ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672–1719)

ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672–1719), English poet, essayist, and critic. Addison helped to elevate the literary status of English prose while holding important political offices for the Whig party. He was born in 1672 at Milston, Wiltshire. His father, the Reverend Launcelot Addison, was the dean of Lichfield, Staffordshire, and Addison attended Lichfield Grammar School and then, in 1686, Charterhouse School in London, where he met Richard Steele. Addison's study of classical poetry and his Latin poems at Queen's College, Oxford, won him a demy (scholarship) in the 1690s to Magdalen College, where he took his M.A. and was a fellow from 1697 to 1711. His classical scholarly knowledge, especially on the Roman idea of citizenship, informs the moral beliefs in his writing.

Addison's passionate interest in and deep knowledge of Roman poetry and history are evident in his early prose works evaluating the best Roman poets, his translations of such poets as Virgil and Ovid (1694 and 1717), and his own highly praised imitations of Latin poets such as Horace. He modeled his own prose style after the formal elegance and familiar diction of Latin poetry, which he praised. After writing a celebratory poem on John Dryden—"To Mr. Dryden"—he wrote an introductory essay on Virgil for Dryden's translation of the Georgics in 1697. Addison's own translations provided English readers with an accessible text through adding explanatory commentaries and replacing obscure allusions with familiar ones. Eight of Addison's Latin poems were included in an anthology he edited at Oxford in 1699, Musarum Anglicarum Analecta (An assembly of English muses).

One poem, "Pax Gulielmi Auspiciis Europae Reddita" (Peace returned to Europe under William's auspices), compliments William III's ability as a monarch and celebrates the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, which ended the War of the Grand Alliance. A partisan of Protestantism and the Whigs, Addison in his earliest poetry supported the Protestant succession of William of Orange and Mary. "Poem to his Majesty" was dedicated to John Somers, an important Whig, and "William's Peace" was dedicated to Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, the Whig treasurer. Montagu became Addison's patron and secured him a pension of £200 to undertake a grand tour on the Continent between 1699 and 1704. Addison toured several countries and studied French neoclassical literary theorists; his itinerary, particularly to places of classical literary interest, is recorded in Remarks upon Several Parts of Italy, published in 1705.

Addison's eulogy on John Churchill, duke of Marlborough's victory over the French at Blenheim in his poem "The Campaign" in 1704 secured him a position as excise commissioner of appeals and brought him increasing popularity. His involvement with the Kit-Kat Club, a political and literary society for Whig writers and politicians, renewed his friendship with Steele, and he contributed to Steele's play The Tender Husband (1705). Commissioned to write an English opera to counter the trend for Italian opera, he produced the unsuccessful Rosamond in 1707. Meanwhile, the status of his politically administrative appointments increased because of his anti-Jacobite pamphlets such as "The Present State of the War." He became a prominent spokesman for the Whigs, progressing from undersecretary of state to Charles Spencer, earl of Sunderland, in 1706 to chief secretary to the earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in 1709.

Assisting Steele in his editorship of the London Gazette in 1708, Addison then wrote forty-nine issues of The Tatler, the successful periodical established by Steele, moving between England and Ireland in 1709 and 1710. His essays focus on the classics, character types, and natural religion and oscillate between a witty, humorous tone and a moral seriousness, making reference to classical antecedents. His support of Whig policies continued with his writing five issues of the Whig Examiner during the elections of 1710, and becoming member of Parliament for Malmesbury, Wiltshire. Addison's essays in The Spectator, which appeared six days a week from March 1711 to December 1712, established his reputation for popularizing literary theory and new philosophies in a carefully poised, accessible, and sustained format. He wrote a series of essays on English tragedy, on the opera, on John Milton's poem Paradise Lost, and on the imagination, all designed to enlighten and improve the common reader. Addison later revived The Spectator briefly to support George I.

In 1713, his tragedy Cato ran for thirty nights at Drury Lane Theatre. A story of the struggle of a Roman republican, the play's political overtones ensured its success. It was praised by Voltaire as the first English "rational tragedy" and translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Latin. Awaiting the accession of Prince George of Hanover, Addison was appointed secretary of the Regency in 1714. He published the periodical The Freeholder, or Political Essays (1715–1716) supporting George I during the Jacobite rebellion. His most prestigious political appointment was secretary of state in 1717. His last play, the comedy The Drummer, in 1716, was a failure. The same year he married the Countess of Warwick and lived in Holland House in London. Along with his increasing ill health, Addison quarreled with former friends such as Alexander Pope, over a rival translation of the Iliad, and Richard Steele, over the restriction of hereditary peers in the peerage bill. Addison died, estranged from Steele, on 17 June 1719.

ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672–1719)

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