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Assignment
Name : Dabhi Vipul C
Semester : 1
Roll no : 47
Enrollment no : 2069108420180009
Email : dabhivc04@gmail.com
Paper : 2 The Neo - Classical Literature
Topic : Critical note on the contribution of Richard Steel and Joseph Addison with the reference of Eighteenth century literature
Batch : 2017-19
Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Introduction :
They both Richard Steel and Joseph Addison belongs to the Eighteenth century (1700-1800). This age also known as Augustan or Classic age. If we look to the history of this age The Revolution of 1688, which banished last of the Stuart kings and called William of Orange to the throne, marks the end of the long struggle for political freedom in England. Englishman spent their energy in fighting for freedom , in order to bring reforms, votes were now necessary and to get votes people of England approached with ideas, facts, arguments information. So News paper was born and literature spread including book, newspaper, magazine became the vital tools of a nation 's progress.
Eighteenth century is remarkable for the rapid social development in England. In the latter part of the century political and social progress is almost bewildering.
Literary Characteristics of the age :
An age of prose - In every age we can see the development of poetical works and Matthew Arnold consider that the glory of English literature. Now first time we sees the triumph of English prose. And it served to express clearly every human interest and emotion, these are the main glories of the eighteenth century.
Satire - We see the tendency of realism in subject -matter and the tendency to polish and refinement of expression. Satire is the work that finds the fault of men and institutions in order to hold them up to ridicule, it is a destructive kind of criticism.
This age known as the Classic age also.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719):
In the pleasant art of living with one's fellows, Addison is easily a master. Two things Addison did for our literature which are of inestimable value. First he overcome a certain corrupt tendency bequeathed by Restoration literature. It was the apparent aim of the low drama and even much of the poetry of that age, to make virtue ridiculous and vice attractive ,Addison set himself squarely against this unworthy tendency.
Addison 's influence :
To strip off the mask of vice, to show it's ugliness and deformity, but to reveal virtue in its own native loveness, that was Addison 's purpose. Macaulay says so effectually did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently directed against virtue that since his time the open violation of decency has always considered amongst us a sure mark of a fool.
Addison 's life :
Joseph Addison son of the Rev. Lancelot Addison, dean of Lichfield, was born on May 1st, 1672, at Milston, Wiltshire. He was educated at Lichfield, and afterwards at Charterhouse, where Steele, whose name was in later years to be associated so closely with his, was a younger schoolfellow. Steele visited him at Lichfleld, and has commemorated the charm of his home circle in the Tatler (No. 25).
" The boys behaved themselves very early with a manly friendship; and their sister, instead of the gross familiarities and impertinent freedoms in behaviour usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as much complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It was an unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at a meal in that family. I have often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy upon occasions which would appear indifferent to such as were strangers to the turn of his mind; but a very slight accident, wherein he saw his children's good-will to one another, created in him the godlike pleasure of loving them because they loved each other."
In 1687 Addison went to Oxford. At first he was a commoner of Queen's College, but he was given a demyship (i.e. scholarship) at Magdalen for his classical attainments, and in due course proceeded to a fellowship. He won a reputation which extended beyond Oxford for his Latin verses.
In his twenty-eighth year Addison went abroad to perfect his education for political life by a prolonged continental tour. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, and remained away from England for more than four years.
Soon after his return he wrote his poem of the Campaign to celebrate Marlborough's victory at Blenheim, August 1704, and was rewarded by the Whig Prime Minister, Godolphin, with a commissionership. Shortly afterwards he received an Under-Secretaryship of State, and in 1708 the Irish Secretaryship, which he held for two years.
In 1709 Steele began the publication of a periodical, The Tatler, which was to appear three times a week. It was published in the name of "Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer," an imaginary character invented by Swift. Addison contributed essays, which Steele, with characteristic generosity, admitted to be superior to his own. He humorously described the way in which he was outshone. "I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my own auxiliary; when I had once called him in I could not subsist without dependence on him."
