periodical essay example

Periodical Essay Definition and Examples

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An Introduction to Punctuation
Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

A periodical essay is an essay (that is, a short work of nonfiction) published in a magazine or journal--in particular, an essay that appears as part of a series.

The 18th century is considered the great age of the periodical essay in English. Notable periodical essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison, Richard Steele , Samuel Johnson , and Oliver Goldsmith .

Observations on the Periodical Essay

"The periodical essay in Samuel Johnson's view presented general knowledge appropriate for circulation in common talk. This accomplishment had only rarely been achieved in an earlier time and now was to contribute to political harmony by introducing 'subjects to which faction had produced no diversity of sentiment such as literature, morality and family life.'" (Marvin B. Becker, The Emergence of Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century . Indiana University Press, 1994)

The Expanded Reading Public and the Rise of the Periodical Essay

"The largely middle-class readership did not require a university education to get through the contents of periodicals and pamphlets written in a middle style and offering instruction to people with rising social expectations. Early eighteenth-century publishers and editors recognized the existence of such an audience and found the means for satisfying its taste. . . . [A] host of periodical writers, Addison and Sir Richard Steele outstanding among them, shaped their styles and contents to satisfy these readers' tastes and interests. Magazines--those medleys of borrowed and original material and open-invitations to reader participation in publication--struck what modern critics would term a distinctly middlebrow note in literature. "The most pronounced features of the magazine were its brevity of individual items and the variety of its contents. Consequently, the essay played a significant role in such periodicals, presenting commentary on politics, religion, and social matters among its many topics ." (Robert Donald Spector, Samuel Johnson and the Essay . Greenwood, 1997)

Characteristics of the 18th-Century Periodical Essay

"The formal properties of the periodical essay were largely defined through the practice of Joseph Addison and Steele in their two most widely read series, the "Tatler" (1709-1711) and the "Spectator" (1711-1712; 1714). Many characteristics of these two papers--the fictitious nominal proprietor, the group of fictitious contributors who offer advice and observations from their special viewpoints, the miscellaneous and constantly changing fields of discourse , the use of exemplary character sketches , letters to the editor from fictitious correspondents, and various other typical features--existed before Addison and Steele set to work, but these two wrote with such effectiveness and cultivated such attention in their readers that the writing in the Tatler and Spectator served as the models for periodical writing in the next seven or eight decades." (James R. Kuist, "Periodical Essay." The Encyclopedia of the Essay , edited by Tracy Chevalier. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997)

The Evolution of the Periodical Essay in the 19th Century

"By 1800 the single-essay periodical had virtually disappeared, replaced by the serial essay published in magazines and journals. Yet in many respects, the work of the early-19th-century ' familiar essayists ' reinvigorated the Addisonian essay tradition, though emphasizing eclecticism, flexibility, and experientiality. Charles Lamb , in his serial Essays of Elia (published in the London Magazine during the 1820s), intensified the self-expressiveness of the experientialist essayistic voice . Thomas De Quincey 's periodical essays blended autobiography and literary criticism , and William Hazlitt sought in his periodical essays to combine 'the literary and the conversational.'" (Kathryn Shevelow, "Essay." Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714-1837 , ed. by Gerald Newman and Leslie Ellen Brown. Taylor & Francis, 1997)

Columnists and Contemporary Periodical Essays

"Writers of the popular periodical essay have in common both brevity and regularity; their essays are generally intended to fill a specific space in their publications, be it so many column inches on a feature or op-ed page or a page or two in a predictable location in a magazine. Unlike freelance essayists who can shape the article to serve the subject matter, the columnist more often shapes the subject matter to fit the restrictions of the column. In some ways this is inhibiting because it forces the writer to limit and omit material; in other ways, it is liberating, because it frees the writer from the need to worry about finding a form and lets him or her concentrate on the development of ideas." (Robert L. Root, Jr., Working at Writing: Columnists and Critics Composing . SIU Press, 1991)

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What Is a Periodical Essay?

Publication Date: 06 Mar 2019

A periodical essay is a type of writing that is issued on a regular basis as a part of a series in editions such as journals, magazines, newspapers or comic books. It is typically published daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly and is referenced by volume and issue.

Volume indicates the number of years when the publication took place while issue denotes how many times the periodical was issued during the year. For example, the May 1711 publication of a monthly journal that was first published in 1702 would be referred to as, “volume 10, issue 5”. At times, roman numerals were also used to indicate the volume number. For the citation of text in a periodical, such a format as The Chicago Manual of Style is used.

The periodical essay appeared in the early 1700s and reached its highest popularity in the middle of the eighteenth century. London magazines such as The Tatler and The Spectator were the most popular and influential periodicals of that time. It is considered that The Tatler introduced such literary genre as periodical essay while The Spectator improved it. The magazines remained influential even after they stopped publications. Their issues were later published in the form of a book, which was in demand for the rest of the century.

Richard Steele and Joseph Addison are considered to be the figures who contributed the most to the development of the eighteen-century literary genre of periodical essays. They managed to create a winning team where Addison was more of an eloquent writer while Steele made his contribution by being an outstanding organizer and editor.

Typically, the essays can be classified into such two types as popular and scholarly. Also, this literary form was written for an audience of professionals who preferred to read business, technical, academic, scientific and trade publications.

However, for the most part, the periodicals were about morality, emotions and manners. Readers expected essays to be common sense and thought-provoking. Publications were relatively short and mainly characterized as those which provide an opinion inspired by contemporary events. Periodicals were meant to be not “heavy”, especially those which were referred to as popular reading. The majority of topics in the periodicals were supposed to be appropriate for the common talk and general discussion.

Many essays were written for female readers as a target audience. Periodicals were aimed at middle-class people who were literate enough and could afford to buy the editions regularly. The essays were written in a so-called middle style and high education was not required for reading the majority of the contents. Over time, many periodical writers shaped their styles in order to satisfy the literary taste of the audience.

All periodical essays tend to be brief but texts written by a columnist and freelance essayist would slightly differ in length. The former writes his material trying to shape the subject of discussion to fit the requirements of the column. The latter though can take advantage of a more liberating approach by crafting his work the way he wants as long as his text manages to effectively highlight the subject.

Periodicals evolved in the 19 th century and single essays were almost fully replaced by serial essay publishing. The writings became more eclectic, flexible and brave being at the same time literary and conversational.

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Addison and Steele Q-THE PERIODICAL ESSAY

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The rise of periodical literature changed the face of criticism between 1660 and 1800. To chart a course through this jungle of literary growth and its implications for the history of criticism, it is useful to look at three basic periods within which slightly different genres of periodical predominated and left their mark on literary culture. The first, from the mid- 1600s to 1700, saw the infancy of the newspaper and, from about 1665, the establishment of the learned journal; during the second, from 1700 to 1750, the periodical essay enjoyed its greatest influence, and the magazine or monthly miscellany, with all its popular appeal, came to prominence; in the third, from about 1750 to 1800, the literary review journal emerged in a recognizably modern form and rapidly came to dominate the practice of criticism.

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This was an invited paper given at the 'Inventions of the Text' seminar at Durham University in May 2018. The paper considers the relationship between empiricism and the familiar essay in the eighteenth century. It notes the emergence of scepticism, dialogue, and the idea of performative rationality as hallmarks of what might be termed a tradition of ‘socialised’, decentred empiricism that flourished in the mid-to-late eighteenth century in Britain. The essay was vital to this emergence because of the ways in which the genre drew together experience and communication, the philosophical and the social. By subordinating methodical 'dispositio' to dialogical 'complicatio', the essay offered an alternative model of order and rational thought to that implied by system. This model relied not upon a priori principle or even sensory data, but upon a blurry consensus underpinned by a mixture of doubt, dialogue and the performance of civic virtues. And yet, even as it celebrates an idea of truth that was underpinned by these activities and qualities, the familiar essay ultimately testifies to the passing of this idea.

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Studies in British Literature: The Eighteenth Century. DSpace/Manakin Repository. ...

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This article explores the development of English poetry in the eighteenth century in relation to the emergence of prose fiction, arguing for a less novel-centred perspective in eighteenth-century literary history and for a a more inclusive, media-oriented approach to the study of literary genres in general. It demonstrates how Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift respond to the challenges of a new media culture by a thematic shift towards 'urban realism' in the mock epic and mock georgic. On that basis, it then analyses Thomas Gray's Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard as a complex reflection on the role of poetry in competition with the novel in eighteenth-century print culture.

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How To Write a Periodical Essay

December 26, 2016

Periodical essay papers are a journey or journal through one's eye or characters develop based on series of events accordingly.

Essay papers based on periodical is affected by century, culture, language and belief of the community, showing the mirror of their age, the reflection of their thinking. How literature acts as a medium in daily’s usage of a population in certain areas affect most on how this periodical journal is produced, how characters are developed, what makes the journal stands out from the others and so on.

How To Write?

Joseph Addison and Steele have applied periodical essay in their papers which are Tatler in 1709-1711 and Spectator in 1711-1712 and again in 1714. This means that custom periodical essay papers have been recognized and used the long time ago to produce series of events through custom essay papers. It is said that custom periodical essay papers existed even before Joseph Addison and Steele start their work, through sketches and letters from various features.

The most successful periodical essays can be a long list. Most influential custom periodical essay papers include Henry Fielding’s Covent Garden Journal in 1752, Samuel Johnson’s Rambler in 1750- 1752, Henry Mackenzie’s Mirror in 1779-1780, Oliver Goldsmith in 1757 to 1772 to name a few.

Cultures and analysis of the ways relate to the associations are reflected through actors characterization and goals for the particular projects. The role of maintaining language practices in the community allows these essayists to work on their periodical essay papers customization. College essay papers also related to social networks in a culture by the time these papers are produced.

That is basically how these popular periodical essays gain attention from worldwide at their century.

Editorial Policies

The impact on periodical essay papers was immediate through the eighteenth century. It is definitely beyond Addison and Steller's expectations as well as publications. These guys re-modeled their content and editorial policies of their periodical essay, Tatler, and Spectator, as well as Guardian into different languages outside England, gained immediate attention from a community outside England.

Oliver Goldsmith from 1757 to 1772 also contributed to numbers of custom periodical essay including The Monthly Review with ran to eight weekly numbers. His best work, The Citizen of the World in 1762 proves that he is attractive, lack of formality and sensitive as the main attraction to his periodical essay.

Periodically essay is still emerging despite the deep roots and far-reaching networks by the eighteenth century. These essay papers belong to definite period due to its tight connection in publishing practices, politics, and law.

Howeve,r the numbers of publication rise and fall considerably even at times of national crisis.

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Richard Squibbs is Associate Professor of English at DePaul University in Chicago and author of Urban Enlightenment and the Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essay (Palgrave, 2014). While he continues to publish articles on the British and early American periodical essay, he is also completing a monograph that explores the messy entanglements of picaresque fiction and the early English novel.

Published: 20 October 2022
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This chapter examines Johnson’s achievements as an essayist in relation to the established conventions of the periodical essay. With the Rambler , Johnson restored the periodical essay to its once-prominent place in English literary culture by elevating its moral seriousness and emphasizing its aptness as a vehicle for literary criticism. The success of the series spurred a revival of the genre at mid-century, albeit largely in reaction to the Rambler ’s relative gravity and ponderous diction. After doubling down on the Rambler ’s style with his contributions to the Adventurer , Johnson experimented with a more playful approach to the periodical essay in the Idler . The mixed critical reception of his efforts near the end of the century often associated his essays more with the moralist and critic Johnson had become than with the genre in which he first enjoyed popular success, an enduring perspective that this chapter aims to qualify.

What must Johnson have made of Oliver Goldsmith’s “resverie” in his short-lived periodical the Bee (1759), wherein the gruff coachman of “ The fame machine ” refuses Johnson a seat for his Dictionary but relents immediately upon realizing that this “very grave personage” is the author of the Rambler ? 1 To a writer who had striven for fame since arriving in London over twenty years before, such praise from a stranger was no doubt gratifying (Johnson and Goldsmith wouldn’t first meet for another eighteen months). And it might have boosted his morale as he toiled away at the Idler in the wake of terrible personal and financial setbacks, while still procrastinating on his long-delayed edition of Shakespeare. But while collected editions of the Rambler had sold moderately well by the time Goldsmith hailed it, Johnson may have been bemused nonetheless to see his literary immortality staked on his periodical essays rather than his monumental contribution to fixing the English language.

On the other hand, the relatively minor genre of the periodical essay seems to have appealed to Johnson because no one since its great originators, Addison and Steele, had managed to find enduring success in it. In the thirty-five years between the end of the Spectator and the first number of the Rambler , roughly three dozen essay series modeled on the Tatler , Spectator , and Guardian had appeared in London. Of these, only three titles were issued in collected editions more than three times; and even then, only the most recent, the Female Spectator (1744–6), would see an edition in print beyond the 1740s. 2 Meanwhile, new collected editions of Addison’s and Steele’s series continued to appear regularly every few years, with the latest brought out in 1749–50. Johnson’s aim was therefore to succeed in writing essays that would not just momentarily captivate the public but stand “the test of a long trial” like those of his great predecessors (Boswell, Life , vol. i, 201). And in this he half-succeeded. For while the Rambler ’s original periodical readership was small, the collected essays enjoyed a thriving afterlife as “classicks” for roughly seventy years, until English literary taste had changed sufficiently to make the rigor and religiosity of Johnson’s moralizing seem outmoded and dull. Goldsmith, then, was half-right too. Posterity indeed still remembers the Rambler , but only as the lesser writing of Dictionary Johnson.

From the vantage of 1759, however, Johnson’s single-handed restoration of the periodical essay to literary prominence was remarkable not just for the Rambler itself, but for stimulating a brief but prolific revival of the genre after more than three decades of mediocre iterations. The Rambler ’s ruminative style, generalizing philosophy, and sober self-criticism stripped the approach of Addison’s and Steele’s essays to what Johnson conceived as the genre’s bare rhetorical essence. Instead of recording the foibles of the Town in their time-bound details, he sought to abstract from them general principles of right and wrong conduct. When three major collections of periodical essays—James Harrison’s British Classicks (1786), J. Parsons’s Select British Classics (1793), and Alexander Chalmers’s British Essayists (1803)—canonized the genre at the end of the eighteenth century, all skipped straight from the Guardian to the Rambler and those series which immediately followed it. Nathan Drake, too, structured his five-volume history of the genre (1805, 1809) around these same high-water marks. But where Johnson looked to the Spectator as an inspiring example of how diurnal essays could live on into posterity, most essayists writing in the wake of the Rambler pointedly rejected Johnson’s religious seriousness and heavy-handed style. So even in the one literary genre in which Johnson was demonstrably influential, his example was mostly a negative one—fitting for such a dogged contrarian.

