Addison's Classical Criticism and the Origins of Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics

• Published in: ELH Vol. 90; no. 3; pp. 693 - 721
• Main Author: Davis, Paul
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.09.2023
• Subjects: 18th century; Aesthetics; British & Irish literature; Classical literature; Criticism; Dryden, John (1631-1700); English literature; Latin literature; Ovid (43 BC-17 AD); Poets; Translations; United Kingdom > UK; England
• DOI: 10.1353/elh.2023.a907206
• ISSN: 0013-8304; 1080-6547

In the second half of the article, I use that revised chronology to offer a new account of the place of Addison's classical criticism in his personal development as a critic and the history of criticism more generally around the turn of the eighteenth century. "2 In the first instance, he got the date from Bonamy Dobrée: he cites Dobrée's reference in English Literature in the Early Eighteenth Century (1959) to "the notes in Ovid's Metamorphoses of 1697" (Y, 270). The key to realizing this is the fact that Addison's Ovid translations were originally intended to form part of the complete multi-author version of the Metamorphoses that Dryden and Tonson began putting together in the winter of 1692–3.6 Dryden's rendering of "The First Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses," published in July 1693 in Tonson's third miscellany Examen Poeticum, was a pilot for the scheme, intended to whet the appetite of potential subscribers. "8 He presumably let Addison know at around the same time, while holding court one afternoon in Will's Coffee-House perhaps.