Opportunity found in contingency: The innovations of Joseph Addison's literary journalism, 1709--1716

This study is concerned with Joseph Addison's literary criticism, and attempts to broaden the understanding of his pivotal role in discourse on empirical understanding of the psychology of art in the context of publishing and journalism. Addison's concept of the critic as a participating "spectator" would influence generations of newspaper columnists, and more recently, television commentators. Addison made use of journalistic opportunity, and, in turn, was affected by journalistic contingency. While Addisonian journalistic criticism certainly contributed much to the understanding of literature in his own and the subsequent century, and Addisonian criticism may be confidently located within the spectrum of early eighteenth-century literary debate, a large and practically significant portion of the influence of early journalistic criticism remains relatively unexplored.