A Study Of The Constructive Role Of The English Writers To English Literary Public Sphere

In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, while Habermas combs the historicaldevelopment of the public sphere in Britain, France and Germany, he constructively proposes a transitionalperiod, namely “the literary public sphere” which is just between “the representative public sphere” in theMiddle Ages and “the bourgeois public sphere” at the end of the18thcentury.Beginning with the correction to the mistranslation of the public sphere and the literary public sphere,and based on the investigation of British literary public sphere, this dissertation presents systematicallyand interprets in depth the development of the British literary public sphere. As the predecessor of theBritish political public sphere, the literary public sphere was originated from the coffeehouses in theRepublic period. The British literary public sphere came into maturity with the establishment of the“debating mechanism” promoted by James Harrington and other writers in “Rota Club”, with theformation of the mode of bourgeois sociability. With the awakening of the individual “subjectivity” andthe performance of the “public opinion” function, British literary public sphere staged on the history. Bythe joint efforts of history and culture, the writers with publicity helped improve the British literarypublic sphere. These writers, with their literary creations and discourses on literature, transferred publicopinions to the power center and exerted their influences upon the policy-making on public affairs. Thismaturity was closely connected with such cultural phenomena as the increasing groups of readers,coffeehouses and more professional writers. Along with the development of the party system, morepolitical topics were introduced to the public sphere, which marked the transition of the literary publicsphere to the political public sphere and which was characterized by the Bolingbroke literary circle’sliterary activities and the formation of “the fourth estate” critical institutions. One of the shortcomings inHabermasian theory on the literary public sphere is he roughly ignored the contribution made by otherclasses and genders to the construction of the public sphere.Based on the above consideration and research, the dissertation summarizes the three characteristicsof the British literary public sphere, namely “historically anchored, culturally unique and literarilyconstructed”. In particular, it explores the subjective initiative of the British writers in building the literarypublic sphere under the specific historical and cultural contexts. Besides, in this diachronic study of theBritish literary public sphere, a synchronic study is also conducted focusing on the important contributionmade by the polyphonic sub-literary public spheres.The dissertation is divided into the following parts.Chapter One deals with the rise of the British literary public sphere with references the writers likeHarrington, Pepys, Evelyn and Marvell and with an eye on the issues such as the formation of the debatingmechanism, the modes of sociability, and the awakening of writers’ subjectivity in the early stage of theBritish literary public spheres. Their efforts laid a solid foundation for the British literary public sphere.Chapter Two focuses on the performance of the British writers in the mature stage of the literary public sphere. The writers discussed in this chapter include Dryden, Steele and Addison, etc. By aninvestigation of the censorship and the change of literary patrons into professional publishers, it presentsthe interconstructive relationship between the literary public sphere and the British writers in the maturestage.Chapter Three mainly deals with the performance of the British writers in the transition from theliterary public sphere to the political sphere. It describes emphatically this process of transformation whichinvolves the writers of the Bolingbroke literary circle and “the fourth estate” critical institutions.Chapter Four, as a modification of the Harbermasian British Literary Public Sphere, research into thereligious, subaltern and female literary public spheres, with an emphasis on the influence of the femaleliterary public sphere on the general British public sphere. The writers involved are from the BluestockingSociety.Conclusion summarizes the characteristics of the British literary public sphere such as beinghistorically anchored, culturally unique and literarily constructed with a stress on the last one. At the sametime, the dissertation restates the significance of this study: it has complemented and made some revisionsof Habermas theory of the public sphere and the literary public sphere; it provides inspirations to theanalysis of the interactive relationship between the literary public sphere and the writers in the networktimes.