With the fall of the Whigs Addison lost his secretaryship and much of his income. But he had saved a good deal, and he was now a successful literary man. Steele discontinued the Tatler early in 1711, and on March 1st of that year he and Addison brought out the first number of the Spectator, which appeared daily until Dec. 6, 1712. In 1713 Addison produced at Drury Lane Theatre his tragedy of Cato, which had a great success at the time, though it is now almost forgotten. Steele began another newspaper in that year, the Guardian, to which Addison contributed. In 1714 the Spectator was revived for a time. Addison was married in 1716 to the Countess of Warwick: the marriage has been generally supposed, but on insufficient evidence, to have been an unhappy one. His last years were clouded by a quarrel with Pope and an estrangement from his old friend Steele. He died of asthma and dropsy, June 17, 1719.
Addison 's style :
1. Vocabulary. — There are more Latin derivatives than are in common use at the present day, but not so many as we meet with in Dr. Johnson and other writers of the middle and later parts of the eighteenth century. Addison does not avoid homely expressions when they suit his purpose e.g. "Our preachers stand stock-still" (p. 84). "He had better have let it alone" (p. 86). In grave passages — the Vision of Mirza or the Reflections in Westminster Abbey — the diction is naturally more ornate. Everywhere one is impressed with the writer's easy mastery of language: he chooses words from a full store, and is careful not to weary the ear by repetition of the same sound.
2. Sentences . — The construction of these is loose, not periodic; i.e. the qualifying clauses are not, as a rule, included within the sentence, but are "tacked on" afterwards. The periodic style has its own advantages over the loose; but the loose manner suggests the case of conversation, and is better adapted to informal arguments and descriptions.
3. Paragraphs . — In careful prose-writing each paragraph forms a separate whole: it has a central thought which gives it unity. It will be a good exercise to test our grasp of some of these essays by trying whether we can compress into a single sentence the main substance of each paragraph. But we must remember that Addison's method was deliberately discursive — to imitate the freedom with which conversation plays round and about a subject — and we must not expect to condense as successfully as we might if we applied the same process to a formal treatise.
4. Ornaments of Style . — These are apt to draw away attention from the matter to the manner, and the "middle style," which aims at simple and clear expression, uses them sparingly. Addison was fully alive to the beauty of Metaphor.
"A noble metaphor," he said, "when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a lustre through a whole sentence."
A good example of a simple metaphor finely used occurs on p. 65, line 27:
"it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy amid tempestuous season."
Metaphors are most frequent in such allegorical essays as "Wisdom and Riches" No. 23.). Very noticeable is his humorous use of Similes:Whigs and Tories "engage when they meet as naturally as the elephant and the rhinoceros" (p. 46, 1. 32); cp. No. 3. throughout. The poetical use of Abstract for Concrete occurs appropriately in the elevated paragraph on p. 42:
"How beauty, strength and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter."
Without being learned, or making pretensions to learning, Addison adds to the value and beauty of his essays by his wonderfuly apt Quotations from and Allusions to noble passages in literature. Homer, Virgil, Xenophon, Plutarch, Cicero (for "an old Greek or Latin author weighed down a whole library of moderns," p. 93) are laid under contribution; and of English writers Milton, Bacon, and Dryden. He makes many quotations from the Apocrypha
Addison 's contribution :
It is mostly as an essayist that Addison is remembered today. Addison began writing essays quite casually. In April 1709, his childhood friend, Richard Steele, started The Tatler. Addison inspired him to write this essay. Addison contributed 42 essays while Steele wrote 188. Of Addison's help, Steele remarked, "when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him".[10] On 2 January 1711, The Tatler was discontinued. On 1 March 1711, The Spectator was published, and it continued until 6 December 1712. The Spectator was issued daily and achieved great popularity. It exercised a great deal of influence over the reading public of the time. In The Spectator, Addison soon became the leading partner. He contributed 274 essays out a total of 555; Steele wrote 236 for this periodical. Addison also assisted Steele with the Guardian which Steele began in 1713.