The Periodical Essay

The Rambler today is best known for its moral and intellectual rigor and elevated diction: a totemic expression of the older Johnson made familiar by Boswell. Among students of the eighteenth century who are not Johnsonians, roughly five essays have come to stand in for the series as a whole: Rambler 4 (on the novel), 5 (on Spring), 12 (on a young woman come to London for service), 60 (on biography), and 155 (on the danger of habits). In this, the Rambler has shared the fate of the Spectator , whose 635 essays are typically represented by the eight or so that are most often anthologized. But in the Spectator ’s case, we read them because of the ratified historical impact they had in constituting the modern public sphere and its characteristic print media. In the case of the Rambler , we read them because Boswell’s Johnson wrote them. Their difference from other periodical essays, in other words, is what marks them as Johnson’s and makes them worth reading. Taken as a whole, however, the Rambler offers insight not just into the literary development of Johnson’s characteristic philosophical tough-mindedness, but into a generic conception of the periodical essay that has been mostly lost to literary history.

As Boswell notes, Johnson undertook the Rambler to remedy a conspicuous absence in the publishing world of mid-century London: no essay series of comparable scope, moral intent, or literary and intellectual quality had appeared since the Spectator ’s last volume of 1714. So much time had elapsed, and so many inferior imitations had come and gone, in fact, that he believed such a publication would “have the advantage of novelty” ( Life , vol. i, 201). The Rambler ’s wordy, at times ponderous, style was certainly novel for the genre and much remarked upon (Boswell’s defense of it, comparing the acquired taste of Johnson’s harder “liquor of more body” to Addison’s instantly pleasing “light wine,” is among his most apt similes—even if he seems to have taken it from Johnson himself: Life , vol. i, 224). 3 And against the expectations of the title, Rambler essays tend to reek of the closed air of the study rather than sparkle with the liveliness of the town as had the Tatler and Spectator . This was deliberate, as Johnson found Steele’s essays wanting for “being mere Observations on Life and Manners without a sufficiency of solid Learning acquired from Books” (Boswell, Life , vol. i, 215). Instead of recording and reflecting on the minutiae of London life with such compelling style that his essays might eventually claim the notice of posterity, Johnson used the winnowing force of his intellect and rhetoric immediately to retrieve kernels of universal truth from the disposable husks of everyday situations. This made the Rambler responsive more to Johnson’s sense of what should always matter than to the comparatively petty matters of the day.

Johnson’s account of the Spectator ’s achievement in the Life of Addison offers crucial insight into this revisionist conception of the periodical essay. John Gay’s “Present State of Wit” (1711), the first extensive account of the new genre, provided the template, which Johnson would fill out with a deeper sense of literary history. Gay had marveled at how the Tatler dared “to tell the Town”—twice weekly—“that they were a parcel of Fops, Fools, and vain Cocquets” yet managed to reform readers’ behavior because it did so with such panache. 4 “’Tis incredible to conceive the effect his Writings have had on the Town,” Gay goes on; “How many Thousand follies they have either quite banish’d, or given a very great check to” while having “set all our Wit and Men of Letters upon a new way of Thinking” ( Poetry and Prose , vol. ii, 452). Though Town manners had started to backslide once the Tatler ceased publishing, Gay held out great hope for the newly published Spectator , whose “Spirit and Stile” and “Prodigious … Run of Wit and Learning” promises similarly great things (455). Johnson, too, praises the Tatler and Spectator for supplying “cooler and more inoffensive reflections” to “minds heated with political contest” by the newssheets of the day, noting that these essays “had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment with decency” (Yale Works , vol. xxii, 614). One can hear echoes of this account in Habermas’s still-influential theory of how the first English periodicals helped create modern public culture in Queen Anne’s London. Yet Johnson also situates this new form of print media in a longer history of European literature in ways that implicitly explain his manner of proceeding in the Rambler .

The Rambler was, in some ways, a throwback. But to what exactly? Boswell sought to explain and ennoble the Rambler ’s characteristic ponderousness by giving it a distinguished national pedigree. The rigor of Johnson’s style, he claimed, harks back to “the great writers of the last century, Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Hakewell, and others,” like Sir William Temple and Sir Thomas Browne ( Life , vol. i, 219, 221). By the time Boswell wrote this, the Rambler had become a “classic” of the English essay tradition, known to many more readers as handsomely bound volumes than it ever had been in periodical form; it had taken its rightful place, shelved alongside the tomes of early modern England’s hardest and most serious thinkers. The Rambler ’s original periodicity appears, from this vantage, incidental to its universal character and worth. Johnson’s own account of the periodical essay, however, emphasizes the genre’s complex, and necessary, engagement with its own moment. He also gives it a deep transnational pedigree, citing “Casa in his book of Manners , and Castiglione in his Courtier ” as key precedents for the Tatler ’s and Spectator ’s common mission to reform “the unsettled practice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness” (Yale Works , vol. xxii, 614). But Johnson notes, too, that these English serials bear the influence of the popular Caractères (1688) of Jean de La Bruyère. This collection of satiric portraits of courtiers and citizens during the reign of Louis XIV “exhibited the “Characters and Manners of the Age” so engagingly and with such “justness of observation” that new French and English editions continued to be issued and read, long after the society, whose foibles La Bruyère skewered, had ceased to be (vol. xxii, 614, 612). By so successfully bridging the gap between timely moral writing and the regard of posterity, the Caractères in Johnson’s view provides a model to which authors of popular moral essays should aspire. The distinctively English innovation was to use the nation’s notorious public appetite for news and controversy, and the teeming print media which fed it, as a means of mass social and cultural improvement. 5

The Form of the Rambler

This potted history might suggest that Johnson wasn’t much concerned with the periodical essay’s formal dimensions, but the format he chose for the Rambler indicates otherwise. The Caractères in The Life of Addison appears not only as a conceptual bridge between present and future, but also formally as one between the Italian conduct books and the Spectator . While Castiglione’s Cortegiano (Book of the Courtier) (1528) is a collection of dialogues and Casa’s Galateo (A Treatise on Politeness) (1558) a monologic discourse, the Caractères is a miscellaneous collection of essays, moral reflections, and character sketches that manage to compel despite being “written without connection” (Yale Works , vol. xxii, 612). La Bruyère’s book, in a way, represents what would become the end of the publishing trajectory of the English periodical essay, as formerly weekly (or biweekly, or even daily) sheets responding to matters of the moment were collected in volumes and reprinted as morally, if not thematically, consistent wholes. The numerous sections of the Caractères , however, never circulated individually. In Johnson’s view, this may have hindered the work’s effectiveness, for writing that attempts to reform its readers’ morals and manners must be adapted formally to its intended sphere of action. Johnson notes that while English readers have long “had many books to teach us our more important duties,” before the Tatler and Spectator no literary works had appositely engaged the comparatively minor “track of daily conversation” that required for its reformation “the frequent publication of short papers, which we read not as study, but amusement” (vol. xxii, 613). The dignity of the form (minor though it may be) lies in its self-sufficiency: regularly circulated folio half-sheets act as a material bulwark of common sense against the flood of newssheets and controversial tracts “agitating the nation” (vol. xxii, 614). This was the original format of the periodical essay, to which Johnson deliberately returned with the Rambler .

Between the final number of the Spectator and the first of the Rambler , essay serials had appeared much more frequently as columns amidst the miscellaneous matter in magazines and newspapers than as individually published sheets. Many of these, like Lewis Theobald’s Censor , first published in Mist’s Journal (1715–17), were later brought out in collected editions to assert their enduring value apart from their original, evidently ephemeral, publication media. Such was the assumed cachet of the single-sheet essay that the preface to the Humourist (1720) claimed that its initial popularity when the essays had “appear’d Abroad singly” warranted this collected volume, though there’s no indication that the Humourist had ever circulated as individual sheets (1720, [xxxi]). 6 The folio half-sheet, according to Spectator 10, helped focus the mind amidst the myriad distractions of London and its teeming “publick Prints.” 7 The double-column printing of the Spectator ’s sheets, moreover, slyly mimicked the form of the standard early eighteenth-century newssheet in order to confound readers’ expectations when, instead of finding the usual miscellaneous material therein, they’d discover a single, sustained topic for reflection. By taking just the “Quarter of an Hour” required to read one of these essays each morning, London’s citizens could then apply the “sound and wholesome Sentiments” they contained to their daily experiences around town ( Spectator , vol. i, 47, 46). Johnson, as a former editor and miscellaneous writer for the Gentleman’s Magazine , recognized how essential this self-contained format was to the focusing aims of the periodical essay and refined it further to emphasize the genre’s inherent dignity. Each Rambler essay was printed in single columns across three half-sheets to make it stand out even more from other periodicals. The series was also the first printed without advertisements, and with sequential page numbering to encourage readers to keep and bind them in order. These changes materially reflect Johnson’s posterity-oriented conception of the periodical essay and would shortly be adopted by series like the Adventurer (1752–4), the World (1753–6), the Connoisseur (1754–6), the Mirror (1779–80), and the Lounger (1785–7). To write essays for the present was, for Johnson and his immediate successors, also to write for the edification of readers in an extensive, unknowable future.

The Topicality of the Rambler

While these formal departures indicate Johnson’s desire to elevate the Rambler above everyday pettiness and commercial concerns, the essays themselves were not unconcerned with matters of the moment. James Woodruff has shown how Johnson’s original readers would have easily grasped the topical relevance of a number of Rambler essays whose contemporary context is not immediately evident to us. Using London newspapers as his guide, Woodruff connects several essays on the problematic effects of sudden riches, and one on the force of chance in human affairs, to the public mania generated by the State Lottery drawing of 1751. 8 Rambler 107 (March 26, 1751) refers directly to the imminent shift in Britain from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar; the taxonomy in Rambler 144 of various types of pernicious detractors appeared amidst several cases of public reputation-trashing; the warning in Rambler 149 against prematurely condemning suspects of criminal acts followed on the heels of a widely reported instance of mob justice; and no. 148, dealing with “parental tyranny,” was published in the wake of news reports concerning multiple acts of parricide and filicide. 9 Besides these, the Rambler features recurring seasonal reflections; meditations during religious holidays; and critical essays on biography, history, prose fiction, and poetry which seem prompted by recent publications. Though Johnson would boast in the Rambler ’s final number that he had “never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled [his] readers to discuss the topick of the day” (Yale Works , vol. v, 316), this was true only in the most reductive sense. Research like Woodruff’s demonstrates how Johnson regularly aligned the Rambler ’s philosophical inquiries with topics of great public interest to demonstrate, by implication, how readers might come to recognize general or universal patterns of conduct (or moral truth) in what might otherwise appear passing matters of media-driven concern.

This Johnsonian impulse to reveal the enduring substance beneath superficial appearances informs the Rambler ’s signature rhetorical style as well. The contrast with the Spectator illuminates how each series models, in its essayistic form, different conceptions of how readers should engage with the world. A typical Spectator essay will declare its proposition concerning human character and conduct, and then move through a number of particular instances that demonstrate the validity of that proposition. “The most improper things we commit in the Conduct of our Lives, we are led into by the Force of Fashion,” begins Spectator 64. “Instances may be given, in which a prevailing Custom makes us act against the Rules of Nature, Law, and common Sense,” Mr. Spectator continues, “but at present I shall confine my Consideration of the Effect it has upon Men’s Minds, by looking into our Behaviour when it is the Fashion to go into Mourning.” Following an account of the history of courtly mourning rituals, the essay concludes by pointing out how absurd it is for the general public to adopt such rituals to mourn foreign princes with whom they have no connection, not least because the mass shift to mourning garb leaves domestic clothiers “pinched with present Want” for the period’s duration. The essay’s arch tone and wry depiction of the “wholesale Dealer in Silks and Ribbons,” who dreads the death of any “foreign Potentate” because of how this fashionable “Folly” will impact his bottom line, reinforce the worldliness of its moralizing ( Spectator , vol. i, 275–7). This pattern—followed throughout the Spectator —formally enacts the ideal process by which readers should mull over the general moral or philosophical points the essays raise as they encounter representative instances of them in their daily business around the Town and City.

The Rambler likewise matches its rhetoric to its aims, but with a key difference. Whereas the Spectator adduces worldly particulars to bear out its nuggets of general wisdom, Rambler essays often take circuitous tours from moral generalities through particular exceptions to these general rules, before returning to modified reaffirmations of these essays’ original propositions. “The heart of Johnson’s mission as a moralist,” according to Leopold Damrosch, “is to make us stop parroting the precepts of moralists and start thinking for ourselves” (81). The movement Damrosch describes from received precepts to the reader’s thoughtful reconsideration of them highlights individual moral agency to a greater degree than the more sociable ethos expressed (and modeled) throughout the Tatler and Spectator . Mark E. Wildermuth’s consideration of the religious dimensions of Johnson’s style in the Rambler likewise points to the series’ primary focus on individual moral and intellectual development. Each essay aims, he notes, “to expand our moral consciousness by prompting us to consider different kinds of perspectives, the human and the divine, the relative and the absolute, in order more fully to comprehend the spiritual and ethical significance of our behavior” (229). The rhetorical pattern Johnson used to try to catalyze this new comprehension is remarkably consistent throughout: over half of the Rambler ’s 208 essays (114, to be exact) begin by asserting a general idea or precept, which is then subjected to minute inquiry to ascertain just how far it applies to the vagaries of human experience. Of the remaining ninety-four essays, sixty-five are epistles from fictitious readers, with the rest comprising literary criticism (mostly of Milton’s verse and the folly of pastoralism) and Eastern tales—and even many of these essays revolve around common assumptions which Johnson proceeds to question. Whereas Addison and Steele primarily sought to make their readers better, more thoughtful citizens, Johnson wants his readers to adjust their expectations, and come to self-understanding, via a rational, gently skeptical, Christian morality. Only thus prepared, the Rambler insists, can readers fortify themselves against the fashionable caprices and material temptations of a superficial world.

