Culture Press With The British Middle Class Identity (1689-1729),

The “middle class” has always been an elusive category in the studies of early modernEnglish society. It gives rise to continuing controversies as to the demarcation of boundariesaround the “middling”. Ever since the1990s, more studies in this field shifted to define the earlymodern English middle class by seeking the shared experiences and common values that hadcontributed to the formation of its class identity.Drawing on these illuminating approaches and a wide historical literature, this dissertationargues for the significance of early periodical journal in the construction of middle class identity.The term ‘periodical journal’ is commonly used to name a genre of newspaper with miscellaneouscontents such as essays, poems, cultural criticisms etc. It was flourishing since the late seventeenthcentury in Britain with an emergent print market. These journals could be viewed as producers ofideal values as well as participants in cultural and social constructions. A cornerstone of thedevelopment of periodical journal was laid by the Spectator, first published in1711. With over sixhundred issues, it encompasses ideas about religious beliefs, ethics, manners, gender relations,urban entertainments, national identity etc. It is held in this paper that periodical journalsconstituted important common experiences for the middling sorts in the urban environment.The post-revolution years witnessed a swelling body of middling sorts in the cities, as a resultof the enlargement of government administration and financial system innovation. Wedged intothe traditional patrician-plebeian hierarchy, this middling group was resented from both sides ofthe pyramid. For some members of this group, emulation and pursuit of gentility marked stronglyin their material and cultural consumption. At the same time, an internal perception within thegroup became more prominent with their unnegligible wealth and involvement in the society. Thedesire to cultivate distinct values and norms made it possible for the participation of periodicaljournal in their class identification.By conceiving the cultural market between1689to1729as a discursive field, this paperexamines how the periodical journals competed with prevailing ideas during that period of time,with focus on the Spectator. This paper includes five parts. It first identifies the unique role ofperiodical journal in the cultural market by examining its operation, stylistic devices as well as itstargeted readers. The second part analyzes the social perception and the aspiration to self-fashioning among the middling sorts by locating this group in the cultural hierarchy andcommercialization of urban culture. Based on the first two sections, the following two parts go onto examine how the periodical journals formulate new beliefs, ethics, manners and taste, as ameans for the middling order to express social distinction. These two parts also suggest the importance of the “men of letters” in making the “cultural capital” more accessible to the middlingsort and enriching their understanding of post-revolution commercial world, of the relationshipbetween individuals and of nation-state. This paper concludes by relating the discursive field ofperiodical journals to the “imagined community” and emphasizes their potential for socialaffinities.With a multiplicity of newspapers, pamphlets, autobiography, diary and literary works, thispaper is an attempt to give a view of the interaction between periodical journal and English middleclass experience in the early transformation of English social structures. It is also expected to drawmore attention to the value of periodical journals as assets in exploring the early English society.