Page 87 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes 4. .................... stood midway between the Augustans and the Romantics.
(a) William cowper (b) Robert Burns
(c) Samuel Johnson (d) George Crabbe
5. ……. was the first historian of England who wrote in a literary manner.
(a) Edward Gibbon (b) Burke
(c) William Blake (d) Samuel Johnson

11.3 Periodical Essays

The periodical essay and the novel are the two important gifts of “our excellent and indispensable
eighteenth century” to English literature. The latter was destined to have a long and variegated
career over the centuries, but the former was fated to be born with the eighteenth century and to
die with it.
This shows how it was a true mirror of the age. A. R. Humphrey observes in this connection: “If
any literary form is the particular creation and the particular mirror of the Augustan Age in
England, it is the periodical essay.” Generally speaking, it is very difficult to date precisely the
appearance of a new literary genre. For example, nobody can say with perfect certainty as to when
the first novel, or the first comedy or the first short story came to be written in England or
elsewhere. We often talk of “fathers” in literature: for instance, Fielding is called the father of
English novel, Chaucer the father of English poetry, and so forth. But that is done, more often than
not in a loose and very unprecise sense. This difficulty in dating a genre, however, does not arise
in a few cases-that of the periodical essay included. The periodical essay was literally invented by
Steele on April 12, 1709, the day he launched his Taller. Before The Taller there had been periodicals
and there had been essays, but there had been no periodical essays. The example of The Taller was
followed by a large number of writers of the eighteenth century till its very end, when with the
change of sensibility, the periodical essay disappeared along with numerous other accompaniments
of the age. Throughout the century there was a deluge of periodical essays. The periodical essay
remained the most popular, if not the dominant, literary form. Men as different as Pope, Swift, Dr.
Johnson, and Goldsmith found the periodical essay an eligible medium. As a matter of fact it was,
unlike the novel for example, the only literary form which was patronised without exception by
all the major writers of the century. It is hard to name a single first-rate writer of the century who
did.not write something for a periodical paper. Mrs. Jane H. Jack says: “From the days of Queen
Anne-who had The Spectator taken in with her breakfast-to the time of the French Revolution and
even beyond, periodical essays on the lines laid down by Steele and Addison flooded the country
and met the eye in every bookseller’s shop and coffee-house.” Before tracing the history of the
periodical essay in the eighteenth century and assigning causes for its phenomenal popularity, let
us consider what exactly a periodical essay is.

Task Write a short note on Periodical Essays.

What is a Periodical Essay

What is called the periodical essay was first of all given by Steele as The Taller. Nothing of this
type had before him been attempted in England or even elsewhere. However, to attempt a definition
of the periodical essay is neither easy nor helpful. George Sherburn in A Literary History of
England, edited by Albert C. Baugh, avers in this connexion: “Rigorous definition of this peculiarly
eighteenth century type of publication is not very helpful...The periodical essay has been aptly
described as dealing with morals and manners,1 but it might in fact deal with anything that
pleased its author. It covered usually not more than the two sides (in two columns) of a folipjialf-
sheet: normally it was shorter than that. It might be published independent of other material, as
was The Spectator, except for advertising; or it might be the leading article in a newspaper.”

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