The Religiosity of the Rambler

Johnson’s critical concern with the power of inherited opinion is unique in the history of the British periodical essay. The Rambler ’s musings often proceed either from a universal principle identified by one of the ancients (Cicero or Horace, usually) or from a long-held belief with which most would automatically agree. Over 20 percent of the essays, in fact, begin with some variant of the formulation “It has long been observed …” (Yale Works , vol. iv, 92), or “Nothing has been longer observed …” (vol. v, 172). This pattern, along with the wandering quality of the essays’ ruminations, speaks to Johnson’s intent to lay bare for readers how they might critically examine the validity of truisms and adapt them to more productive uses. Rambler 29, for instance, begins by asserting that “There is nothing recommended with greater frequency among the gayer poets of antiquity, than the secure possession of the present hour, and the dismission of all the cares which intrude upon our quiet” and ends with the Christian moral that “if we neglect the duties” of the present “to make provision against visionary attacks, we shall certainly counteract our own purpose” (vol. iii, 158–62). In a movement typical of the series, a pagan carpe diem ethos is surprisingly transformed, via a process of rational sifting and refinement, into a call to live a virtuous Christian life. Following ancient sensualist practice is, of course, absurd for those living with the benefits of Christianity, Johnson avers; yet “the incitements to pleasure are, in these authors, generally mingled with such reflections upon life, as well deserve to be considered distinctly from the purposes for which they are produced.” The essay then moves through arguments concerning the paralytic effects of an “idle and thoughtless resignation to chance”; the reason why “a wise man is not amazed at sudden occurrences” (because he “never considered things not yet existing as the proper objects of his attention,” not because he has special insight into “futurity”); and how the traditional moralists’ check to “the swellings of vain hope by representations of the innumerable casualties to which life is subject” can work equally well as “an antidote to fear” of the unknown by reinforcing just how much of life exceeds our control. It ends by musing on how indulging imaginary fears prevents us from recognizing that every moment offers opportunities for the work of moral improvement, the only real route to “human happiness”—a conception of the good, and of the means of attaining it, far afield from the essay’s opening precept. But the essential point—that worrying about an unknowable future prevents us from living the good life, however we conceive it—abides through all the philosophical and religious transmutations to which Johnson rigorously subjects it.

The Rambler ’s method of testing and qualifying received moral wisdom is brought to bear on even the hoariest sentiments, such as the universality of the “wish for riches.” Rambler 131 (Yale Works , vol. iv, 331–5) begins by affirming that “Wealth is the general center of inclination, the point to which all minds preserve an invariable tendency.” There’s good reason for this, as “No desire can be formed which riches do not assist or gratify”; and it follows that since wealth is the surest means to gratification, the temptation to acquire it via “subtilty and dishonesty” is nearly as universal as the desire for wealth itself. After several paragraphs detailing the social ramifications of this problem (general unease, endemic fraud, the unfortunate “punctilious minuteness” of contracts), the essay concludes by facing up to the stubborn fact of inequality, which exacerbates the universal desire for riches. While we might pine for a lost “golden age” and its “community of possessions,” Johnson posits, it has vanished forever along with the “spontaneity of production” which made it possible. For production has long since depended on labor, and in spite of the “multitudes” who “strive to pluck the fruit without cultivating the tree,” “property” rightfully accrues to those who work for it. Readers determined not to resort to fraud, nor to take “vows of perpetual poverty” (which Johnson dismisses as an unproductive escape into “inactivity and uselessness”), are left with one course of action: to embrace “riches” as a means “necessary to present convenience” while adhering rigorously to “justice, veracity, and piety” in the pursuit and use of them. The intellectual loop Johnson runs here, like that of Rambler 29 and so many others, takes readers from an inherited truism, through a variety of instances which account for and test it, and back to the original proposition seen anew from the solid, common-sense grounding of basic Christian morality. It’s a form of baptism-by-argument, plunging readers into the fluid medium of worldly knowledge illuminated by Christian piety, from which they emerge with new perspectives on themselves, and their moral-cultural inheritance.

The Adventurer and the Universal Chronicle

The Rambler ’s pervasive religiosity, however moderated by the genre’s customary worldliness, is new to the periodical essay. While subsequent series like the World , the Connoisseur , and the Lounger would revert to the less religious, topical-satiric mode associated with the Tatler and Spectator , the next significant London half-sheet essay periodical the Adventurer (1752–4) carried on the religious turn—not surprisingly, given that Johnson wrote for it. Started by John Hawkesworth, who had succeeded Johnson as parliamentary reporter for the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1744 and would go on to literary fame for his edition of Swift’s works (1765–6) and The Three Voyages of Captain Cook (1773–84), the series was also brought out by John Payne, the Rambler ’s publisher. Johnson wrote roughly a quarter of its 140 numbers, as did Joseph Warton; Hawkesworth was responsible for most of the rest, with assistance on a few papers from Bonnell Thornton (who would shortly begin the Connoisseur with George Coleman) and several others—all anonymously. According to Payne, the Adventurer ’s “ultimate design … [was] to promote the practice of piety and virtue upon the principles of Christianity; yet in such a manner that they for whose benefit it is chiefly intended may not be tempted to throw it aside”: in other words, to do what the Rambler did. 10 And it succeeded, for the Adventurer initially outsold the Rambler in both its original sheets and its first folio and duodecimo editions. The series followed its predecessor, too, in presenting itself—even more explicitly—as a collection designed with posterity in mind. A note at the end of the Adventurer ’s first essay informed readers that “These Numbers will be formed into regular Volumes, to each of which will be printed a Title, a Table of Contents, and a Translation of the Mottos and Quotations”; another at the bottom of no. 70 reads “End of the First Volume”; and the last essay notes that “when [the Adventurer ] was first planned, it was determined, that, whatever might be the success, it should not be continued as a paper, till it became unwieldy as a book.” 11 Though now known only to the most devoted eighteenth-century specialist (and even then only for the twenty-nine essays Johnson had anonymously authored), editions of the Adventurer were reprinted nearly as often as those of the Rambler through the 1790s. 12 The explicit religiosity of both, however, remained unique; only the Looker-On (1792–3), a half-sheet essay series which later marshaled Christian piety against the immediate threat of Jacobin infidelity, would work in a similar vein.

Even as Johnson can claim to have revived the periodical essay with the Rambler , the mid-century literary marketplace remained a difficult environment for such ventures. The World and Connoisseur were singularly successful, publishing as weekly sheets for four and nearly three years, respectively, but the rest of the essay series that followed the Adventurer were either short-lived or first appeared as columns in magazines and reviews, and then quickly forgotten. Johnson, too, capitulated to the realities of the market and published the Idler in the Universal Chronicle , a weekly review that appeared every Saturday from April 15, 1758 to April 5, 1760. The details of Johnson’s involvement in the paper beyond writing the Idler are murky, but Payne published the first thirty numbers, after which the Chronicle underwent two changes in publishing arrangements until it finally folded with its 104th number. Each issue ran eight pages, printed in three columns, and began with an Idler essay. Highlights from the week’s news culled from other papers followed, mostly centered on London, though coverage of events in Scotland, Ireland, and foreign countries featured as well, along with poems and political essays, and advertisements (which appeared regularly after Payne gave up the paper). While the Chronicle struggled to find readers, a number of Idler essays were widely reprinted in other newspapers and magazines during the paper’s run; and volumes of the series were brought out over a dozen times through the end of the century, in addition to being included in Harrison’s and Parsons’s collections of “classicks.” So the Idler was another measured success for Johnson in this genre.

Critically, the Idler has been treated as an afterthought. Walter Jackson Bate’s remark that “the confirmed Johnsonian finds them thin” (Yale Works , vol. ii, xix) has colored reception of the essays ever since, to the extent that while the Rambler ’s critical bibliography runs to over fifty published entries, there are only seven article-length studies devoted to the Idler . 13 An unconfirmed Johnsonian, however, can discern in the Idler ’s lighter touch and more consistent engagement with Town life Johnson’s purposeful return to the established conventions of the periodical essay. Like the Rambler , the Idler features literary criticism, Eastern tales, and general moral reflections. Since Idler essays are shorter, the critical pieces mostly focus on broad evaluative principles instead of meticulously analyzing verse structure as in the Rambler ’s Milton essays. The Idler ’s early numbers also deal explicitly with current events, the series having begun nearly two years into the Seven Years’ War (essays 5 through 8 concern the war, a topical focus nowhere evident in the Rambler ). Bate argues that while this topical turn indicates that Johnson initially wanted to distinguish the new series from its predecessor, the Idler ’s reversion in later numbers to universal subjects and literary criticism suggests that Johnson found it easier in the end to rely on the approach he had pioneered in the Rambler . Given Johnson’s habitual indolence and pressure to continue working on his Shakespeare edition, this seems plausible. But the pervasive differences between the two series imply that Johnson wanted to explore a side of the genre that he had de-emphasized in the Rambler .

Though it lacks the Rambler ’s analytical rigor, the Idler translates its predecessor’s concern with self-scrutiny into a more humorous, workaday idiom. Between the Adventurer ’s last and the Idler ’s first number, the World and the Connoisseur had infused the periodical essay with a sharper sense of irony and satire. Both series present a London public marked by shallow and materialistic self-absorption that, especially in the Connoisseur , reflects the failure of the Spectator and other periodical essays to make good on the genre’s promise to create thoughtful, reflective citizens. 14 The gleeful irreverence with which they skewered the pretentions of Town life, though far afield from the pious sobriety we associate with the Rambler , seems to have registered with Johnson as he embarked on his final essay series, which is indeed marked by a greater “satiric impulse” (O’Flaherty, “Johnson’s Idler ,” 213). But the Idler ’s gentle satires of ordinary foibles suggest that Johnson strove to mitigate the barbed severity of the World and Connoisseur by restoring to the periodical essay the more tolerant and sociable tenor of Addison’s and Steele’s work.

The Idler ’s worldview is thus narrower and less historically extensive than the Rambler ’s. Whereas Rambler essays typically point to how long a traditional notion has been held before skeptically picking it apart, the Idler follows the Spectator by offering entertaining confirmation of bits of common knowledge. Only eight Idler essays (out of 104) take the Rambler ’s approach; the rest begin by stating what is “commonly observed” ( Idler 11, in Yale Works , vol. ii, 36) or what “commonly happens” ( Idler 18, vol. ii, 56), or by presenting a precept (“There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth”: Idler 20, vol. ii, 62; “Prudence is of more frequent use than any other intellectual quality”: Idler 57, vol. ii, 177) before showing, in a series of examples, how these nuggets of wisdom play out in daily life. This is not the intellectual baptism performed by the Rambler . But the way that many Idler essays dismantle the moral self-righteousness which is always a potential upshot of social satire does recall the Rambler ’s skeptical method.

This aim of the Idler accounts, in part, for the prominence of character sketches in the series (36 percent of Idler essays feature sketches, compared with 21 percent in the Rambler ). Where his first essay series aimed to make readers more independently thoughtful and pious individuals, Johnson’s second strives to promote an ethos of generosity and mild tolerance by reminding readers that they, too, are subject to the foibles they snicker at in others. The example of La Bruyère’s Caractères therefore looms larger in the Idler than it had in the Rambler . But while the best known of the Idler ’s sketches (nos. 60 and 61, devoted to the hapless critic Dick Minim) hew close to traditional character portraits, Johnson sets most of the others in letters from fictional correspondents, which adds another layer of subtlety to his use of them to promote social morality. The letters from Robin Spritely in nos. 78 and 83 exemplify this perfectly. Spritely’s portraits of Sim Scruple, Dick Wormwood, Bob Sturdy, and Phil Gentle in no. 83 slot in neatly with the English tradition of descriptively named characters: Scruple delights in raising doubts; Wormwood compulsively contradicts everyone and everything; Sturdy’s convictions are unshakable; and Gentle acquiesces in every situation. A tenor of amused indulgence prevails as Spritely anatomizes the folly of each, showing at the end how Gentle’s refusal to take a position in an inconclusive debate allows all the others privately to feel as if they’ve actually won. Beyond what is implied in these humorous portraits of personal quirks, however, there’s no culminating lesson about proper conduct. These characters simply are who they are: harmless eccentrics whose leading traits an alert reader might mark in any crowd. The fictional letter form moreover allows Johnson to avoid the rigid moralizing of the traditional essayist. Readers must decide how much authority to grant Spritely, who confesses his own failings when he notes that it has taken him a month to follow up his first letter because he (like Johnson) is an inveterate procrastinator despite “how often” he has “praised the dignity of resolution” (Yale Works , vol. ii, 259). This sort of broad acceptance of everyday shortcomings, rooted in clear-eyed self-criticism, is the Idler ’s characteristic mode.

The Idler ’s aim to restore the tolerant good humor of the Tatler and Spectator to the genre thus parallels the Rambler ’s reassertion of the classic periodical essay’s formal integrity with its half-sheets. And the distinct tenor of each series finally harmonizes in the Idler ’s last number. The coincidental publication of this final essay on Holy Saturday makes Johnson nudge his readers to begin “the review of life” and “the renovation of holy purposes,” for “the termination of any period of life reminds us that life itself has likewise its termination” (Yale Works , vol. ii, 259). It’s a somewhat jarring conclusion to “this series of trifles,” though only those determined to hear nothing but sententiousness in Johnson’s voice could miss the winking in the essay’s last words, which encourage readers to think of “the day in which every work of the hand, and imagination of the heart shall be brought to judgment, and an everlasting futurity shall be determined by the past” (vol. ii, 259). His abiding concern with literary posterity—heard more explicitly in the Rambler ’s concluding ruminations on his “future life” and “the final sentence of mankind”—was never far from Johnson’s mind, even when producing these comparative “trifles” (vol. v, 318; vol. ii, 259).

