The Spectator (1711)

The Spectator was a seemingly daily London newspaper, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who had met at Charterhouse School 1711-12. Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison, also contributed to this. The first edition appeared on 1 March 1711th Each number was about 2500 words long, the original series consisted of 555 numbers. They were collected in seven volumes. The paper was revived without Steele 1714 and appeared for six months three times a week. This new series consisted of eight volumes.

Objectives

The stated goal of The Spectator was " to enliven morality with spirit, and to alleviate the mind through morality ... to bring philosophy out of the bookcases and libraries, schools and universities, so that they and in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables may dwell in coffee houses. " The reader is advised to consider them as part of the Teegedecks and not to leave the house without having read it in the morning. You should provide the reader with educated discussion topics provide and guide him to hold talks in a polite manner. The authors attempted to family, marriage and to promote civility, as it corresponded to the ideals of the Enlightenment philosophers of the time. They fought also the custom of dueling.

Readership

Despite a modest circulation of about 3,000 copies of the Spectator was widely read; Addison estimated readership to 60,000, about a tenth of the population of London. Contemporary historians and literary scholars hold this number is not an exaggeration; most readers were not even subscribers, but visitors a coffee house where the newspaper auslag. The readers came from all classes, but be advised the newspaper especially on England's emerging middle class, large and small merchants and traders.

Jürgen Habermas sees the Spectator as an important means of "structural transformation of the public sphere " that took place in England in the 18th century. This transformation, he argues had emerged from the middle out, the precisely formed as a group through publications like the Spectator. Officially, the Spectator was politically neutral, but he represented unambiguously values ​​and interests of the Whigs. The Tory policy was in the figure Sir Roger de Coverleys, a lovable but slightly ridiculous country gentleman, caricatured.

The Spectator was a popular reading in the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was sold in eight-volume editions. His prose style and the combination of morality, life advice and entertainment were considered exemplary.