The breezy, conversational style of the essays later elicited Bishop Hurd's reproving attribution of an "Addisonian Termination", for preposition stranding, the casual grammatical construction that ends a sentence with a preposition.[11]
Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote an essay, Dialogues on Medals, and left incomplete a work, Of the Christian Religion. The 18th-century French priest and journalist Simon-Jérôme Bourlet de Vauxcelles (1733–1802) translated into French the ''Dialogues on Medals.
Richard Steele (1672-1729)
Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Tatler.
Richard Steele 's work :
Steele's first published work, The Christian Hero (1701), attempted to point out the differences between perceived and actual masculinity. Written while Steele served in the army, it expressed his idea of a pamphlet of moral instruction. The Christian Hero was ultimately ridiculed for what some thought was hypocrisy because Steele did not necessarily follow his own preaching. He was criticized[by whom?] for publishing a booklet about morals when he himself enjoyed drinking, occasional dueling, and debauchery around town.
Steele wrote a comedy that same year titled The Funeral. This play met with wide success and was performed at Drury Lane, bringing him to the attention of the King and the Whig party. Next, Steele wrote The Lying Lover, one of the first sentimental comedies, but a failure on stage. In 1705, Steele wrote The Tender Husband with contributions from Addison's, and later that year wrote the prologue to The Mistake, by John Vanbrugh, also an important member of the Whig Kit-Kat Club with Addison and Steele.
Conclusion :
It is in the incomparable Spectator papers that Addison shows himself most worthy to remember. He contributed the majority of its essay. The large place which these two (The Tatler and The Spectator) magazines hold our literature. In the short space of four years in which Addison and Steele worked together the light essay was established as one of the most important forms of modern literature.
Work cited :
https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/fowlerjh/life.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Addison#Contribution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Steele
https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/fowlerjh/writer.htm
Reference : History of English literature by W. J. LONG
Assignment
Name : Dabhi Vipul C
Semester : 1
Roll no : 47
Enrollment no : 2069108420180009
Email : dabhivc04@gmail.com
Paper : 2 The Neo - Classical Literature
Topic : Critical note on the contribution of Richard Steel and Joseph Addison with the reference of Eighteenth century literature
Batch : 2017-19
Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Introduction :
They both Richard Steel and Joseph Addison belongs to the Eighteenth century (1700-1800). This age also known as Augustan or Classic age. If we look to the history of this age The Revolution of 1688, which banished last of the Stuart kings and called William of Orange to the throne, marks the end of the long struggle for political freedom in England. Englishman spent their energy in fighting for freedom , in order to bring reforms, votes were now necessary and to get votes people of England approached with ideas, facts, arguments information. So News paper was born and literature spread including book, newspaper, magazine became the vital tools of a nation 's progress.
Eighteenth century is remarkable for the rapid social development in England. In the latter part of the century political and social progress is almost bewildering.
Literary Characteristics of the age :
An age of prose - In every age we can see the development of poetical works and Matthew Arnold consider that the glory of English literature. Now first time we sees the triumph of English prose. And it served to express clearly every human interest and emotion, these are the main glories of the eighteenth century.
Satire - We see the tendency of realism in subject -matter and the tendency to polish and refinement of expression. Satire is the work that finds the fault of men and institutions in order to hold them up to ridicule, it is a destructive kind of criticism.
This age known as the Classic age also.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719):
In the pleasant art of living with one's fellows, Addison is easily a master. Two things Addison did for our literature which are of inestimable value. First he overcome a certain corrupt tendency bequeathed by Restoration literature. It was the apparent aim of the low drama and even much of the poetry of that age, to make virtue ridiculous and vice attractive ,Addison set himself squarely against this unworthy tendency.