Looking back from 1802, Alexander Chalmers summed up the Rambler ’s critical fortunes: once “the prejudices which were alarmed by a new style and manner” in the periodical essay had subsided, readers widely acknowledged the “general merit of this work” despite some quibbles from “critics and grammarians” concerning its “labored, and perhaps pedantic sentences.” While a “new set of objectors have appeared since the author’s death,” Chalmers charges them with petty “hostility” to a work designed not “for the uneducated part of the world, nor for those who, whatever their education, read only for their amusement.” 15 Chalmers’s defense of the Rambler ’s lofty aims and dismissal of complaints about its difficult language reveals how much the critical tide had turned by the end of the eighteenth century. He does, however, exaggerate how shocked readers were by the series when it first appeared, for the ostensible “alarm” at the Rambler ’s “style and manner” was quite late in sounding: not until 1779, when Vicesimus Knox censured the “affected appearance of pomposity”—“disgusting to all readers”—which makes the Rambler “greatly inferior to the easy and natural Spectator,” did critics begin to assert a strong preference for the more genial style of Addison and Steele (Chalmers, in Critical Heritage , 81). 16 Before then, and still well into the 1780s, critical assessments of the series repeated verbatim David Erskine Baker’s 1764 declaration that the Rambler “proved at least equal, if not superior, to” the Tatler and Spectator . 17 Even those like Joseph Towers, who found the Rambler “less calculated for general reading” than the Spectator , and James Harrison, who regretted that the essays are “encumbered by words which possess too much Latinity for a mere English reader,” concurred that it was “more interesting to literary men” and an “exquisite periodical paper.” 18

Yet by the end of the 1790s a critical consensus had developed that the Rambler ’s laborious language interfered with the modus operandi of the periodical essay—to help readers more deeply appreciate the moral dimensions of everyday life. The Idler ’s reputation, meanwhile, rose a bit as the Rambler ’s declined, while the Adventurer —considered as “a continuation” of the Rambler —was typically dispatched in a single sentence. 19 William Shaw’s preference of the Idler for its “spirit” and “greater variety of subjects” was still unusual in 1785; but when Arthur Murphy less than a decade later characterized the Idler as “the Odyssey after the Iliad ” because its “style of ease and unlaboured elegance” offers a pleasing break from “the fatigue of thinking” the Rambler foists on readers, he demonstrated why the Idler could have wider popular appeal (Murphy, in Critical Heritage , 72). 20 By the time Chalmers rose to the Rambler ’s defense, contending that in the Idler Johnson “sometimes forgot the exclusive business of the moral Essayist, [and] meddled with the occasional politics of the day,” he faced a growing consensus that, as William Mudford put it, “Johnson’s reflections on life in [the Idler ] are more natural than in his Rambler ,” and hence “far more valuable.” 21 Judged by early nineteenth-century standards of nature, it was clear to most that the Idler displays “more candour in [its] delineations, and more veracity in [its] assertions” than its more professedly serious predecessor (Mudford, in Critical Heritage , 80).

By the time William Hazlitt published his Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819), the revolution in English critical assessments of the Rambler was complete. Johnson’s major achievement as an essayist was, to Hazlitt, everything that a periodical essay series should not be: unnatural, unoriginal, stilted, and leaden. Compared with the “memorandums of the events and incidents of the day, … finished studies after nature, and characters fresh from the life” that abound in the Tatler and Spectator , the Rambler to Hazlitt appears as an “imposing commonplace-book of general topics” containing “hardly a reflection … which had not been already suggested and developed by some other author, or in the common course of conversation.” 22 Johnson “does not set us thinking for the first time,” nor do the essays offer readers anything like “a new truth gained to the mind” ( Collected Works , vol. viii, 100). And where Murphy had offered a portrait of Johnson in the Rambler as “a dictator in his splendid robes” who “darts his lightning, and rolls his thunder, in the cause of virtue and piety” ( Critical Heritage , 71), Hazlitt represents Johnson’s style as “the mimic thunder at one of our theatres,” while “the light he throws upon a subject is like the dazzling effect of phosphorous, or an ignis fatuus of words” ( Collected Works , vol. viii, 101). Curiously, Hazlitt ignores the Idler , which would seem closer in tenor and execution to his ideal of the periodical essay (though he does pause to dismiss the Adventurer as “completely trite and vapid”: Collected Works , vol. viii, 104). Perhaps it was enough to erect the Rambler as the main foil to the Spectator . To an extent, this is how the Rambler is still read. What has changed is our tendency to consider the essays as concentrated expressions of Johnson’s moral and philosophical thought rather than to situate them firmly in the popular milieu of the periodical essay. In this post-Boswell context, the Rambler seems always to have transcended its moment in ways that make Hazlitt appear to have missed the point. But, by overlooking the extent of Johnson’s particular engagement with this once ubiquitous and highly regarded genre, we too can miss much about his achievements as an essayist.

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Moral Weeklies (Periodical Essays)

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The early eighteenth century witnessed the birth in England of the "Spectators", a journalistic and literary genre that developed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution (1688). Beginning in 1709 these newspapers and their fictitious narrators would influence the entire European continent. In the Anglophone world the "Spectators" were also called "periodical essays", whereas in German-speaking lands they were known as "Moralische Wochenschriften" or, in a re-translation into English, as "Moral Weeklies". These periodicals constituted a new public medium, aimed especially at a bourgeois audience and responsible for a brisk discursive transfer. They thus not only added further dimensions to public communication, but they also contributed decisively to the development of modern narrative forms.

Preconditions for the Periodical Essay

The Spectator genre owed its development in England to the political and cultural events of the late 17th century. In the reigns of William III of Orange (1650–1702) and his successor Queen Anne Stuart (1665–1714) , new forms of democratic sensibility emerged that diverged from absolutist models and laid the foundation for the genesis and promotion of public communication. England had long since set its own course, one that was critically opposed to the traditional social forms of the European continent . Work in Parliament laid the foundation for English law, and new public structures arose; both processes were closely connected to the development of medial communication. The reigning moral code became that of the sober and pragmatic Protestant worldview, which underlay the national stereotype of the "practical Englishman".

The philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) , the founder of modern epistemology and the critique of knowledge, gladly returned to England after William ascended the throne (1688). With his works An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) he contributed decisively to both the reflection on the process of social renewal and the communication of knowledge in the modern sense. The time was slowly arriving for the successful English model to be exported to the European continent.

Philosophy was joined by freedom of the press, introduced in 1695, in promoting the notion of fairness and tolerance. This brought with it a trend towards liberalization that strengthened the middle class's sense of itself, giving rise to an appreciable feeling that change was in the air. At that time the gentry set the tone in English society, and its ideal of the gentleman served as the model for the emerging bourgeoisie, especially in the capital city of London . Critical observers, however, found fault with this code of behaviour, claiming that it was otiose, morally nonchalant and constituted a playing field for the increasing depravity of culture. At the turn of the century, numerous cries were heard for the comprehensive reform of morals and behavioural patterns. 1

Joseph Addison (1672–1719), undatierter Kupferstich, unbekannter Künster. Bildquelle: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?494468 © New York Public Library.

The literary roots of the periodical essays can be found partly in French culture, which at the time still served as the model for wide social circles in Europe . Nicolas Boileau's (1636–1711) writings provided access to discussions about the reception of the hegemonic textual forms of Greek and Roman antiquity. In the foreground of this transfer stood literary forms like satire, the character portraits of Jean de la Bruyère (1645–1696) , and the dramas of Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) . Michel de Montaigne's (1533–1592) Essais (1580) also influenced the development of the Spectators , although the latter departed from the authentic first-person narrator of the French model and vanish behind the mask of a fictional narrator.

Cultural forerunners of the periodical essay can also be found in the literary forms of the Italian classics and the Spanish Golden Age, the Siglo de Oro (16th/17th century), which had had an early influence on English literature. One thinks, among the many possible examples, of Giovanni Boccaccio's (1313–1375) novellas, of the narrative forms of the Spanish picaresque novel, of the romance and its transcendence through Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's (1547–1616) El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1605/1615), of the dream narratives of a Francisco Quevedo (1580–1645) , and of the masque, which spread to Spain by way of Italian culture.

"Spectatorial" Prototypes

The tatler (1709–1711).

This was the background for the journalistic enterprise of the Whig Richard Steele, who launched The Tatler. By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. on 12 April 1709. 2 After the first issues had appeared, Steele was joined by his longtime friend and confidant Joseph Addison. The paper ran on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, the days on which mail was delivered in the countryside. The rhythm suggested by the term "weekly" had not yet been established. It would first come into use in continental imitations, especially in connection with German papers. Thus a genre was created that in the course of the century would spread all over Europe in hundreds of different periodicals. The distinctive feature of this model lay in the fact that it did not just engage in the didactic moralism typical of Anglican devotional literature but rather presented moral considerations in a new, playful and informal way.

In his first "Spectatorial" enterprise Steele used the persona of Isaac Bickerstaff, a fictional character originally contrived by Jonathan Swift. This imaginary figure was well known in England and especially in London, and thus this first observer of contemporary society was in a certain sense "trustworthy." Steele created a fictional frame for Bickerstaff and used this perspective to observe the mercantile society of London. Many contemporaries might have guessed that Steele was behind the mask, but only in the final issue of the newspaper did the true author identify himself. 3 With issue 271 on 2 January 1711, the author brought his Tatler , in which Addison had come to play an increasingly important role, to an end. Nevertheless, in a letter to the editor Bickerstaff was prompted to continue his intellectual game. A sequel to the project was thus to be expected.

The Spectator (1711–1714)

The Guardian (1713)

The third and last journalistic prototype was the short-lived magazine The Guardian , which first appeared on 12 March 1713 and reached 175 issues. 5 The narrator was now Nestor Ironside, a retired tutor living in the circle of his host family, whose patriarch had died. The septuagenarian Ironside possessed the necessary distance to the individual members of the family to portray their moral character and to interpret their conversations accordingly. Here, too, piety and virtue played a central role, as did the rational upbringing of youth and the observation of private discourse.

Characteristics of the Genre

Periodical publication and reissues.

The periodical essays were characterized by their entertaining portrayal of moralizing contents. They were published in regular intervals, and after a certain period of time the folios were often collected and reissued in book form. Depending on the journal, they could appear in several editions over decades, sometimes even being printed in different cities. Thanks to their particular entertaining streak, these volumes tended to enjoy high sales. The economic factor could not be separated from "Spectatorial" enterprises. Thus it often happened that the economic success was reflected upon in the writings themselves or that reader reception was explicitly measured.

The valorisation of public communication brought with it the vitality that was essential to early liberal societies. Since reader expectations were always maintained, the regularly appearing issues became an event unto themselves and facilitated a kind of communication that was closely coupled (in Luhmann's terms) with the differentiation of functional social systems. This dynamic was all the more idiosyncratic, as the weeklies did not deal with issues of everyday politics but rather with life's basic moral-philosophical questions (and thus the same themes tended to recur). Repetition was one of the central traits of the papers, whose articles were self-contained and – with very few exceptions – could be exchanged with one another at will. The articles' timelessness is the reason that the papers could appear years later in anthologies and continue to be of interest to the inquiring readers of the evolving middle class.

Translations and Adaptations

The moralizing journalism pioneered by Steele was quick to win an audience and to give rise to adaptive imitations and translations. This type of reception occurred as early as regarding the Tatler itself. Soon after the journal's appearance several related titles hit the market. 6 Thus on 8 July 1709 – i.e. about three months later – a competing enterprise appeared in the dress of a cooperative union: The Female Tatler. By Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that knows every thing . The fictional editor Mrs. Crackenthorpe claimed to be a colleague of Bickerstaff and to operate her periodical as a complement to his. The true author of this paper, which ended on 31 March 1710 after 115 issues, has still not been identified. 7

Female Audience

As this example shows, the periodical essays and the later weeklies displayed another core trait: they were often aimed at a female audience, such that the first women's magazines on a larger scale can be found in this genre. 8 Gender roles were critically called into question, and problems dealing with the reigning order of the sexes were discussed. The impact could be more or less appreciable depending on the cultural context in which the journal appeared, such as in Italy or Spain. Female voices were often a disguise for male authors, some of whom were Catholic priests. This was the case in the weekly La Pensadora Gaditana (1763/1764) 9 which appeared under the pseudonym Beatriz Cienfuegos.

The Role of Fictional Authors and Editors

One of the most important traits of the genre was the introduction of fictional authors and editors. Relying on a masked, anonymous authority like Bickerstaff, Spectator or Ironside allowed the periodical essays to achieve a high degree of aesthetic appeal and to communicate moral arguments and observations. The observers were able to capture and comment on all the communication in their environment unnoticed and could therefore construct a moral code that accommodated bourgeois interests. Such characters, finally, provided the audience with innovative possibilities for self-identification. A game was developed with the readers, who felt that their own lifestyle was continually being addressed and that they were themselves being challenged. Many weeklies would later adopt this method, an excellent example of which can be seen in the introduction to the Spectator :

I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure 'till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader… 10

This clearly shows the significance of the communicative process between author and reader, in which the author's hidden identity increases the work's playful character. A complex interplay is developed between various types of observers, with opposite types mirroring and adroitly paired with each other, thus creating a reflexive composition of viewpoints. In this way, the anonymity and the mask produced a disjunction in the interaction between writer and reader, as it made it impossible for either one to ascribe anything to any specific individual. The advantage to this novel means of communicating information lay in the way it reduced prejudice to a minimum in the exchange of opinions. For it deactivated the influence that a specific author's name, age, appearance, and so forth might otherwise have on the reader. A similar technique would make its appearance in literature somewhat later in the works of Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) and Denis Diderot (1713–1748) . On the one hand this game between author and reader became typical of the communicative processes being developed in London at the time. On the other it served the transmission of moral teachings in the traditional sense.

These methods made their way into numerous translations and imitations in other European cultural spheres. As linguistic studies of some individual journals have already described in more detail, the fictional first-person narrator of the weeklies was given great importance everywhere. 11 At the same time, the personal narrative style of the disguised authors, which was based on the communicative form of the written letter and carried it forward in a new dress, also became evident. An example of the application of this style in the German context is provided by the introduction to the weekly Hypochondrist (Hypochondriac, 1762). Here the fictional narrator Zaccharias Jernstrupp sketches his hypochondriac symptoms as follows:

Ich würde vielleicht nicht einmal auf den Einfall gekommen seyn, ein Wochenblatt zu schreiben, wenn ich dieser Krankheit entbehren müsste, dass sie mir zu einem schönen Titel für meine Blätter verholfen hat. Ich habe nun alles, was zu einem wöchentlichen Autor erfordert wird. Ich bin eigensinnig, mürrisch, ein bischen eitel, eine Art von Philosoph… 12

The Staging of Sociability

The introduction of a fictional author was not the only prominent innovation of the weeklies; another was the involvement of readers in the genesis of the journal. It was common for many weeklies to invite readers to participate in discussions via letters to the editor and thus to transmit their texts to the editor or fictional author. This staging of sociability on the model of pragmatic communication strategies was probably one of the factors that contributed to the great success of such publications in the English metropolis.

