Unit%20Five:%20Political%20Satire

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Unit Five Political Satire

• Lesson Ten
• The Masters of the Essay

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The Spectator

• Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator
  of mankind than as one of the species.

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Contributions to the Middle Class of England

• At the time they were writing, England was
  undergoing a great shift, from power being in the
  hands of the aristocracy to power being in the
  hands of the middle class.
• Thats rather a misnomer, as there were some
  incredibly wealthy trades people.

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Shifting Society

• England was rapidly shifting from an agrarian
  economy to a mercantile economy, and people of
  no birth and breeding were coming into
  positions of great power.

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Meritocracy

• Political jobs no longer were going to the
  children of the aristocracy immediately, but a
  meritocracy was coming into being, especially
  after the Whig Ascendancy after the death of
  Queen Anne.

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Social Polish

• These powerful and wealthy people were often the
  children or grandchildren of butchers, bankers
  and tradesmen.
• They didnt grow up knowing the rules of
  society and having certain standards of behavior,
  so many of the writers of the time were setting
  standards of civilization and polish for the
  middle class.
• Addison and Steele are two of the most powerful
  of these writers.

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Standards of Behavior

• Based on Locke and the basic Christian humanism
  that had been the dominant intellectual current
  in Europe for centuries.
• It is during this period, though, that the
  Christian part of humanism tones down
• remember, people were tired of the religious wars
  and fighting
• what is called modern liberal humanism emerged.

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Prevailing Ideology

• This is still the prevailing ideological ideal in
  the West.
• In the US, theres more of a trend towards the
  older Christian humanism
• America is the most religious country in the West
  by far.

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Serious Reformers

• Both men knew that they were setting standards,
  and they took their roles in society quite
  seriously.

Sir Richard Steele
Joseph Addison
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Sir Richard Steele

• A typical representative of the post-Restoration
  mood, Steele was a zealous crusader for morality
• His stated purpose in The Tatler was to enliven
  Morality with Wit, and to temper Wit with
  Morality.''

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Joseph Addison

• With The Spectator, Addison added a further
  purpose to introduce the middle-class public to
  recent developments in philosophy and literature
  and thus to educate their tastes.

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Enormous Influence

• Although The Spectator and The Tatler each only
  ran two years, the influence that Addison and
  Steele had on their contemporaries was enormous
• Their essays often amounted to a popularization
  of the ideas circulating among the intellectuals
  of the age.

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Set Tastes for Centuries

• With these wide-spread and influential
  publications, the literary circle revolving
  around Addison, Steele, Swift and Pope was
  practically able to dictate the accepted taste in
  literature during the Augustan Age

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Critical Influence

• In one of his essays for The Spectator, for
  example, Addison criticized the metaphysical
  poets for their ambiguity and lack of clear ideas
• This critical stance which remained influential
  until the twentieth century.

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Importance to Scholars

• For scholars studying the relation between
  commerce and culture or the emergence of what
  Jurgen Habermas has called the bourgeois public
  sphere,' the work of Addison and Steele is
  seminal.
• Moreover, the periodical in general has recently
  become a great source of interest for literary
  scholars and academics working on the history of
  the book.' '

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Addison (1672-1719)

• After five years at Oxford, Addison left to
  travel Europe and earned a reputation as a
  great gentleman whose only fault was a
  weakness for wine and an occasional
  smoke.

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Strange Path to Power

• Finding himself without a job at 33 years old, he
  was asked to write a poem about the Duke of
  Marlborough's victory of Blenheim
• The poem was so well liked by the Whig party that
  he was named Vice Commissioner of appeals and
  later Under-Secretary of State

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Thackerey on Addison

• "It is as a tatler of small talk and a spectator
  of mankind that we cherish and love him, and owe
  as much pleasure to him as to any human being who
  ever wrote. He came in that artificial age, and
  began to speak with his noble, natural voice. He
  came, the gentle artist, who hit no unfair blows
  the kind judge, who castigates only in smiling.
• The Coverly Papers

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Steele (1672-1729)

• Born in Dublin and educated at Oxford. In 1694 he
  left Oxford without a degree and enlisted
  in the Life Guards.

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Many Career Aspects

• Steele went on to be a
• dramatist,
• a gentleman waiter to Prince George of Denmark,
• gazetteer,
• Commissioner of Stamps,
• the founder of numerous periodicals,
• a member of parliament,
• and a patentee of Drury Lane Theatre

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Great Marketer

• Steele was the first writer to gear his work
  toward more than just the educated male market.
• He wrote to all people, especially to women
• He took his material from first hand knowledge of
  the city and the people he met while in the
  service.

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Thackeray Again

• "Addison wrote Steele's exercises. Addison did
  Steele's best themes. Steele ran on Addison's
  messages fagged for him and blacked his shoes
  to be in Joe's company was Dick's greatest
  pleasure."

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How to Behave

• In the essays, especially the first ones that we
  looked at for today, we can see how to behave in
  society.
• We can see the qualities that are admired by
  Addison and Steele, which they believed should be
  valued by all men and women of good sense in
  society.

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Arbiters of Literary Taste

• All writers need a sponsor
• As Shakespeare had Dryden to help elevate him to
  Englands bard, so Milton had Addison and
  Steele.

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Why Milton?

• Paradise Lost is a major accomplishment, probably
  one of the biggest in English. But its
  difficult.
• But Milton and his poem are perfect examples of
  greatness to be held up to the rising middle
  class.
• Milton was not from the aristocracy--his family
  earned its money, albeit quite a lot of money.
• He was a republican, and a staunch one at that,
  which may have been slightly problematic, but he
  was a staunch supporter of liberty and political
  freedom.

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Political Poem

• The poem is a blueprint for a Whiggish society
  when read looking for political messages.
• If you are interested in the politics of PL,
  there are two articles on EngSite for week 6
• Milton and Modernity Politics, Masculinity, and
  Paradise Lost
• Warring chains of signifiers metaphoric
  ambivalence and the politics of Paradise Lost.)

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Perfect Example

• Miltons work was staunchly moral, Christian, and
  did not reflect the decadent values of the
  aristocratic society.
• As such, it was perfect for Addison and Steeles
  purposes