A Cosmography of Man : : Character Sketches in "The Tatler" and "The Spectator" / / Theresa Schön.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Ebook Package English 2020
• VerfasserIn: Schön, Theresa,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Hallesche Beiträge zur Europäischen Aufklärung : Schriftenreihe des Interdisziplinären Zentrums für die Erforschung der europäischen Aufklärung der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg , 61
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VII, 349 p.)

Designed to reform contemporary British society, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s The Tatler (1709-1711) and The Spectator (1711-1712, 1714) rely heavily on the representation of contemporary manners. In shaping such behavioural images, the authors made use of the satirical character sketch. Their character sketches (re)create social interactions between fictionalised representatives of moral types of men and women located in contemporary London. This study examines how Addison and Steele employed the character sketch to create a ‘cosmography’ of (wo)man by actively engaging with the observational approaches of contemporary naturalists. Addison and Steele adapted distinctly empirical methods (e.g. induction and deduction, note taking, repeated and collective observation) and appropriated the (medico-legal) case study to communicate and disseminate socio-moral knowledge. At the same time, the character sketch served them as a means to establish a taxonomic order of the socio-moral knowledge conveyed in the texts. The study sheds new light on the literary techniques and the methodological frameworks of two journals essentially associated with the British - and the European - Enlightenment.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter One. Character and Knowledge in Early Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals -- Chapter Two. Epistemic Categories -- Chapter Three. The Tatler: The ‘Individual’ Gaze -- Chapter Four. The Spectator: A Community of Modern Observers -- Chapter Five. Ordering Characterological Knowledge in The Tatler and The Spectator -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Works Cited -- Table of Figures