On Joseph Addison's Affective Criticism And Its Application In The Paradise Lost Papers

Joseph Addison published eleven consecutive papers “On the Pleasures of the Imagination” from June 21 to July 3,1712,which are regarded as a detailed elaboration of his affective criticism.Earlier in the same year,he continuously published eighteen review papers on Paradise Lost in the Saturday issues from January 5 to May 3.After enlarging on the contents,historical background and philosophical origins of the affective criticism,my thesis argues that Addison's eighteen essays on Paradise Lost are a sort of practicing ground for his affective criticism.My thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One looks into the methodology in Addison's theory and practice.One is the reader-oriented strategy,and the other is the response to affective qualities as a criterion of literary judgment.On the one hand,the critic highly valued the common reader,the edification of whom was a focal point of both his theory and its application;on the other hand,the critic built and applied his literary theory around the response to the affective qualities of objects,which is a way of going upward to God.Chapter Two looks deep into the close relationship between Addison's affective criticism and natural religion and empirical philosophy,and elaborates on the two major points in his theory: two kinds of the pleasures of the imagination(the primary and the secondary),and three sources of the pleasures(the great,the uncommon and the beautiful).Chapter Three,consisting of two parts,examines how Addison applied his affective criticism in the Paradise Lost papers.The first part attempts to explain the reason of Addison's choice of Milton's poem,instead of other works,for literary discussion from the perspective of the contemporary British collective endeavour to establish a domestic literary canon;the second part discusses Addison's application of the affective criticism in the Paradise Lost papers.By analysing a large number of such words he used in the papers as “imagination”,“great”,“sublime”,“surprising” and “beautiful”,among others,I arrive at the conclusion that Addison conducted his review within the theoretical framework of his affective criticism.In the end,the limitedness of the theory-practice study in my thesis is mentioned – that is,when examining the application of Addison's affective criticism,I deliberately put aside some other important aspects of his Paradise Lost papers.However,the fact that the application of his affective criticism is only part of his review of Paradise Lost shows that Addison is an eclectic critic.