The question just how much these letters, which were revised by the "fictional" editor, can still be ascribed to their "real", original authors provides a further difficulty for the reception and interpretation of such texts. Whether the letters were made up from the very beginning in order to get the communication process going, or whether they reflect what readers actually wrote, will remain a mystery for many weeklies and is a part of the hybridization that characterizes the genre. The tie to the readers is also strengthened by the original titles of the journals, which generally described their respective fictional observers. The broad spectrum spanned from the Matrone ("Matron" – 1728–1729), 13 the Braut ("Bride" – 1740) 14 and the Jüngling ("Youth" – 1747), 15 to the Vernünfftler ("Rationalist" – 1713/1714) 16 and the Patriot ("Patriot" – 1724–1726), 17 down to the Einsiedler ("Hermit" – 1740/1741), 18 the Duende (" Goblin" – 1787/1788), 19 the Misanthrope (1711/1712) 20 and even the Scannabue ("Oxen Butcher" – 1763–1765), 21 to name only a few. French scholarship has examined the entire collection of titles with the aim of elaborating a functional classification valid for all the journals. This research found five functional categories for the genre: réflexion, regard, bavardage, folie and collecte . 22

Literary Forms

Another innovation is the essayistic, narrative treatment of everyday life. The "Tatler", like his much more famous successor, the "Spectator", acts as a reflection of the social discourse in which he participates as well, integrating everything he sees and hears into his texts. It is not only his self-portrayal that is important but also the way he depicts others together with the accompanying stories, conversations, and reports. The poetics of Horace (65–8 B.C.) with its dictum "prodesse et delectare" is the inspiration here. Many other elements of the periodical essays are likewise influenced by classical literature. Letters, dream narratives and allegories, fables and satirical portrayals, all relying on Greek and Roman models, shaped the perception of the genre. Exemplary quotations appear as mottos throughout the texts, aphoristically formulating the points they communicate.

The Netherlands, Portal to the Continent

It did not take long for the periodical essays to make their way to continental Europe. The most important point of transfer for the genre was the Protestant Netherlands , especially Amsterdam and The Hague . A large group of emigrants moved north and settled in the area after the Edict of Nantes had been repealed (1685), contributing decisively to book production in French. English was also more used in this cultural context than in other parts of the continent.

Justus van Effen (1684-1735), undatierter Stich, unbekannter Künstler, Bildquelle: Lebensbeschreibung in der zweiten Auflage des Hollandsche Spectator, Amsterdam 1756, Coll. Goudse Librije, SAHM, online: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Justus_van_Effen_%281684-1735%29.jpg.

Justus van Effen, the author of the Misanthrope , was born in Utrecht and played an important role in bringing English literature to Holland. He is known above all for his translations of the novel Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719) and of texts by Jonathan Swift and Bernard de Mandeville (1670–1733) . His Misanthrope was published every Monday in The Hague. In a liberal adaptation of its English model, it successfully discussed moral questions of contemporary society. That two further editions 25 followed – in 1726 and 1742 – testifies to the auspicious reception of the enterprise.

[Justus van Effen]: Hollandsche Spectator (1731−1735). Bildquelle: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_Hollandsche_Spectator.jpg.

Justus van Effen was the essential link in the transfer and further development of the genre on the continent. He initiated a communication process through which the texts, in the form of adaptations and translations, went from England to Holland and partly even to France . In the years following, the journals were exported to the rest of Europe via francophone connections. Van Effen was quick to recognize the journalistic and literary potential of the English prototypes and to provide for their brisk adaptation to other cultural contexts. He took clever advantage of the resulting dynamic for his own enterprise, and he might even have managed to have an indirect impact on the ongoing development of the Spectator . Likewise he exercised a dialogic influence on later French productions.

His impact can be measured in yet another way. On the one hand, he – like many subsequent European authors, especially in Romance areas – established translations of original texts as the authoritative means for replicating the English prototype. This can be seen in his treatment of the Guardian . On the other hand, from the very beginning he also promoted liberal imitation and thus the adaptation of the canon and relevant moralizing issues to suit specific national and regional characteristics. Typical features of his work were multilingualism, the promotion of cultural transposition, and his many insights into the various processes of national development, which especially helped him to contribute decisively to national adaptations of the prototype – for example in the Hollandsche Spectator . His rationalistic arguments in the interest of bettering the morals of a nation became models for many contemporaries.

Furthermore, he was especially dedicated to the weekly rhythm of publication, such that he became associated not only with the Spectator genre but also with that of the moral weeklies in general. It is thus no wonder, for example, that the first such Spanish journal, El Duende especulativo (1761), 30 was based no longer on the Tatler or Spectator of Steele and Addison but rather on Van Effen's Misanthrope .

The circulation of the English prototypes was exaggerated on the continent from the get-go, the idea clearly being to underline the economic attractiveness of this journalistic enterprise. In one of the first letters accompanying the Misanthrope , the Dutch bookdealer responsible for its publication claimed that 12,000 to 15,000 copies of the Tatler were printed daily – a technical impossibility for a small press. 31 In the foreword to the Spanish Filósofo a la moda ("The Fashionable Philosopher"), the circulation of the first issues was, in imitation of its Dutch model, even placed at 20,000. 32 All in all, the most important weeklies in Europe, depending on region, probably had an average circulation of between a few hundred (Italy, Spain, etc.) and two or three thousand (England, Germany , France, etc.) copies.

The Emergence of a European Network

Further diffusion of the journals in Europe ensued rapidly, although the respective cultural milieus reacted differently. The journals' clearly formulated Protestant values determined their reception, and the genre initially enjoyed greater success in the North than in the South. Urban centres, in which bourgeois values were already more strongly developed, were more favourable than rural areas.

Johann Jacob Haid (1704-1767), Johann Mattheson (1681–1764) nach einem Gemälde von J. S. Wahl, Kupferstich, 1746; Bildquelle: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_mattheson.jpg(vormals Sammlung Andre Meyer).

Although the weeklies blossomed in northern Lutheran lands, a few decades were necessary for the genre to develop in the Catholic South. In Romance areas, the Holland-based Spectateur was probably the most influential model.

Apart from a free, abridged translation of the Spectateur that appeared in Venice as early as 1728 under the title Il Filosofo alla Moda ("The Fashionable Philosopher"), 40 the genre did not make its way to Italy until the second half of the century. In 1752 La Spettatrice ("The Female Spectator") 41 appeared; it was followed closely by the Gazzetta Veneta ("Venetian Gazette" –1760/1761), 42 the Osservatore Veneto ("Venetian Observer" – 1761/1762) 43 (later Gli Osservatori Veneti ["The Venetian Observers"]), La Frusta Letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue ("The Literary Whip of Aristarcus the Oxen Butcher" – 1763–1765) and Il Caffè ("The Café" – 1764–1766). 44

[José Clavijo y Fajardo]: El Pensador (1762−1767). Bildquelle: Memoria digital de Canarias, online: http://mdc.ulpgc.es/u?/MDC,70506.

Characteristics of the Genre's Transnational Transfer

In its transfer from the English context via Dutch-French mediation to other cultural milieus, the weekly genre took on national characteristics that could also show hints of local colour. Although the journals only seldom discussed events of the day, they were nevertheless integrated in narrative forms and modes of representing sociality that varied from nation to nation. It was common for internal matters of English politics, literature and culture to be left out of continental translations and adaptations or to be replaced or supplemented with issues relevant to the target culture. The fictional author or editor was usually given a local hue or was at least open to discussing cultural issues from his own milieu. Similar strategies were employed when French-language weeklies were adapted by authors of a different provenance. In this way French, German, Italian and Spanish authors enriched their writings with local characteristics and thus contributed to the development of a transnational network.

Journalistic and literary debates were often ignited by the question whether a given weekly was shaped by local cultural conditions or rather an import from the English, Dutch, French or German cultural sphere. A related question was to what extent Protestant ethics were being implanted in Catholic culture or, similarly, how much the liberal tendencies of a given weekly were responsible for bringing modernity to a given cultural milieu. It was, however, also possible for the defenders of a specific tradition to use the weekly as a means of combating the genre itself and the liberalisation it conveyed, as was the purpose behind the Spanish El Escritor sin título ("The Untitled Author", 1763). 47 In such cases, the author's true intention was usually kept hidden behind the weekly's satirical tone, and conflicts of interpretation were still highly likely.

The End of the Periodical Essays

From the very beginning the periodical essays were destined to be ephemeral. They faded more quickly in Protestant areas, giving way to the novel, whereas in the Catholic South, for example in cities like Vienna and Madrid, their moralizing conversational tone helped some to persevere into the nineteenth century. They also stayed alive in the form of supplements to informational bulletins like Justus Möser's (1720–1794) Wöchentliche Osnabrückische Intelligenzblätter ("Weekly Osnabrück Bulletins"). Their traces can also be found in many narrative works. Wolfgang Martens (1924–2000) , a scholar of German weeklies, has described their end quite aptly:

Die Wochenschrift alten Schlages, die die Verfasserfiktion beibehält und zugleich nach wie vor Vernunft und Tugend zum Zwecke der bürgerlichen Glückseligkeit zu fördern bestrebt ist, ist nach 1770 in den nördlichen Breiten selten geworden. Der Roman der Hermes, La Roche und Miller macht ihr das Publikum abspenstig. Sturm und Drang und der Hochsubjektivismus der Empfindsamkeit sind für die Nachfahren der Gattung kein gedeihliches Klima mehr. Das stärkere politische Interesse, das sich seit den 70er Jahren in Deutschland bemerkbar macht, ist ihr fremd, die Aufregungen der Französischen Revolution vollends verschlagen ihr die Rede und der Geist der Romantik ist ihrer bürgerlich-lehrhaften Haltung gänzlich fern. Stoffe, Themen, Motive, erbaulicher Sinn und redliche Absichten leben fort im bürgerlichen Unterhaltungsblatt des 19. Jahrhunderts …. 48

Klaus-Dieter Ertler

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924091319503 [2021-07-26]

http://gams.uni-graz.at/mws [2021-07-26]

http://gazettes18e.fr/publications [06.01.2012].

English ( Periodical Essays ):

[Addison, Joseph / Budgell, Eustache / Tickell, Thomas]: The Spectator [2nd series], London [18 June] 1714–[20 December] 1714, nos. 556–635.

[Baker, Thomas]: The Female Tatler: By Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that Knows Everything, London [8 July] 1709–[31 March] 1710, nos.1–111.

Bond, Donald Frederic (ed.): The Spectator, Edited with an Introduction and Notes, Oxford 1965, vol. 1–5.

[Fowler Haywood, Eliza]: The Female Spectator, London 1745–1746 [first edition in instalments April 1744–March 1746]. URL: https://archive.org/details/femalespectator01haywgoog [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: The Spectator: To be continued every Day [1st series], London [1 March] 1711– [6 December] 1712, nos. 1–555.

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: The Tatler: By Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., London [12 April] 1709–[2 January] 1711, nos. 1–271.

[Steele, Richard et al.]: The Guardian: To be Continued every Day, London [12 March] 1713–[1 October] 1713, nos. 1–175.

French ( Feuilles périodiques à forme personnelle ):

[Anonymus]: La Bagatelle, ou Discours Ironiques: où l'on prête des sophismes ingénieux au Vice & à l'Extravagance, pour en faire mieux sentir le ridicule, Amsterdam [5 May] 1718–[13 April] 1719, vol. 1–3.

[Anonymus]: La Spectatrice, Paris [29 March]–[January] 1728.

[Fowler Haywood, Eliza]: La Spectatrice: ouvrage traduit de l'anglois [von Jean- Arnold Trocheneau de La Berlière], Paris 1751, vol. 1–2.

[Marivaux, M. de]: Le Spectateur français, Paris [June/July] 1721–[Oct.] 1724. In: Frédéric Deloffre und Michel Gilot (ed.): Journaux et œuvres diverses, Paris 2001, pp. 107–267.

[Steele, Richard et al.]: Le Mentor Moderne: ou discours sur les mœurs de siècle [aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Justus van Effen], Den Haag et al. 1723, vol. 1–3. URL: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57055088 [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Le Spectateur, ou le Socrate moderne: Où l'on voit un Portrait naïf des Mœurs de ce Siècle: Traduit de l'anglois, Amsterdam et al., 1714–1726. URL: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k49666j [2021-07-26]

[van Effen, Justus]: Le Misanthrope: Contenant Des Réflexions Critiques, Satyriques & Comiques, sur les défauts des hommes, Den Haag [19. May] 1711–[26. December] 1712, reprint Oxford et al. 1986, ed. by James Lewis Schorr.

[van Effen, Justus]: Le Misanthrope: contenant différens discours sur les mœurs du siècle , Amsterdam 1742.

[van Effen, Justus]: Le Misanthrope: Nouvelle Edition revuë & augmentée de plusieurs Discours importans, Den Haag 1726.

[van Effen, Justus]: Recueil de toutes les feuilles de la Spectatrice qui ont paru et de celles qui n'ont pas paru, Paris 1730.

[van Effen, Justus]: Nouveau Spectateur François, Den Haag 1725–1726, vol. 1–2.

German ( Moralische Wochenschriften ):

[Anonymus]: Die Braut: wöchentlich an das Licht gestellet in Dreßden, nebst vollständigem Register, Dresden 1742 [first edition in instalments 1740].

[Anonymus]: Der Einsiedler, Königsberg 1740/1741.

[Anonymus]: Der Patriot, vom Jahre 1724, 1725 und 1726 mit einem Register über alle drey Jahre: Patriotens CLVI Stuck über die Sitten der Welt worin nebst der Verbesserung der Sitten seiner Mitbürger so wohl ins gemein als insonderheit allerhand Moralische Neuigkeiten eine ausbündige Sprache und Schreib-Art und viele auserlesene Stuck gelehrter Leuten ausgestellet werden. Zu leichterer Anschaffung und Gebrauch dieser höchst-nützlichen Arbeit zum Druck befördert, o. O. 1726. URL: https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10614892-7 (vol. 1) / https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10614893-3 (vol. 2) / https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10614894-8 (vol. 3) [2021-07-26]

[Bode, Johann Joachim Christoph]: Der Denker: Eine Wochenschrift aus dem Spanischen des Herrn Joseph Clavijo y Faxardo auszugsweise übersetzt, Bremen 1781.

Bodmer, Johann Jakob / Breitinger, Johann Jakob: Die Discourse der Mahlern, Zürich [1 May] 1721– [end of January] 1723, reissue with notes Frauenfeld 1887–1891, ed. by Theodor Vetter.

Cramer, Johann Andreas / Giseke, Nikolaus Dietrich: Der Jüngling, Leipzig 1747.

[Fowler Haywood, Eliza]: Die Zuschauerin, aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Christian Bernhard Kayser, Hannover et al. 1747–1748.