Addison 's influence :
To strip off the mask of vice, to show it's ugliness and deformity, but to reveal virtue in its own native loveness, that was Addison 's purpose. Macaulay says so effectually did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently directed against virtue that since his time the open violation of decency has always considered amongst us a sure mark of a fool.
Addison 's life :
Joseph Addison son of the Rev. Lancelot Addison, dean of Lichfield, was born on May 1st, 1672, at Milston, Wiltshire. He was educated at Lichfield, and afterwards at Charterhouse, where Steele, whose name was in later years to be associated so closely with his, was a younger schoolfellow. Steele visited him at Lichfleld, and has commemorated the charm of his home circle in the Tatler (No. 25).
" The boys behaved themselves very early with a manly friendship; and their sister, instead of the gross familiarities and impertinent freedoms in behaviour usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as much complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It was an unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at a meal in that family. I have often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy upon occasions which would appear indifferent to such as were strangers to the turn of his mind; but a very slight accident, wherein he saw his children's good-will to one another, created in him the godlike pleasure of loving them because they loved each other."
In 1687 Addison went to Oxford. At first he was a commoner of Queen's College, but he was given a demyship (i.e. scholarship) at Magdalen for his classical attainments, and in due course proceeded to a fellowship. He won a reputation which extended beyond Oxford for his Latin verses.
In his twenty-eighth year Addison went abroad to perfect his education for political life by a prolonged continental tour. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, and remained away from England for more than four years.
Soon after his return he wrote his poem of the Campaign to celebrate Marlborough's victory at Blenheim, August 1704, and was rewarded by the Whig Prime Minister, Godolphin, with a commissionership. Shortly afterwards he received an Under-Secretaryship of State, and in 1708 the Irish Secretaryship, which he held for two years.
In 1709 Steele began the publication of a periodical, The Tatler, which was to appear three times a week. It was published in the name of "Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer," an imaginary character invented by Swift. Addison contributed essays, which Steele, with characteristic generosity, admitted to be superior to his own. He humorously described the way in which he was outshone. "I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my own auxiliary; when I had once called him in I could not subsist without dependence on him."
With the fall of the Whigs Addison lost his secretaryship and much of his income. But he had saved a good deal, and he was now a successful literary man. Steele discontinued the Tatler early in 1711, and on March 1st of that year he and Addison brought out the first number of the Spectator, which appeared daily until Dec. 6, 1712. In 1713 Addison produced at Drury Lane Theatre his tragedy of Cato, which had a great success at the time, though it is now almost forgotten. Steele began another newspaper in that year, the Guardian, to which Addison contributed. In 1714 the Spectator was revived for a time. Addison was married in 1716 to the Countess of Warwick: the marriage has been generally supposed, but on insufficient evidence, to have been an unhappy one. His last years were clouded by a quarrel with Pope and an estrangement from his old friend Steele. He died of asthma and dropsy, June 17, 1719.
Addison 's style :
1. Vocabulary. — There are more Latin derivatives than are in common use at the present day, but not so many as we meet with in Dr. Johnson and other writers of the middle and later parts of the eighteenth century. Addison does not avoid homely expressions when they suit his purpose e.g. "Our preachers stand stock-still" (p. 84). "He had better have let it alone" (p. 86). In grave passages — the Vision of Mirza or the Reflections in Westminster Abbey — the diction is naturally more ornate. Everywhere one is impressed with the writer's easy mastery of language: he chooses words from a full store, and is careful not to weary the ear by repetition of the same sound.
2. Sentences . — The construction of these is loose, not periodic; i.e. the qualifying clauses are not, as a rule, included within the sentence, but are "tacked on" afterwards. The periodic style has its own advantages over the loose; but the loose manner suggests the case of conversation, and is better adapted to informal arguments and descriptions.
3. Paragraphs . — In careful prose-writing each paragraph forms a separate whole: it has a central thought which gives it unity. It will be a good exercise to test our grasp of some of these essays by trying whether we can compress into a single sentence the main substance of each paragraph. But we must remember that Addison's method was deliberately discursive — to imitate the freedom with which conversation plays round and about a subject — and we must not expect to condense as successfully as we might if we applied the same process to a formal treatise.
