Bio:

Entries: Attic - "Joseph Addison, a favorite example of an English author who may be said to have written Attic prose, is portrayed as "Atticus" in Pope's "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot." Augustan - "As Virgil and Horace made the Augustan Age of Rome, so Addison and Steele, Swift, and Pope are said to have made the Augustan Age of English letters." Character - "Later, under the infulence of the French writer La Bruyere, characters became more individualized and were combined with the essay, as in the periodical essays of Addison and Steele." Classical Tragedy - "Joseph Addison's Cato has been referred to as "the triumph of classical tragedy." Classicism - "The classical attitude -- largely under French inspiration -- triumphed in the Restoration and Augustan Ages, and John Dryden, Joseph Addison, and Alexander Pope -- together with Samuel Johnson of the next generation -- stand as exemplars of the classical (or neoclassic) spirit in literature and criticism." Criticism, Types of - "Criticism may be classified according to its purpose. (...) (6) to discover and apply the principles that describe the foundations of good art (Addison, Coleridge, R.G. Collingwood, I.A. Richards)." Enlightenment - "In England, Addison, Steele, Swift, Pope, Gibbon, Hume, Adam Smith, and Bentham responded to elements of Enlightenment thought." Essay - "The second great step in the history of the informal essay came in the early eighteenth century with the creation by Steele and Addison of the periodical essay. (...) Joseph Addison and Steele later launched the informal daily *Spectator (1711-1712; 1714). (...) Addison referred to two types of Spectator papers: 'serious essays' on well-worn topics such as death, marriage, education, and friendship and 'occasional papers' dealing with the 'folly, extravagance, and caprice of the present age.' The latter class especially aided in fixing as a tradition of the informal essay that informality, whimsicality, humor, and grace that appear in scores of essays on such topics as fashion, dueling, witchcraft, coffee houses, and family portraits. The type developed much machinery, such as fictitious characters, clubs, and imaginary correspondents. Genteel Comedy - "Addison's term for such early eighteenth-century comedy as Cibber's The Careless Husband." Gothic - "Applied to literature, the term was used by the eighteenth-century neoclassicists as synonymous with 'barbaric.' Addison said that artists who were unable to achieve the classic graces of simplicity, dignity, and unity resorted to the use of foreign ornaments -- 'all the extravagances of an irregular fancy.'" Imagination - "In the Neoclassic Period, it was the faculty by which images were called up, especially visual images (see Addison's The Pleasures of the Imagination), and was related to the 'imitation of nature.'" Macaronic - "Words related to 'macaroni' and 'macaroon' bore two distinct pejorative meanings during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: 'a blockhead' (in Donne and Addison and in the definition of 'macaroon' in Johnson's Dictionary: 'a coarse, rude, low fellow,'(...)." Narrative Essay - "Addison's Vision of Mirzah is an example." Neoclassic Period - "On the stage, the heroic drama was replaced by the domestic tragedy of such writers as Lillo and imitations of classical tragedy such as Addison's Cato." Novel - "In addition to these beginnings, the English novelists had native parallels of their own -- (...) and the character element present in the Spectator papers of Addison and Steele." Opera - "From the first, efforts to employ Italian singers met with disfavor, as evidenced by Addison's satire and by John Gay's famous singers met with disfavor, as evidenced by Addison's satire and by John Gay's famous burlesque opera: The Beggar's Opera (1728)." Prose - Appears in list of names "significant in the development of English prose." Prototype - "Thus, the periodical essay of the eighteenth century as written by Addison or Steele may be called the prototype of the familiar essay as written by Lamb or Stevenson -- the later form being developed from the earlier." Satire - "The eighteenth century in England became a period of satire; poetry, drama, essays, and criticism all took on the satirical manner at the hands of such writers as Dryden, Swift, Addison, Steele, Pope, and Fielding." Sentimentalism - "The neoclassicists themselves, although opposed fundamentally to sentimentalism, sometimes exhibit it, as when Addison avers that he resorts to Westminster Abbey for the purpose of enjoying the emotions called up by the somber surroundings." Short Story - "The eighteenth century also saw the development of the informal essay, which frequently derived some of its interest from such episodes and sketches as Addison uses in the 'Sir Roger de Coverley Papers' or 'The Vision of Mirzzah.'" Stoicism - "There have been notable instances of the use of Stoic philosophy in English literature from 'The Knights Tale' in The Canterbury Tales to Addison's Cato -- perhaps the most complete statement of the Stoic position in our language (...)."