell were almost exact contemporaries. Born within two years of one another, both men attended Magdalen College, Oxford in their youth, and they both took up their studies at the college in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. From this moment onward, the lives and public careers of Addison and Sacheverell would be curiously intertwined. Scholarship and college life would bring them together as friends, but politics and public fame would pull them apart. A contrast between the agreeable Addison and the distasteful Sacheverell is commonplace in eighteenth-century studies, and not without reason. As perhaps the chief proponent of a new culture of ‘politeness’ for post-revolutionary Britain, Addison is well known for his friendliness, if not perhaps for his volubility, in company. Addison’s powerful reputation as the patron saint of eighteenth-century politeness did not sit well with his ties to Sacheverell, whose firebrand reputation was deeply controversial in his lifetime and only declined further as time went by. For this reason, the youthful friendship of the two Magdalen scholars has been a source of awkwardness for later commentators. This chapter places the friendship between Addison and Sacheverell within the context of post-revolutionary political and literary culture.Less

Introduction

Paul Davis

in Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays

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 ... More

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.Less

The Pauline Commentaries

Paul C. Gutjahr

in Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy

Chapter forty-seven explores three of the biblical commentaries Hodge wrote during the 1850s: Ephesians, First Corinthians, and Second Corinthians. Partly in response to the massive popularity of ... More

Chapter forty-seven explores three of the biblical commentaries Hodge wrote during the 1850s: Ephesians, First Corinthians, and Second Corinthians. Partly in response to the massive popularity of Albert Barnes’s New Testament commentary series, Hodge approached Joseph Addison Alexander with the idea of producing their own New Testament commentary set that would provide Americans with a conservative Calvinist point of view. Together, they completed six commentaries for the set before Addison prematurely died in 1860. Hodge did not carry their work on after his death. He also opposed a move by Robert Breckinridge in 1858 to have the General Assembly commission an official commentary to be used by Old School Presbyterians.Less

Variety in Criticism and Aesthetics in Eighteenth-Century England

Alison C. DeSimone

in The Power of Pastiche: Musical Miscellany and the Cultural Identity in Early Eighteenth-Century England

Chapter 5 considers how “variety” and “miscellany” became valued in Enlightenment philosophy, eighteenth-century music history, and more specifically, early music criticism between 1700 and 1720, ... More

Chapter 5 considers how “variety” and “miscellany” became valued in Enlightenment philosophy, eighteenth-century music history, and more specifically, early music criticism between 1700 and 1720, showing that the response to musical miscellany in performance transformed into a lasting cultural appreciation of miscellany in music and the other arts. This final chapter illustrates how the appreciation for variety as an aesthetic facilitated a re-evaluation of cosmopolitanism as Britain transformed under social, economic, and political pressures.Less

Addison, Samuel Johnson, and the Test of Time

Robert De Maria Jr

in Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays

This chapter explores the contours of Addison’s afterlife in the eighteenth century by looking carefully at Samuel Johnson’s varied criticism of his works over a lifetime of writing about him. In his ... More

This chapter explores the contours of Addison’s afterlife in the eighteenth century by looking carefully at Samuel Johnson’s varied criticism of his works over a lifetime of writing about him. In his final statement in his famous Life of Addison, Johnson declares Addison’s reputation secure from the ups and downs it underwent in the eighteenth century by determining that Addison’s works, like those of Shakespeare, had stood the test of time. In Johnson’s long journey to this conclusion, his work on the Dictionary is perhaps the most important landmark. By citing Addison so frequently and in illustration of so many common words, Johnson demonstrated that Addison’s prose had knit itself into the fabric of English and would therefore endure. Although the enthusiastic cult of Addison that saw him as a perfect Christian had faded by mid-century, Johnson saw his works enduring because they had, almost invisibly, become part of British social discourse, both linguistically and ethically, and thereby ‘given Addison a claim to be numbered among the benefactors of mankind’.Less