Gerstenberg, Heinrich Wilhelm von et al. (ed.): Der Hypochondrist: Eine hollsteinsche Wochenschrift, Schleswig 1762.

[Gottsched, Johann Christian]: Der Biedermann, Leipzig [01 May] 1727–[04 April] 1729.

[Gottsched, Johann Christian]: Die Vernünfftigen Tadlerinnen, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1725–1727. URL: https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11045809-2 (vol. 1) / https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11045810-5 (vol. 2) [2021-07-26]

Hamann, Johann Georg: Die Matrone, Hamburg 1728–1729.

[Lange, Samuel G.]: Der Gesellige: eine moralische Wochenschrift Halle 1748–1750, reprint Hildesheim 1987, ed. by Wolfgang Martens, vol. 1–6.

Riegel, Christoph: Der Spectateur: Oder Vernünftige Betrachtungen über die verderbten Sitten der heutigen Welt, Frankfurt et al. 1719 and 1725, vol. 1–2.

Sonnenfels, Joseph von: Der Mann ohne Vorurteil, Vienna 1765.

[Steele, Richard]: Der Schwätzer: Eine Sittenschrift, aus dem Englischen des Herrn Richard Steele. Übersetzt von J. D. Tietze. Leipzig 1756, vol. 1–2. URL: https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10616552-5 (vol. 1) / https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10616553-1 (vol. 2) [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Der Getreue Hofmeister, sorgfältige Vormund, neue Mentor, oder einige Diskurse über die Sitten der gegenwärtigen Zeit: welche unter dem Namen des Guardian von Herrn Addison, Steele und anderen Verfassern des Spectator aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Ludwig Ernst von Faramund, Frankfurt am Main et al.1725. URL: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:urmel-79dbea6b-4825-409e-bc40-bf9297f7527f3 [2021-07-26]

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Der Vernünfftler: Das ist: Ein teutscher Auszug aus den Engeländischen Moral-Schriften des Tatler und Spectator vormahls verfertiget; mit etlichen Zugaben versehen und auf Ort und Zeit gerichtet von Joanne Mattheson, Hamburg 1721, nos. 1–101 [first edition in instalments 31 May 1713–30 May 1714].

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Der Zuschauer. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched, Leipzig 1739–1743, vol. 1–8.

[Steele, Richard / Addison, Joseph]: Englischer Zuschauer [abridged], nach einer neuen Übersetzung von Johann Lorenz Benzler / Carl Wilhelm Ramler, Berlin 1782–1783, vol. 1–8.

[Steele, Richard u. a.]: Der Engländische Guardian oder Aufseher, ins Deutsche übersetzt von Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottschedin, Leipzig 1749.

Spanish ( Prensa moralista ):

[Anonymus]: El Apologista Universal: Obra periódica que manifestará no sólo la instrucción, exactitud y belleza de las obras de los autores cuitados que se dejan zurrar de los semicríticos modernos, sino también el interés y utilidad de algunas costumbres y establecimientos de moda, Madrid [July] 1786–[February] 1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-apologistauniversal&locale=de [2021-07-26]

[Anonymus]: El Corresponsal del Apologista, Madrid 1786. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-corresponsaldelapologista&locale=en [2021-07-26]

[Anonymus]: El Filósofo a la moda o el Maestro universal: Obra periódica que se distribuye al público los lunes y los jueves de cada semana: Sacada de la obra francesa intitulada Le Spectateur ou le Socrate moderne, Madrid 1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-filosofoalamoda&locale=de [2021-07-26]

[Bueno de Castilla, Don Patricio]: El Belianís literario: Discurso andante (dividido en varios papeles periódicos) en defensa de algunos puntos de nuestra Bella Literatura, contra todos los críticos partidarios del Buen Gusto y la Reformación, Madrid 1765. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-belianisliterario&locale=de [2021-07-26]

[Celis y Noriega, Manuel Rubín de]: El Corresponsal del Censor, Madrid 1786–1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-corresponsaldelcensor&locale=de [2021-07-26], reprint Madrid / Frankfurt am Main 2009, ed. by Klaus-Dieter Ertler, Renate Hodab, Inmaculada Urzainqui.

Cienfuegos, Doña Beatriz: La Pensadora Gaditana, Bd. I/II: Madrid 1763, Bd. III/IV: Madrid 1764 [14 July 1763–1762 July 1764]. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-pensadoragaditana&locale=de [2021-07-26], reprint et al. Cádiz 1996, ed. by Cinta Canterla.

[Clavijo y Fajardo, José]: El Pensador por Don Joseph Álvarez de Valladares, Madrid 1762–1767. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-pensador&locale=de [2021-07-26], critical edition Las Palmas 1999, ed. by Yolanda Arencibia.

[Freyre da Silva, Fray Manuel]: El Duende político que da cuenta de los más presentes negocios, y anuncia los más críticos futuros desta Monarquía en los años de 1735 y 1736, Biblioteca del Instituto Feijoo de Estudios del Siglo XVIII (unprinted manuscript).

[García del Cañuelo, Luis / Marcelino Pereira, Luis]: El Censor: Obra periódica, Madrid 1781–1788, vol. 1–8, 167 Diskurse. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-censor&locale=de [2021-07-26], critical edition Oviedo 1989, ed. by José Miguel Caso González.

[Garrido, Antonio Mauricio]: El Amigo y Corresponsal del Pensador, Madrid 1763. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-amigodelpensador&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Habela Patiño, Eugenio: El Teniente del Apologista Universal, por Eugenio Habela Patiño, cliente y comisionado especial suyo, Madrid 1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-tenientedelapologista&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Mercadal, Juan Antonio (ed.): El Duende especulativo sobre la Vida Civil, dispuesto por Don Juan Antonio Mercadàl, Madrid [9 June]–[26 September] 1761. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-duendeespeculativo&locale=de [2021-07-26], reprint Frankfurt am Main 2011, ed. by Klaus-Dieter Ertler.

[Nipho y Cagigal, Don Francisco Mariano]: El Murmurador imparcial y observador desapasionado de las locuras y despropósitos de los hombres: Obra periódica que ofrece en obsequio de las personas de buen gusto, Madrid 1761. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-murmurador&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Romea y Tapia, Cristóbal: El Escritor sin título: Discurso primero dirigido al autor de las Noticias de moda, sobre lo que nos ha dado a luz en los días 3, 10 y 17 de Mayo: Traducido del español al castellano por el licenciado don Vicente Serraller y Aemor, Madrid 1763, nos. 1–11. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-escritorsintitulo&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Trullench, Pedro Pablo: El Duende de Madrid, Madrid 1787/1788. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-duendedemadrid&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Italian ( Fogli moralistici ):

[Anonymus]: La Spettatrice, Venice 1752.

[Baretti, Giuseppe]: La frusta letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue, Milan [1 October] 1763–1765. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-lafrustaletteraria&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Frasponi, Cesare: Il Filosofo alla Moda, ovvero Il Maestro universale di quanto e oggidi proprio ad istruire, e divertire: Ricavato dall'opera di varij scrittori anonimi, intitolato Le Spectateur, ou Le Socrate moderne, Venice 1728. URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-filosofoallamoda-it&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Gozzi, Gasparo / Pietro Chiari (ed.): Gazzeta Veneta: che contiene tutto quello ch'è da vendere, da comperare, da darsi a fitto, le cose ricercare, le perdute, le trovate, in Venezia o fuori di Venezia, il prezzo delle merci, il valore de' cambi ed altre noticie, parte dilettevoli e parte utili al Pubblico, Venice [6 February] 1760–[31. January] 1761; continued as Nuova Veneta Gazzetta until [10 March] 1762, nos. 1–104, critical edition Milan 1943, ed. by Bruno Romani, vol. 1–2.

[Gozzi, Gasparo]: L'Osservatore Veneto, Venice [4 February] 1761–[18. August] 1762 (since February 1762: Gli Osservatori Veneti). URL: http://www-gewi.uni-graz.at/cocoon/mws/container?pid=mws-osservatoreveneto&locale=de [2021-07-26]

Verri, Pietro e Alessandro: Il Caffè: ossia brevi e vari discorsi distribuiti in fogli periodici, Milan [1 June] 1764 –[31 May] 1766, critical edition Torino 1998: Il Caffè, 1764–1766, ed. by Gianni Francioni and Sergio Romagnoli, 2nd ed.

Dutch ( Spectatoriale Geschriften ):

[van Effen, Justus]: De Hollandsche Spectator, Amsterdam [20 August] 1731–[8 April] 1735, nos. 1–360, vol. 1–12, reprint Amsterdam 1998/1999, ed. by Susanne Gabriëls, vol. 1–4.

Blassneck, Marce: Frankreich als Vermittler englisch-deutscher Einflüsse im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Leipzig 1934.

Bolufer Peruga, Mónica / Haidt, Rebecca: Mujeres e Ilustración: La construcción de la femenidad en la España del siglo XVIII, Valencia 1998.

Bond, Richmond Pugh: The Making of a Literary Journal, Cambridge, MA 1971.

Bony, Alain: Joseph Addison et la création littéraire: Essai périodique et modernité, Paris 1985.

Böning, Holger: Bibliographie der deutschsprachigen Presse von den Anfängen bis 1815, Tübingen 1992.

Böning, Holger: Der Musiker und Komponist Johann Mattheson als Hamburger Publizist: Studie zu den Anfängen der Moralischen Wochenschriften und der deutschen Musikpublizistik, Bremen 2011.

Böning, Holger: Periodische Presse, Kommunikation und Aufklärung: Hamburg und Altona als Beispiel, Bremen 2002.

Böning, Holger et al.: Biobibliographische Handbücher zur Geschichte der deutschsprachigen periodischen Presse von den Anfängen bis 1815, Stuttgart et al. 1996, vol. 1–6.

Böning, Holger / Jäger, Ulrich Johannes (eds.): Kultur der Kommunikation, Berlin 2007.

Borinski, Ludwig: Der englische Roman des 18. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden 1978.

Buijnsters, Pieter Jacob: Spectatoriale Geschriften, Utrecht 1991.

Buijnsters, Pieter Jacob: Justus van Effen (1684–1735) leven en werk, Utrecht 1992.

Bosch Carrera, María Dolores: Costumbres y opinión en el periodismo del siglo XVIII, Barcelona 1988.

Cameron, Ruth Allen: The Prose Style of Addison and Steele in the Periodical Essay, Ann Arbour, MA 1972.

Cantos Casenave, Marieta (ed.): Redes y espacios de opinión pública: XII Encuentros de la Ilustración al Romanticismo: 1750–1850: Cádiz, América y Europa ante la Modernidad, Cadiz 2006.

Colombo, Rosa Maria: Lo Spectator e i giornali veneziano del settecento, Bari 1966.

Connery, Willard: Sir Richard Steele, London 1934.

Egido López, Teófanes: Prensa clandestina española del siglo XVIII: El Duende crítico, Valladolid 2002.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Kleine Geschichte der spanischen Aufklärungsliteratur, Tübingen 2003.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Die Spectators in der Romania – eine paneuropäische Gattung? Frankfurt am Main 2011.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Die moralischen Wochenschriften in Spanien: José Clavijo y Fajardos El Pensador, Tübingen 2003.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Tugend und Vernunft in der Presse der spanischen Aufklärung: El Censor, Tübingen 2004.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter / Hodab, Renate / Humpl, Andrea Maria: Die spanische Presse des 18. Jahrhunderts: La Pensadora Gaditana von Beatriz Cienfuegos, Hamburg 2008.

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter / Köhldorfer, Jessica: Die Spectators in Spanien: El Duende Especulativo sobre la Vida Civil von Juan Antonio Mercadal, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2010.

Evans, James E. / Wall, John Nelson: A Guide to Prose Fiction in the Tatler and the Spectator, New York, NY et al. 1977.

Fischer, Ernst (ed.): Von Almanach bis Zeitung: ein Handbuch der Medien in Deutschland: 1700–1800, Munich 1999.

Fitzmaurice, Susan: The world of the periodical essay: Social networks and discourse communities in eighteenth century, London 2007 (Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical Linguistics 7).

Gelz, Andreas: Tertulia: Literatur und Soziabilität im Spanien des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006.

Graeber, Wilhelm: 'Ces songes méthodiques qu'on ne trouve que dans les livres': Le rêve dans les hebdomadaires moraux, in: Bernard Dieterle et al. (eds.): The Dream and the Enlightenment / Le rêve et les Lumières, Paris 2003, S. 207–223.

Graeber, Wilhelm: Moralistik und Zeitschriftenliteratur im frühen 18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1986.

Graeber, Wilhelm / Roche, Geneviève: Englische Literatur des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts in französischer Übersetzung und deutscher Weiterübersetzung: Eine kommentierte Bibliographie, Tübingen 1988.

Haßler, Gerda: Die Moralischen Wochenschriften aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht: narrative und begriffliche Darstellungsformen, in: Klaus-Dieter Ertler: Die Spectators in der Romania – eine paneuropäische Gattung? Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 13–35.

Hodab, Renate / Ertler, Klaus-Dieter: Die Presse der spanischen Aufklärung: El Corresponsal del Censor, Vienna et al. 2008.

Jacobs, Helmut C. et al. (eds.): Die Zeitschrift Il Caffè: Vernunftprinzip und Stimmenvielfalt in der italienischen Aufklärung, Frankfurt am Main 2003.

Jacobs, Helmut C.: Schönheit und Geschmack: Die Theorie der Künste in der spanischen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1996.

Jacobs, Jürgen: Aporien der Aufklärung: Studien zur Geistes- und Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen 2001.

Jacobs, Jürgen: Prosa der Aufklärung: moralische Wochenschriften, Autobiographie, Satire, Roman: Kommentar zu einer Epoche, Munich 1976.

Jäger, Hans-Wolf: "Öffentlichkeit" im 18. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1997.

Junge, Bettina: Richard Steeles Tatler und Spectator: Untersuchungen zum Periodical Essay als neuer Form der kulturellen Selbstverständigung im England des 18. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg 2008.

Jüttner, Siegfried (ed.): Anfänge des Wissenschaftsjournalismus in Spanien: Der Diario de los literatos de España – Horizonte des Kulturtransfers, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006.

Kay, Donald: Short Fiction in The Spectator, Alabama 1975.

Ketcham, Michaël G.: Transparent Designs: Reading, Performance, and Form in the Spectator Papers, Athens, GA 1985.

