Addison as an Essayist

 

Saintsburry refers to the age of Addison as the peace of the Augustans. It was in reality an era of tensions, tensions between the puritans and the courtly upper classes, and fierce political and civil strife. Unity and sanity were the urgent need of the hour and it was the mission of the Addison as a social reformer to bring about this sanity, the much needed order out of disorder, peace and harmony out of social strife. Court hope rightly calls Addison a great conciliator and David Daiches justly calls him a mediator between town and country, between landed gentry and prosperous citizens. It was the weapon of light ridicule against all aberrations from good breeding and

Common sense that Addison used: 1. To restore sanity  2. To reconcile parties  3. To found a sound public opinion and standard of judgment

It has been well establish that Addison and Steele aimed at social and moral reformation of the society in which they lived and moved. Addison avowed purpose and writing for the spectator was moral and ethical. But he also wanted to divert or amuse his readers. Addison so planned his essays as to make their instruction. Agreeable and their diversion useful to enliven morality with wit and to temper wit with morality. He tried to proof that there was much good both in the puritan and the gentleman. He showed the courtiers, in a form of light literature which pleased their imagination, and with a grace and charm of manner that they were well qualified to appreciate, that true religion was not opposed to good breeding.

The refined upper classes were immoral, while the virtuous middle classes under puritan influence were fanatical. The puritans apposed all amusement as immoral and every gentle person for them was a veritable devil the very embodiment of immorality. Although Addison, in writing for the famous periodical which had been started by Steele called himself early a spectator, yet his real object was to play the role of a critic of the life and manners of his times. He set out to be a mild censor of the morals of the age and most of his compositions deal with topical subjects- fashions, head-dresses, practical jokes, indecency in conversation, gambling, drinking, swearing, cruelty, dwelling etc. he attacked the trivialities of life, and the follies and foibles of dress, of manners, or of thought. His aim in his own words was to point out those vices which are too trivial for the chastiment of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He was, therefore, an avowed social reformer but he had no desire to denounce or castigate the fools and the vicious people.

The very plan of the spectator club is intended to present to the readers a cross- section of English society. Every member of the club is a representative of a profession or trade or class of society. Thus sir Roger, a typical country squire of the old feudal order, represents country life, the Templers represents the legal, art and learning, captain sentry, the military. The spectator himself is an impartial observer of men and manners and he sees and records practically every aspect of life of the times.

The essay in the spectator covers a wide diversity of subjects. They are a faithful reflection of the life of the time viewed with an aloof and dispassionate observation. Addison stated his essentially moral intension when he declared his purpose of bringing philosophy out of closest and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables in coffee-houses.

It is chiefly through the character of Sir Roger that country life and country manners have been portrayed. In the old ideas of feudalism still persist. Through such papers as Sir Roger at home, Sir Roger at church, moll white every aspect of country life has been vividly represented. Many old ways of thinking still survive.

There are none to home; this paper will be more useful than to the female world, wrote Addison to the interest of the fair sex. Became one of the invariable convention of the periodical essay and there can be little doubt that the essays did much to improve the status and education of women. Here Steele is a better moralist than his collaborator.

Similarly he harmonized the code of wit and pleasure with that of virtue and religion, in the realm of art and literature. His penetrating wit, founded on truth and reason, was appreciated by the fashionable world. In all these aspects Addison is the voice of humanized Puritanism, the voice of a new and civilized urban life. He emphasized virtue but never went to the extreme of condemning all pleasure.

A similarly humanizing or civilizing role did Addison play in the realm of politics as well. He thus made a useful plea for moderation and tolerance for more civilized and human standards of conduct. Addison did not fail to exert a humanizing influence on the fierceness of party violence in his day.

The spectator is important also in so far as it established the essays as an honoured of literature. At least in the first half of the 18th century it became the dominant form. The spectator is important, next, as marking a definite stage in the evolution of the English novel. The essay series dealing with sir roger brings us with in measurable distance of the genuine 18th century novel. Finally, the spectator did a great service to English prose. It represents in this matter the indispensable 18th century. It was Addison who more than anyone else, invented, middle style something between the grave stately diction of formal writing and the free and easy speech of everyday, a style suited therefore, for addressing a wide circle of readers on a wide varieties of subject, un pretentious admirably clear dignified but never stilled Mr. Spectator and sir. Roger exchange visits and in this way the good and the admirable, as well as the eccentric and the frivolous, both in the town and the country are revealed. Thus the important of the work cannot be exaggerated. He laid down rational standards of conduct and formed sound public opinion.