Addison as Translator

David Hopkins

in Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays

Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell were almost exact contemporaries. Born within two years of one another, both men attended Magdalen College, Oxford, in their youth, and they both took up their ... More

Joseph Addison and Henry Sacheverell were almost exact contemporaries. Born within two years of one another, both men attended Magdalen College, Oxford, in their youth, and they both took up their studies at the college in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. From this moment onward, the lives and public careers of Addison and Sacheverell would be curiously intertwined. Scholarship and college life would bring them together as friends, but politics and public fame would pull them apart. A contrast between the agreeable Addison and the distasteful Sacheverell is commonplace in eighteenth-century studies, and not without reason. As perhaps the chief proponent of a new culture of ‘politeness’ for post-revolutionary Britain, Addison is well known for his friendliness, if not perhaps for his volubility, in company. Addison’s powerful reputation as the patron saint of eighteenth-century politeness did not sit well with his ties to Sacheverell, whose firebrand reputation was deeply controversial in his lifetime and only declined further as time went by. For this reason, the youthful friendship of the two Magdalen scholars has been a source of awkwardness for later commentators. This chapter places the friendship between Addison and Sacheverell within the context of post-revolutionary political and literary cultureLess

Breaking the Rule

Peter Kivy

in The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius

This chapter examines the idea of British composer George Frideric Handel as a symbol of musical or artistic genius. It suggests that journalist Joseph Addison's article about Handel's genius marked ... More

This chapter examines the idea of British composer George Frideric Handel as a symbol of musical or artistic genius. It suggests that journalist Joseph Addison's article about Handel's genius marked the real beginning of the British fascination with the concept in the eighteenth century, which ultimately had its full philosophical payoff in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment. The chapter also discusses the re-expression and reformulation of the Longinian concept of natural genius during Handel's lifetime.Less

‘More sensual Delights’: Visual Pleasure and Musical Anxiety in Addison’s Aesthetics

James A. Winn

in Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays

There is a palpable difference between Addison’s stimulating and thoughtful remarks on literature or the visual arts and his scattered, unconvincing, and dismissive comments on music. His unease ... More

There is a palpable difference between Addison’s stimulating and thoughtful remarks on literature or the visual arts and his scattered, unconvincing, and dismissive comments on music. His unease about music, the chapter argues, stemmed from ignorance, disappointment, and a tendency to link musical pleasure with secret or illicit sexual pleasure. By basing his aesthetic theory on sight, Addison was able to make contact with scientific discourse, indirectly express his political ideology, and avoid extensive discussions of music, the art about which he knew least. His attempt at an English opera (Rosamond, 1707) failed, and the libretto does not suggest that Addison gave much thought to what it might be like to set or sing his words. As a young man, he wrote two St Cecilia odes, closely following the conventions established in Dryden’s ode for 1687. Printed in the Annual miscellany for 1694 is his translation of an episode from Ovid that purports to explain ‘the secret Cause’ that makes the River Salmacis weaken those who bathe in it. Something about the power of music, its emotional and sensual influence on the body and the mind, was evidently connected in his mind with secret pleasures that he did not wish to acknowledge or reveal. Same-sex love was probably among such pleasures. While there is no definitive evidence that Addison had strong homosexual feelings, or that he acted upon them, there is reason to believe that he associated such feelings with music, an association which shaped his consciousness and therefore his aesthetics.Less

Cato the Younger in the English Enlightenment: Addison’s rewriting of Plutarch

Philip A. Stadter

in Plutarch and his Roman Readers

Joseph Addison’s Cato, produced in 1713 at the beginning of the English Enlightenment, found in that hero, who preferred to kill himself rather than live under Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, a model ... More