Kilian, Elena: Bildung, Tugend, Nützlichkeit – Geschlechterentwürfe im spanischen Aufklärungsroman des späten 18. Jahrhunderts, Würzburg 2002.

Kleinau, Elke / Opitz, Claudia et al.: Geschichte der Mädchen- und Frauenbildung, Frankfurt am Main 1996, vol. 1: Vom Mittelalter bis zur Aufklärung.

Labrosse, Claude / Rétat, Pierre: L'Instrument périodique, la fonction de la presse au XVIII e siècle, Lyon 1985.

Larriba, Elisabel: Le Public de la presse en Espagne à la fin du XVIII e siècle (1781–1808), Paris 1998.

Lévrier, Alexis: Les journaux de Marivaux et le monde des 'spectateurs', Paris 2007.

Maar, Elke: Bildung durch Unterhaltung: Die Entdeckung des Infotainment in der Aufklärung: Hallenser und Wiener Moralische Wochenschriften in der Blütezeit des Moraljournalismus, Pfaffenweiler 1995. URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-86226-306-6 [2021-07-26]

Martens, Wolfgang: Die Botschaft der Tugend: Die Aufklärung im Spiegel der deutschen Moralischen Wochenschriften, Stuttgart 1968. URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-99659-6 [2021-07-26]

Martín Gaite, Carmen: Usos amorosos del dieciocho en España, Barcelona 1988.

Moureau, François: La Plume et le plomb: espaces de l'imprimé et du manuscrit au siècle des Lumières, Paris 2006.

Moureau, François: Le Mercure galant de Dufresny (1710–1714) ou le Journalisme à la mode, Oxford 1982.

Niefanger, Susanne: Schreibstrategien in Moralischen Wochenschriften – formalstilistische, pragmatische und rhetorische Untersuchungen am Beispiel von Gottscheds "Vernünfftigen Tadlerinnen", Tübingen 1977.

Okel, Hugo Sebastiaan: Der Bürger, die Tugend und die Republik: "Bürgerliche Leitkultur" in den Niederlanden im 18. Jahrhundert im Spiegel der Moralischen Wochenschriften, PhD Thesis Trier 2004. URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:385-2982 [2021-07-26]

Opitz, Claudia: Aufklärung der Geschlechter, Revolution der Geschlechterordnung: Studien zur Politik- und Kulturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Münster 2002.

Pallares-Burke, Maria Lucia G.: A Spectator of the Spectators: Jacques-Vincent Delacroix, in: Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink et al. (eds.): Enlightenment, Revolution and the periodical press, Oxford 2004, pp. 145–157.

Papenheim, Wilhelm: Die Charakterschilderungen im Tatler, Spectator und Guardian: Ihr Verhältnis zu Theophrast, La Bruyère und den englischen Character-Writers des 17. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1930.

Peterson, H.: Notes on the Influence of Addison's Spectator and Marivaux' Spectateur français upon El Pensador, in: Hispanic Review IV (1936), pp. 256–263. URL: https://doi.org/10.2307/469916 [2021-07-26]

Rau, Fritz: Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung des Tatler und Spectator, Heidelberg 1980.

Rétat, Pierre (ed.): Le Journalisme d'Ancien Régime: Questions et propositions, Lyon 1982. URL: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3323205j [2021-07-26]

Riebe, Wolfgang: Thematische und formale Aspekte des periodical essay im Tatler, Erlangen 1966.

Rodin-Pucci, Suzanne R.: Sites of the Spectator: Emerging literary and cultural practice in eighteenth-century France, Oxford 2001.

Schmidt-Haberkamp, Barbara et al. (eds.): Europäischer Kulturtransfer im 18. Jahrhundert: Literaturen in Europa – Europäische Literatur? Berlin 2003.

Schneider, Ulrich Johannes (ed.): Kulturen des Wissens im 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2008. URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110212402 [2021-07-26]

Schneider, Ute: Der moralische Charakter: ein Mittel aufgeklärter Menschendarstellungen in den deutschen Wochenschriften, Stuttgart 1976.

Schorr, James L.: Justus van Effen and the Enlightenment, Ann Arbour, MA et al. 1981.

Sermain, Jean-Paul: Métafictions (1670–1730): La réflexivité dans la littérature d'imagination, Paris 2002.

Sgard, Jean (ed.): Dictionnaire des journaux: 1680–1789, Paris et al. 1991, vol. 1–2.

Sgard, Jean (ed.): Dictionnaire des journalistes: 1680–1789, Paris et al. 1999, vol. 1–2.

Stürzer, Volker: Journalismus und Literatur im frühen 18. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main 1984.

Ter-Nedden, Gisbert: Buchdruck und Aufklärung, Hagen 1999.

Urzainqui, Inmaculada: Autocreación y formas autobiográficas en la prensa crítica del siglo XVIII, in: Anales de la literatura española, Alicante, no. 11 (1995), pp.193–226. URL: http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/nd/ark:/59851/bmcdj5t1 [2021-07-26]

Urzainqui, Inmaculada: Un nuevo instrumento cultural: La prensa periódica, in: Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos et al. (eds.): La república de las letras en la Espana del siglo XVIII, Madrid 1995, pp. 125–216.

Urzainqui, Inmaculada / Álvaro Ruiz de la Peña: Periodismo e ilustración en Manuel Rubín de Celis, Oviedo 1983.

Uzcanga Meinecke, Fernando: Sátira en la Ilustración española. Análisis de la publicación periódica El Censor (1781–1787), Frankfurt am Main et al. 2004.

Van Delft, Louis: Les Spectateurs de la vie: Généalogie du regard moraliste, Laval 2005.

Vellusig, Robert: Schriftliche Gespräche: Briefkultur im 18. Jahrhundert, Vienna et al. 2000.

Tschilschke, Christian von: Aufklärung der Identität – Identität der Aufklärung: Literatur- und Identitätsdiskurs im Spanien des 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2009. URL: https://doi.org/10.31819/9783954879076 [2021-07-26]

Wildermuth, Mark E.: Print, chaos and complexity: Samuel Johnson and the Eighteenth Century Media Culture, Newark 2008.

Witthaus, Jan-Henrik (ed.): Beiträge zur Nationalisierung der Kultur im Spanien des aufgeklärten Absolutismus, Frankfurt am Main 2010.

^ Cf. Graeber, Moralistik und Zeitschriftenliteratur 1986, pp. 12; Borinski, Der englische Roman 1978, pp. 67; Connery, Sir Richard Steele 1934.
^ [Steele / Addison], The Tatler 1709–1711.
^ Cf. especially the excellent discussion of this aspect of the early English weeklies in Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, pp. 13.
^ [Steele / Addison], The Spectator 1711–1714.
^ [Steele], The Guardian 1713.
^ Bond, The Making of a Literary Journal 1971, p. 167. Quoted according to Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 29.
^ Cf. [Baker], The Female Tatler 1709/1710. The necessity of a comparative study of the links between the Female Tatler and the Tatler has already been observed by Rau in his comprehensive analysis of the weeklies, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 27.
^ Cf. [Fowler Haywood], The Female Spectator 1745/1746.
^ Cf. Cienfuegos, La Pensadora Gaditana 1763/1764.
^ [Steele / Addison], The Spectator 1711, p. 1.
^ Cf. Fitzmaurice, Periodical essay 2007; Haßler, Die Moralischen Wochenschriften 2011.
^ Gerstenberg / Schmidt, Der Hypochondrist 1762, p. 1: "I might never have thought of writing a weekly if it had not been for this illness, which has provided me with such a pretty name for my paper. Now I have everything that a weekly author needs. I am opinionated, cantankerous, a little vain, a kind of philosopher…" (transl. by P.B.).
^ Cf. Hamann, Die Matrone 1728–1729.
^ Cf. [Anonymous], Die Braut 1742.
^ Cf. Cramer / Giseke, Der Jüngling 1747.
^ Cf. [Steele / Addison], Der Vernünfftler 1721.
^ Cf. [Anonymous], Der Patriot 1724–1726.
^ Cf. [Anonymous], Der Einsiedler 1740/1741.
^ Cf. Trullench, El Duende de Madrid 1787/1788.
^ Cf. [van Effen], Le Misanthrope 1711/1712.
^ [Baretti], La Frusta letteraria di Aristarco Scannabue 1763–1765.
^ English equivalents: "reflection", "observation", "chatter", "madness", "collecting" (transl. by P.B.] (German equivalents: "Reflexion", "Blick", "Geschwätz", "Wahnsinn", "Sammeln" [transl. by K.-D. E.]); Lévrier, Les journaux de Marivaux 2007, p. 164.
^ Cf. [van Effen], Le Misanthrope, 1711/1712.
^ Cf. [Steele / Addison], Le Spectateur 1714–1726.
^ Cf. [van Effen], Le Misanthrope 1726 and 1742.
^ Cf. [Steele], Le Mentor Moderne 1723.
^ Cf. La Bagatelle 1718/1719.
^ Cf. [van Effen], Nouveau Spectateur François 1725–1726.
^ Cf. [van Effen], De Hollandsche Spectator 1731–1735, critical edition Gabriëls 1998/1999.
^ Cf. Mercadal, El Duende especulativo 1761.
^ Cf. Avertissement du Libraire in the first issue of the Misanthrope, 19 May 1711 and Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 15.
^ [Anonymous]: Filósofo a la Moda, 1788, p. 3.
^ Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 191.
^ Cf. [Steele / Addison], Der Vernünfftler 1713/1714, Hamburg 1721. A critical edition is currently being prepared by Holger Böning.
^ Cf. Bodmer / Breitinger, Die Discourse der Mahlern 1721–1723.
^ Cf. [Marivaux], Le Spectateur français 1721–1724.
^ Cf. Rau, Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung 1980, p. 226.
^ Cf. [Anonymous], Der Patriot 1724, p. 1: "I am a man who was born in Upper Saxony and raised in Hamburg, but whose fatherland is the entire world, which is like one big city, and who sees himself as the relative or fellow-citizen of every other human being." (transl. by P.B.)
^ Cf. Gottsched, Die Vernünfftigen Tadlerinnen 1725–1727.
^ Cf. Frasponi, Il Filosofo alla Moda 1728.
^ Cf. [Anonymous], La Spettatrice 1752; [Anonymous], La Spectatrice 1728.
^ Gozzi / Chiari, Gazzeta Veneta 1760–1761(from 1762 Nuova Veneta Gazzetta). Cf. the critical edition by Romani 1943.
^ Cf. [Gozzi], L'Osservatore Veneto 1761–1762 (from February 1762: Gli Osservatori Veneti).
^ Cf. Verri, Il Caffè 1764–1766. Cf. the critical edition by Francioni / Romagnoli, 2nd ed. 1998.
^ [Clavijo y Fajardo], El Pensador 1762–1767, Cf. the critical edition by Arencibia 1999.
^ [García del Cañuelo / Marcelino Pereira], El Censor 1781–1788, Cf. the critical edition by Caso González 1989.
^ Romea y Tapia, El Escritor sin título 1763.
^ Martens, Die Botschaft der Tugend 1968, p. 99: "The weeklies of the old stamp, with their fictional authors and their aim of promoting reason and virtue as a means to bourgeois bliss, became rarer in northern areas after 1770. The novels of Hermes, la Roche and Miller stole their audience. The successors of the genre could no longer thrive in the climate of Sturm und Drang or in the extreme subjectivity of sensibility. The increasing interest in politics that began to grip Germany in the 1770s was alien to them, the tumults of the French Revolution knocked the wind out of them, and the spirit of Romanticism was utterly strange to their bourgeois, didactic demeanour. Their contents, themes, motifs, edifying tone and forthright intentions lived on in the light bourgeois gazettes of the nineteenth century.…" (transl. by P.B.)

Übersetzt von: Translated by: Patrick Baker Fachherausgeber: Editor: Jürgen Wilke Redaktion: Copy Editor: Christina Müller

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Zitierempfehlung Citation

Ertler, Klaus-Dieter : Moral Weeklies (Periodical Essays) , in: Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), hg. vom Leibniz- Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG), Mainz European History Online (EGO), published by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz 2012-06-28 . URL: https://www.ieg-ego.eu/ ertlerk-2012 - en URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2012062800 [JJJJ-MM-TT] [YYYY-MM-DD] .

Bitte setzen Sie beim Zitieren dieses Beitrages hinter der URL-Angabe in Klammern das Datum Ihres letzten Besuchs dieser Online-Adresse ein. Beim Zitieren einer bestimmten Passage aus dem Beitrag bitte zusätzlich die Nummer des Textabschnitts angeben, z.B. 2 oder 1-4.

When quoting this article please add the date of your last retrieval in brackets after the url. When quoting a certain passage from the article please also insert the corresponding number(s), for example 2 or 1-4.

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Introduction to library research.

Types of Periodicals
How to Tell If It's Peer-reviewed
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What is a periodical? A periodical is anything that comes out periodically. Magazines, newspapers, and journals are all periodicals. They may come out daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually, but new issues are released on a fixed schedule. While this legacy fades with the dominance of 24/7 production in the digital age, periodicity still plays an important role in scholarly publication.

Who is the audience? Magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and academic journals are intended for different audiences.

Distinguishing content on the internet: The stylistic cues that make it relatively easy to distinguish different types of content vanish when presented on the web. It's easy to tell the difference between an analog newspaper and scholarly journal. They look and feel very different from each other. When using information from the internet it is important to develop the skills to critically analyze the information you're presented with, rather than rely on stylistic cues to determine the quality of information you're consuming.

How to Tell if an Article is Peer Reviewed

Journals: How to Locate Top Journals in Your Discipline So many scholarly journals! How can you tell which ones are the best?

The Peer Review Process

Peer-Review Chart (pdf)

Check out this video from Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Libraries on the differences between scholarly and non-scholarly sources.

Here is a handout which may help you distinguish academic/scholarly journals from popular magazines.

Distinguishing Magazines and Scholarly Journals A brief guide to help tell the difference between magazines and journals.
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MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics

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Guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text using MLA style are covered throughout the MLA Handbook and in chapter 7 of the MLA Style Manual . Both books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.

Basic in-text citation rules

In MLA Style, referring to the works of others in your text is done using parenthetical citations . This method involves providing relevant source information in parentheses whenever a sentence uses a quotation or paraphrase. Usually, the simplest way to do this is to put all of the source information in parentheses at the end of the sentence (i.e., just before the period). However, as the examples below will illustrate, there are situations where it makes sense to put the parenthetical elsewhere in the sentence, or even to leave information out.