4. Ornaments of Style . — These are apt to draw away attention from the matter to the manner, and the "middle style," which aims at simple and clear expression, uses them sparingly. Addison was fully alive to the beauty of Metaphor.
"A noble metaphor," he said, "when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a lustre through a whole sentence."
A good example of a simple metaphor finely used occurs on p. 65, line 27:
"it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy amid tempestuous season."
Metaphors are most frequent in such allegorical essays as "Wisdom and Riches" No. 23.). Very noticeable is his humorous use of Similes:Whigs and Tories "engage when they meet as naturally as the elephant and the rhinoceros" (p. 46, 1. 32); cp. No. 3. throughout. The poetical use of Abstract for Concrete occurs appropriately in the elevated paragraph on p. 42:
"How beauty, strength and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter."
Without being learned, or making pretensions to learning, Addison adds to the value and beauty of his essays by his wonderfuly apt Quotations from and Allusions to noble passages in literature. Homer, Virgil, Xenophon, Plutarch, Cicero (for "an old Greek or Latin author weighed down a whole library of moderns," p. 93) are laid under contribution; and of English writers Milton, Bacon, and Dryden. He makes many quotations from the Apocrypha
Addison 's contribution :
It is mostly as an essayist that Addison is remembered today. Addison began writing essays quite casually. In April 1709, his childhood friend, Richard Steele, started The Tatler. Addison inspired him to write this essay. Addison contributed 42 essays while Steele wrote 188. Of Addison's help, Steele remarked, "when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him".[10] On 2 January 1711, The Tatler was discontinued. On 1 March 1711, The Spectator was published, and it continued until 6 December 1712. The Spectator was issued daily and achieved great popularity. It exercised a great deal of influence over the reading public of the time. In The Spectator, Addison soon became the leading partner. He contributed 274 essays out a total of 555; Steele wrote 236 for this periodical. Addison also assisted Steele with the Guardian which Steele began in 1713.
The breezy, conversational style of the essays later elicited Bishop Hurd's reproving attribution of an "Addisonian Termination", for preposition stranding, the casual grammatical construction that ends a sentence with a preposition.[11]
Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote an essay, Dialogues on Medals, and left incomplete a work, Of the Christian Religion. The 18th-century French priest and journalist Simon-Jérôme Bourlet de Vauxcelles (1733–1802) translated into French the ''Dialogues on Medals.
Richard Steele (1672-1729)
Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Tatler.
Richard Steele 's work :
Steele's first published work, The Christian Hero (1701), attempted to point out the differences between perceived and actual masculinity. Written while Steele served in the army, it expressed his idea of a pamphlet of moral instruction. The Christian Hero was ultimately ridiculed for what some thought was hypocrisy because Steele did not necessarily follow his own preaching. He was criticized[by whom?] for publishing a booklet about morals when he himself enjoyed drinking, occasional dueling, and debauchery around town.
Steele wrote a comedy that same year titled The Funeral. This play met with wide success and was performed at Drury Lane, bringing him to the attention of the King and the Whig party. Next, Steele wrote The Lying Lover, one of the first sentimental comedies, but a failure on stage. In 1705, Steele wrote The Tender Husband with contributions from Addison's, and later that year wrote the prologue to The Mistake, by John Vanbrugh, also an important member of the Whig Kit-Kat Club with Addison and Steele.
Conclusion :
It is in the incomparable Spectator papers that Addison shows himself most worthy to remember. He contributed the majority of its essay. The large place which these two (The Tatler and The Spectator) magazines hold our literature. In the short space of four years in which Addison and Steele worked together the light essay was established as one of the most important forms of modern literature.
Work cited :
https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/fowlerjh/life.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Addison#Contribution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Steele
https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/fowlerjh/writer.htm
Reference : History of English literature by W. J. LONG
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