Joseph Addison’s Cato, produced in 1713 at the beginning of the English Enlightenment, found in that hero, who preferred to kill himself rather than live under Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, a model of political integrity and patriotic sensibility that could be approved by Whigs and Tories alike. Addison, following the habit of his time, did not attempt to be historically accurate, but to project an image of political integrity. The cast of characters includes only three historical figures besides Cato himself, while other characters are invented to support two amatory subplots. The tone of the play is closer to Seneca’s words (De div. prov. 6) cited in the play’s epigraph, ‘Ecce par Deo dignum’. The death scene of Act V presents Cato with Plato’s Phaedo in hand and his sword by his side, calm and ready for death, in complete contrast to Plutarch’s scene of ill-temper, violence, and gory spilling of entrails. Addison’s deviations from Plutarch’s portrait in his Cato Minor illuminate both his own view of philosophically based political heroism and Plutarch’s own more jaundiced view of Cato’s resistance and death, and provides an excellent example of the reception of a classical exemplum.Less

War

Joseph Hone

in Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne

Chapter 4 investigates how the War of the Spanish Succession was reconfigured as a War of the British Succession. During the early modern period, warfare provided a stimulus to imaginative writing. ... More

Chapter 4 investigates how the War of the Spanish Succession was reconfigured as a War of the British Succession. During the early modern period, warfare provided a stimulus to imaginative writing. At the start of the eighteenth century, Britain’s new status as a military superpower profoundly affected literary culture. By examining a range of official, popular, and diplomatic responses of military victories, including poems by Joseph Addison, Nahum Tate, and Daniel Defoe, this chapter illuminates local partisan meanings in texts reacting to the war and succession crisis. Moving through popular news, court propaganda, panegyrics, and satires, it establishes how the war became a lens through which to view dynastic crisis.Less

Coins and Circulation in Addison’s Prose

Henry Power

in Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays

In his Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705), Addison regularly draws on his deep knowledge of Latin poetry in order to ‘compare the natural face of the country with the Landskips that the Poets ... More

In his Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705), Addison regularly draws on his deep knowledge of Latin poetry in order to ‘compare the natural face of the country with the Landskips that the Poets have given us of it’. Less conventionally, but just as regularly, he elucidates landscape, history, and antiquities through reference to ancient coins. Roughly contemporaneously, Addison wrote a defence of numismatics in the Dialogues Upon the Usefulness of Ancient Medals (published posthumously in 1721), in which one character, Philander, seeks to persuade Cynthio from his view that numismatists are mere ‘critics in Rust’ (Cynthio’s view closely resembling the attacks on Bentley and others by satirists such as William King). Addison, through Philander’s person, sees the poems and medals he juxtaposes as representing ‘the same design executed by different hands’; ‘A reverse often clears up the passages of an old poet, as the poet often serves to unriddle a reverse.’ But coins have, for Addison, a moral as well as an explanatory function, publicizing the characters and deeds of great men and women by keeping them in circulation. This chapter explores the relationship between the moral and the fiscal function of coins, drawing out connections between Addison’s views on ancient numismatics and his approach both to modern British coinage and to the circulation of texts and ideas.Less

Epilogue: Mr. Spectator, Adam Smith, and the New Global Citizenship

Laura J. Rosenthal

in Ways of the World: Theater and Cosmopolitanism in the Restoration and Beyond

This chapter turns to Joseph Addison's Spectator and finally to Adam Smith, who transformed the theatrical cosmopolitanism of the Restoration into a theory of emotions and cosmopolitics. Like many ... More