General Guidelines

The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1) upon the source medium (e.g. print, web, DVD) and (2) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited page.
Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

In-text citations: Author-page style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads . Oxford UP, 1967.

In-text citations for print sources with known author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry on the Works Cited page:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . University of California Press, 1966.

In-text citations for print sources by a corporate author

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

In-text citations for sources with non-standard labeling systems

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

The speaker makes an ardent call for the exploration of the connection between the violence of nature and the divinity of creation. “In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes," they ask in reference to the tiger as they attempt to reconcile their intimidation with their relationship to creationism (lines 5-6).

Longer labels, such as chapters (ch.) and scenes (sc.), should be abbreviated.

In-text citations for print sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name, following these guidelines.

Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

Titles longer than a standard noun phrase should be shortened into a noun phrase by excluding articles. For example, To the Lighthouse would be shortened to Lighthouse .

If the title cannot be easily shortened into a noun phrase, the title should be cut after the first clause, phrase, or punctuation:

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title appears in the parenthetical citation, and the full title of the article appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry on the Works Cited page. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs . 1999. www.climatehotmap.org/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

If the title of the work begins with a quotation mark, such as a title that refers to another work, that quote or quoted title can be used as the shortened title. The single quotation marks must be included in the parenthetical, rather than the double quotation.

Parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages, used in conjunction, allow readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own scholarly work.

Author-page citation for classic and literary works with multiple editions

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto . In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

Author-page citation for works in an anthology, periodical, or collection

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in Nature in 1921, you might write something like this:

See also our page on documenting periodicals in the Works Cited .

Citing authors with same last names

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:

Citing a work by multiple authors

For a source with two authors, list the authors’ last names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:

Corresponding Works Cited entry:

Best, David, and Sharon Marcus. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations , vol. 108, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 1-21. JSTOR, doi:10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.1

For a source with three or more authors, list only the first author’s last name, and replace the additional names with et al.

Franck, Caroline, et al. “Agricultural Subsidies and the American Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine , vol. 45, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 327-333.

Citing multiple works by the same author

If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.

Citing two articles by the same author :

Citing two books by the same author :

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, and, when appropriate, the page number(s):

Citing multivolume works

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)

Citing the Bible

In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter, and verse. For example:

If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation:

John of Patmos echoes this passage when describing his vision (Rev. 4.6-8).

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited within another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

Citing transcripts, plays, or screenplays

Sources that take the form of a dialogue involving two or more participants have special guidelines for their quotation and citation. Each line of dialogue should begin with the speaker's name written in all capitals and indented half an inch. A period follows the name (e.g., JAMES.) . After the period, write the dialogue. Each successive line after the first should receive an additional indentation. When another person begins speaking, start a new line with that person's name indented only half an inch. Repeat this pattern each time the speaker changes. You can include stage directions in the quote if they appear in the original source.

Conclude with a parenthetical that explains where to find the excerpt in the source. Usually, the author and title of the source can be given in a signal phrase before quoting the excerpt, so the concluding parenthetical will often just contain location information like page numbers or act/scene indicators.

Here is an example from O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.

WILLIE. (Pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was all right. God, I need a drink.

ROCKY. Den grab it. It's right under your nose.

WILLIE. (Avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big swallows.) (1.1)

Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work published on the Internet, you may have to cite sources you found in digital environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's Evaluating Sources of Information resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source on your Works Cited page.

Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers. However, these sorts of entries often do not require a page number in the parenthetical citation. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:

Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
Do not provide paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like CNN.com or Forbes.com, as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

Miscellaneous non-print sources

Two types of non-print sources you may encounter are films and lectures/presentations:

In the two examples above “Herzog” (a film’s director) and “Yates” (a presentor) lead the reader to the first item in each citation’s respective entry on the Works Cited page:

Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo . Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982.

Yates, Jane. "Invention in Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Address.

Electronic sources

Electronic sources may include web pages and online news or magazine articles:

In the first example (an online magazine article), the writer has chosen not to include the author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below).

In the second example (a web page), a parenthetical citation is not necessary because the page does not list an author, and the title of the article, “MLA Formatting and Style Guide,” is used as a signal phrase within the sentence. If the title of the article was not named in the sentence, an abbreviated version would appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as follows:

Taylor, Rumsey. "Fitzcarraldo." Slant , 13 Jun. 2003, www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/fitzcarraldo/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2009.

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL , 2 Aug. 2016, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. Accessed 2 April 2018.

Multiple citations

To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:

Time-based media sources

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

When a citation is not needed

Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations, or common knowledge (For example, it is expected that U.S. citizens know that George Washington was the first President.). Remember that citing sources is a rhetorical task, and, as such, can vary based on your audience. If you’re writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example, you may need to deal with expectations of what constitutes “common knowledge” that differ from common norms.

Other Sources

The MLA Handbook describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the handbook does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of MLA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard MLA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite.

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the MLA Handbook . In cases like this, however, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.

Mary Shelley’s Early Life

This essay about Mary Shelley’s age when she wrote *Frankenstein* explores how her youthful perspective enriched the novel’s themes and its reception. Shelley began writing *Frankenstein* at age 18 during a summer spent with Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and others, where a challenge to write ghost stories was posed. Inspired by discussions on galvanism and the nature of life, she conceived a story that has since become a seminal work in Gothic literature. Published when she was just 20, the novel challenged early 19th-century scientific and societal norms through its profound ethical questions about creation and responsibility. Mary Shelley’s environment, filled with intellectual debate and personal tragedy, influenced her deeply, allowing her to infuse *Frankenstein* with insights that resonate with themes of scientific exploration and human experience. Her status as a young, female writer added layers of complexity to the novel’s reception and emphasized its challenge to contemporary scientific and ethical boundaries.

How it works

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein stands as a testament not merely to the Gothic literary canon but also as a testament to the extraordinary achievement of a writer in her youth. Shelley embarked on the novel’s creation at the tender age of 18, its publication occurring a mere two years later, when she reached 20. The youthfulness of Shelley during the genesis of this seminal work transcends mere chronology, offering profound insights into the depth and intricacy of the narrative.

Born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on August 30, 1797, Mary was the offspring of two esteemed intellectuals: the philosopher and novelist William Godwin and the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, who tragically passed shortly after Mary’s birth.

Nurtured in an environment saturated with intellectual discourse, Mary was immersed in the ideas of prominent intellectuals and writers from an early age, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, her father’s protégé and later her husband.

The inception of Frankenstein took root during the summer of 1816, when Mary, alongside Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori, sojourned near Lake Geneva, Switzerland. This particular summer earned infamy as “the year without a summer” due to the chilling aftermath of Mount Tambora’s eruption the previous year. Cooped up indoors by the inclement weather, the group entertained themselves with ghostly tales. It was Lord Byron’s suggestion that each member craft their own supernatural narrative that catalyzed the birth of Frankenstein .

At a mere 18 years of age, amidst this fertile creative atmosphere, Mary Shelley conceived the notion for Frankenstein amid discussions concerning life’s essence and the potential of galvanism to animate inert matter. It was during one such conversation that Mary envisioned the tale of Victor Frankenstein, a youthful scientist engrossed in an unconventional scientific endeavor. Haunted by her vision of a “hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life,” Mary embarked on her literary odyssey. The undertaking was ambitious, mirroring her erudition and the intellectual dialogues in which she participated, encompassing debates on the realms of science and creation.

Published anonymously in 1818, Frankenstein garnered immediate and enduring acclaim. Despite its initial anonymity, the novel eventually garnered recognition as Mary Shelley’s brainchild. Her youth and gender added to the astonishment and admiration surrounding the novel’s originality and the profound ethical queries it posed. These facets of her identity intersected with contemporary attitudes toward science, galvanism, and the bounds of ethical inquiry, infusing the text with a complexity that continues to fuel literary and philosophical discourse.

Thus, Mary Shelley’s youth played a pivotal role in the genesis of Frankenstein , influencing the novel’s reception and accentuating its challenge to the scientific and societal norms of the early 19th century. Her perspective as a youthful woman amidst a period of scientific enlightenment and political tumult provided a fresh vantage point through which to explore themes of creation, accountability, and monstrosity. In retrospect, the audacity of an 18-year-old embarking on such a narrative venture unveils not only a prodigious literary talent but also a ruminative intellect grappling with the pressing issues of her era — positioning Mary Shelley as not merely a literary prodigy but a profound commentator on the human condition.

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IMAGES

What Is a Periodical Essay?
Periodical Essay
What is a periodical essay
(PDF) Johnson and the Eighteenth–Century Periodical Essay: A Corpus
PPT
Periodicals

VIDEO

Periodical Essay, long and short answer type questions
THIRD PERIODICAL TEST IN ENGLISH 5
Periodical Essay
Literary forms and terms
The C18th Periodical Essay: An Introductory Lecture. Prof. Amrit Sen. Visva-Bharati
PERIODICAL ESSAY

COMMENTS

Periodical Essay Definition and Examples
A periodical essay is an essay (that is, a short work of nonfiction) published in a magazine or journal--in particular, an essay that appears as part of a series. The 18th century is considered the great age of the periodical essay in English. Notable periodical essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Samuel ...
Periodical Essay: Origin, Growth & Definition in 18th Century
The Causes of the Rise of Periodical Literature. There were a number of causes which led to the emergence or the periodical essay in the eighteenth century: 1. Political Rivalry and Growth of Political Parties. The eighteenth century saw the emergence of the two major political parties, the Whigs and the Tories.
MLA Works Cited Page: Periodicals
Works cited entries for periodical sources include three main elements—the author of the article, the title of the article, and information about the magazine, newspaper, or journal. MLA uses the generic term "container" to refer to any print or digital venue (a website or print journal, for example) in which an essay or article may be ...
What is a periodical essay?
A periodical essay is a type of prose non- fiction published in a periodical. A periodical is a type of serial publication such as a magazine or newspaper that appears at regular intervals. It ...
The eighteenth-century periodical essay (Chapter 20)
The periodical essay is proper to a certain phase of periodical publication, which got its start in England during the Civil War but was not fully established until 1702, when the first true daily, the Daily Courant, began. In the early years, government control of the press had a powerful effect on periodical publication, which flourished most ...
What Is a Periodical Essay?
The periodical essay appeared in the early 1700s and reached its highest popularity in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is a type of writing that is issued on a regular basis as a part of a series in editions such as journals, magazines, newspapers or comic books. ... For example, the May 1711 publication of a monthly journal that was ...
The Gazette, the Tatler, and the Making of the Periodical Essay: Form
Richard Steele, Gazetteer. One goal of this article is to resituate Steele's centrality to the formation of the Tatler and Spectator and to the identity of the periodical. Scholarship often positions the Tatler as a stepping stone on the way to the Spectator and Steele as secondary to Addison, who wrote the most famous essays and is often credited with the witty, moralizing tone of the later ...
PDF Strategies for Essay Writing
Strategies for Essay Writing Table of Contents Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt . . . . . 2-4 Asking Analytical Questions . . . . . . . 5-7 Thesis ... For example, if you are asked to "discuss" several proposals for reaching carbon neutral by 2050, your instructor
Addison and Steele Q-THE PERIODICAL ESSAY
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 ...
What is and How To Write a Periodical Essay
How To Write a Periodical Essay. Periodical essay papers are a journey or journal through one's eye or characters develop based on series of events accordingly. Essay papers based on periodical is affected by century, culture, language and belief of the community, showing the mirror of their age, the reflection of their thinking.
Sample papers
The following two sample papers were published in annotated form in the Publication Manual and are reproduced here as PDFs for your ease of use. The annotations draw attention to content and formatting and provide the relevant sections of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) to consult for more information.. Student sample paper with annotations (PDF, 4.95MB)
Evolution of Periodical Essays: From Tatler to Spectator
Essay Sample: The Tatler was a single-sheet paper that came out three times a week and in the beginning, consisted of short paragraphs on topics related to domestic, ... The popularity of the periodical essay eventually started to wane, however, and essays began appearing more often in periodicals that included other material. By the mid ...
Essays
Abstract. This chapter examines Johnson's achievements as an essayist in relation to the established conventions of the periodical essay. With the Rambler, Johnson restored the periodical essay to its once-prominent place in English literary culture by elevating its moral seriousness and emphasizing its aptness as a vehicle for literary criticism.. The success of the series spurred a revival ...
Moral Weeklies (Periodical Essays)
The End of the Periodical Essays. From the very beginning the periodical essays were destined to be ephemeral. They faded more quickly in Protestant areas, giving way to the novel, whereas in the Catholic South, for example in cities like Vienna and Madrid, their moralizing conversational tone helped some to persevere into the nineteenth century.
Example of a Great Essay
Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes. This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction, focused paragraphs, clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion.
Periodical Essay
Hey guys,welcome back to my channel.In this video ,I have discussed about the Periodical Essay..Essay & Types of Essay | VIDEO LINK..https://youtu.be/KCKbqtY...
Periodical literature
A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also examples of periodicals. These publications cover a wide variety of topics, from academic, technical, trade ...
Periodical Essay
The periodical essay had a double aim: to amuse and to improve. The subjects discussed by the periodical essayists were connected with the varied aspects of the social life with the city of London in the center. The style was deliberately easy, lucid and refined. The periodical essay began In the year 1709 with the first periodical essay ...
PDF The Periodical Essay in the Eighteenth Century
Before The Tatler there had been periodicals and there had been essays, but there had been no periodical essays. The example of The Tatler 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 ...
Types of Periodicals
A periodical is anything that comes out periodically. Magazines, newspapers, and journals are all periodicals. They may come out daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually, but new issues are released on a fixed schedule. ... They also have advertisements directed to that profession. For example, a trade journal for dentists may advertise ...
MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics
When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in Nature in 1921, you might write ...
PDF Course Material
A periodical essay is an essay (t hat is, a short work of nonfiction) published in a magazine or journal--in particular, an essay that appears as part of a series. The 18th century is considered the great age of the periodical essay in English. Notable periodical essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Samuel
How to Cite a Journal Article
In an MLA Works Cited entry for a journal article, the article title appears in quotation marks, the name of the journal in italics—both in title case. List up to two authors in both the in-text citation and the Works Cited entry. For three or more, use "et al.". MLA format. Author last name, First name.
Mary Shelley's Early Life
Essay Example: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein stands as a testament not merely to the Gothic literary canon but also as a testament to the extraordinary achievement of a writer in her youth. Shelley embarked on the novel's creation at the tender age of 18, its publication occurring a mere two years