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Joseph Addison as an Essayist / History of English Literature (Mai 2024)
Joseph Addison, (né le 1er mai 1672, Milston, Wiltshire, Angleterre - décédé le 17 juin 1719, Londres), essayiste, poète et dramaturge anglais, qui, avec Richard Steele, a été l'un des principaux contributeurs et esprit directeur des périodiques Le Tatler et le spectateur. Ses talents d'écrivain l'ont amené à occuper des postes importants au gouvernement pendant que les Whigs étaient au pouvoir.
Jeunesse
Addison était le fils aîné du révérend Lancelot Addison, archidiacre de Coventry et doyen de Lichfield. Après ses études à Amesbury et Salisbury et à la Lichfield Grammar School, il a été inscrit à l'âge de 14 ans à la Charterhouse de Londres. Ici a commencé son amitié de toute une vie avec Richard Steele, qui est devenu plus tard son collaborateur littéraire. Tous deux ont poursuivi leurs études à l'Université d'Oxford, où Addison s'est inscrit au Queen's College en mai 1687. Grâce à une distinction en vers latin, il a été élu Demy (universitaire) au Magdalen College en 1689 et a obtenu le diplôme de maîtrise en 1693. Il était de 1697 à 1711. À Madeleine, il a passé 10 ans en tant que tuteur pour préparer une carrière d'érudit et d'homme de lettres. En 1695, un poème à Sa Majesté (Guillaume III), avec une dédicace à Lord Keeper Somers, l'influent homme d'État Whig,a apporté un avis favorable non seulement de Somers mais aussi de Charles Montague (plus tard comte de Halifax), qui a vu à Addison un écrivain dont les services pouvaient être utiles à la couronne. Une subvention du Trésor lui a offert la possibilité de voyager et de se préparer à la fonction publique. Il a également atteint la distinction en contribuant à la préface des Géorgiques de Virgile, dans la grande traduction de John Dryden de 1697.
La tournée européenne (1699-1704) a permis à Addison non seulement de se familiariser avec les diplomates anglais à l'étranger mais aussi de rencontrer des hommes de lettres européens contemporains. Après avoir séjourné en France, il a passé l'année 1701 à voyager tranquillement en Italie, au cours de laquelle il a écrit les remarques en prose sur plusieurs parties de l'Italie (1705; éd. Rév. 1718) et l'épître poétique Une lettre d'Italie (1704). D'Italie, Addison a pénétré en Suisse où, à Genève, il a appris en mars 1702 la mort de Guillaume III et la perte de pouvoir qui en a résulté pour ses deux principaux patrons, Somers et Halifax. Il a ensuite voyagé à travers l'Autriche, les États allemands et les Pays-Bas avant de retourner en Angleterre en 1704.
Service du gouvernement
In London Addison renewed his friendship with Somers and Halifax and other members of the Kit-Cat Club, which was an association of prominent Whig leaders and literary figures of the day—among them Steele, William Congreve, and Sir John Vanbrugh. In August 1704 London was electrified by the news of the duke of Marlborough’s sweeping victory over the French at Blenheim, and Addison was approached by government leaders to write a poem worthy of the great occasion. Addison was meanwhile appointed commissioner of appeals in excise, a sinecure left vacant by the death of John Locke. The Campaign, addressed to Marlborough, was published on December 14 (though dated 1705). By its rejection of conventional classical imagery and its effective portrayal of Marlborough’s military genius, it was an immediate success that perfectly expressed the nation’s great hour of victory.
The Whig success in the election of May 1705, which saw the return of Somers and Halifax to the Privy Council, brought Addison increased financial security in an appointment as undersecretary to the secretary of state, a busy and lucrative post. Addison’s retention in a new, more powerful Whig administration in the autumn of 1706 reflected his further rise in government service. At this time he began to see much of Steele, helping him write the play The Tender Husband (1705). In practical ways Addison also assisted Steele with substantial loans and the appointment as editor of the official London Gazette. In 1708 Addison was elected to Parliament for Lostwithiel in Cornwall, and later in the same year he was made secretary to the earl of Wharton, the new lord lieutenant of Ireland. Addison’s post was in effect that of secretary of state for Irish affairs, with a revenue of some £2,000 a year. He served as Irish secretary until August 1710.
The Tatler and The Spectator
It was during Addison’s term in Ireland that his friend Steele began publishing The Tatler, which appeared three times a week under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff. Though at first issued as a newspaper presenting accounts of London’s political, social, and cultural news, this periodical soon began investigating English manners and society, establishing principles of ideal behaviour and genteel conduct, and proposing standards of good taste for the general public. The first number of The Tatler appeared on April 12, 1709, while Addison was still in England; but while still in Ireland he began contributing to the new periodical. Back in London in September 1709, he supplied most of the essays during the winter of 1709–10 before returning to Ireland in May.
The year 1710 was marked by the overturn of the Whigs from power and a substantial Tory victory at the polls. Although Addison easily retained his seat in the Commons, his old and powerful patrons were again out of favour, and, for the first time since his appointment as undersecretary in 1705, Addison found himself without employment. He was thus able to devote even more time to literary activity and to cultivation of personal friendships not only with Steele and other Kit-Cats but, for a short period, with Jonathan Swift—until Swift’s shift of allegiance to the rising Tory leaders resulted in estrangement. Addison continued contributing to the final numbers of The Tatler, which Steele finally brought to a close on January 2, 1711. Addison had written more than 40 of The Tatler’s total of 271 numbers and had collaborated with Steele on another 36 of them.
Thanks to Addison’s help The Tatler was an undoubted success. By the end of 1710 Steele had enough material for a collected edition of The Tatler. Thereupon, he and Addison decided to make a fresh start with a new periodical. The Spectator, which appeared six days a week, from March 1, 1711, to December 6, 1712, offered a wide range of material to its readers, from discussion of the latest fashions to serious disquisitions on criticism and morality, including Addison’s weekly papers on John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the series on the “pleasures of the imagination.” From the start, Addison was the leading spirit in The Spectator’s publication, contributing 274 numbers in all. In bringing learning “out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in coffee-houses,” The Spectator was eminently successful. One feature of The Spectator that deserves particular mention is its critical essays, in which Addison sought to elevate public taste. He devoted a considerable proportion of his essays to literary criticism, which was to prove influential in the subsequent development of the English novel. His own gift for drawing realistic human characters found brilliant literary expression in the members of the Spectator Club, in which such figures as Roger de Coverley, Captain Sentry, Sir Andrew Freeport, and the Spectator himself represent important sections of contemporary society. More than 3,000 copies of The Spectator were published daily, and the 555 numbers were then collected into seven volumes. Two years later (from June 18 to December 20, 1714), Addison published 80 additional numbers, with the help of two assistants, and these were later reprinted as volume eight.
Addison’s other notable literary production during this period was his tragedy Cato. Performed at Drury Lane on April 14, 1713, the play was a resounding success—largely, no doubt, because of the political overtones that both parties read into the play. To the Whigs Cato seemed the resolute defender of liberty against French tyranny, while the Tories were able to interpret the domineering Caesar as a kind of Roman Marlborough whose military victories were a threat to English liberties. The play enjoyed an unusual run of 20 performances in April and May 1713 and continued to be performed throughout the century.