This chapter turns to Joseph Addison's Spectator and finally to Adam Smith, who transformed the theatrical cosmopolitanism of the Restoration into a theory of emotions and cosmopolitics. Like many philosophers in the eighteenth century, Adam Smith aims to understand both emotions and political economy. The chapter explains that the book shows how these two points of interest were profoundly intertwined in the Restoration. In order to try to understand the significance of this intersection, the book turns, as does Smith, to the theater for insight. Restoration theater has been underestimated, partly because the two worlds of Amber and Bruce Carlton have been often read in different contexts and in different kinds of critical projects. While certainly theater audience members of the Restoration period would have had different expectations for comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, and heroic drama, they nevertheless witnessed them in the same moment of imperial ambition, political turbulence, and cosmopolitan explorations. Restoration plays have sometimes been read as frivolous entertainment or nationalist propaganda, but the book characterizes them as more ambitious and more capacious, often too edgy or insufficiently nationalistic for subsequent contexts. It makes the case for key theater experiences that were produced with wit, daring, and insight as not expressing the last gasp of absolutist monarchy, but instead engaging some beginnings: of war capitalism, of the embrace of sophistication, of England's entrance into the slave trade in earnest, and of new possibilities for human passions redirected for this expanding world.Less

“Saint Samuel of Fleet Street”: Johnson and Woolf¹

Anthony W. Lee

in Samuel Johnson Among the Modernists

Both Samuel Johnson and Virginia Woolf excelled in several genres—fiction, essay-writing, journals and diaries, biography, and criticism—and both held common attitudes toward a number of important ... More

Both Samuel Johnson and Virginia Woolf excelled in several genres—fiction, essay-writing, journals and diaries, biography, and criticism—and both held common attitudes toward a number of important topics. Furthermore, Woolf’s writings betray an admiration for and attraction to Johnson, as is suggested in the title of the chapter, “‘Saint Samuel of Fleet Street’: Johnson and Woolf,” which contrasts and compares a number of topics linking the two. The chapter then looks more closely at two particular genres, literary criticism and biography, and concludes with a meditation upon Johnson and Woolf’s intertextual engagements.Less

‘The Great Business of Poetry’: Poets, Pastoral, and Politics

Margaret J. M. Ezell

in The Oxford English Literary History: Volume V: 1645-1714: The Later Seventeenth Century

Many poets first appeared in print in miscellanies published by John Dryden and Jacob Tonson that appeared in the 1690s and continued to be published through the first two decades of the eighteenth ... More

Many poets first appeared in print in miscellanies published by John Dryden and Jacob Tonson that appeared in the 1690s and continued to be published through the first two decades of the eighteenth century, Others first appeared in periodicals such as the Spectator and the Guardian. Women poets including Mary Mollineux, Sarah Fyge, Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Mary Chudleigh, and Anne Finch published book-length collections. Among the most popular poetic forms were the Pindaric ode and the pastoral, some poets attempting to match classical models, others such as Gay making mocking use of the pastoral to comment on contemporary life. Isaac Watts published important and influential collections of hymns. Daniel Defoe published his longest satire, Jure Divino. Our view of many popular poets of this decade, however, including John Dennis, Thomas Tickell, Richard Blackmore, and Ambrose Philips, has been through the lens of Alexander Pope’s later satire on his contemporaries, The Dunciad.Less

Joseph Addison and the Domestication of Paradise Lost

Thomas N. Corns

in Making Milton: Print, Authorship, Afterlives

This chapter examines the profound impact the editorial interventions and elaborate textual notes that Patrick Hume contributed to Tonson’s sixth edition of Paradise Lost in 1695 had on Milton’s ... More

This chapter examines the profound impact the editorial interventions and elaborate textual notes that Patrick Hume contributed to Tonson’s sixth edition of Paradise Lost in 1695 had on Milton’s status as a popular and accessible writer. Hume’s Annotations on Milton’s Paradise Lost, the first significant editorial treatment of a vernacular poet, acknowledges that a new readership had emerged that needed the kinds of assistance that Milton’s educated Protestant contemporaries had not required when reading the lifetime editions of 1667–9 and 1674. The shift in Milton’s status, from that of an elite-culture writer embedded in a radical political and theological tradition to that of the cultural icon of a broadly conceived English Protestantism, both prompted and was advanced by Joseph Addison’s remarkable series of essays on Paradise Lost in The Spectator.Less