Intellectual and Political Satire

This week's readings on the coffeehouse and the attendant political and intellectual cultures woven into the fabric of this public venue strike me as particularly amusing.  I could happily while away hours of my life reading historical documents written to entertain.  Swift's Battle of the Books reminded me of Mandeville and Pope.  The use of prose was slightly more relaxed, but the same form of matching a positive against a negative was endlessly repeated.  Addison and Steele continually comment on the coffeehouse Wit, usually to admonish him, but much of their reading audience would have been glad to have the title.  There were a few quotations and jokes that struck me as particularly funny.  In Swift's Battle, I found the deleted sections very funny, because missing sections of manuscripts are such a problem in history research, and so often the missing part seems to be the most essential part of the story.  The Battle is most concerned with making fun of the satires of seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain that argue one intellectual viewpoint only to be Reply'd to by another.  I saw parallels between this snarky intellectualism and modern academia.  Some professors and students are so anxious to display thier own wit that they often miss the chance to learn.  Like Swift's books, they are so engaged in academic warfare (one has only to read book reviews in any scholarly journal) that they forgo opportunities to clarify their own arguments. 

There was also a  political thread woven into the coffee house, which is addresseed by The Spectator.  Addison's Upholsterer is a timeless character, and is as amusing in the twenty-first century as in the eighteenth.  The accuracy of his traits are instantly recognizable and applicable to so many pundits and thier followers.  I especially liked that although "He had a Wife and several Children; but was much more inquisitive to know what passes in Poland than in his own Family, and was in greater Pain and Anxiety of Mind for King Augustus's Welfare than that of his nearest Relations."  I can think of so many people more anxious to discuss Obama's Health Care than anything else, often, I think, to show that they have heard or read the entirity (as they see it) of information available on one subject of politics, allowing them to feel superior to those who have not read. 

Did anyone else share these opinions or find humor in the same things?

Should we apply a modern antidote for News-Addiction, or should we shrewdly flatter these political blowhards and use them to our own advantage?

Addison and Steele consider Opera

Considering John Gay's The Beggar's Opera alongside contemporary criticism of the Opera as an institution in essays by Addison and Steele reinforces an assumption of satire in the cultured classes of eighteenth century Britain.  Addison criticizes Italian opera in London not because he is xenophobic, as so many eighteenth century Brits are portrayed, but because he feels the artistic form and transformative properties of art are compromised by a lack of understanding as well as a distortion of form.  Addison shows, through specific examples, how changing the words from one language to another necessarily render the lyrics discordant with the music, creating the opposite effect intended. "And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined Persons of the British Nation dying away and languishing to Notes that were filled with a Spirit of Rage and Indignation."  The effect of art on the sensibilities of the observer was paramount.
  Steele, in his commentary on ladder walkers, acknowledges the transformative effects of theatrics on his sensibilities in his private life.  Steele states,..."I am convinced, that the Impulses I have received from Theatrical Representations, have had a great Effect, that otherwise would have been wrought in me by the little Occurrences of my private Life."

 Addison and Steele speak through the Spectator and the Tatler to the newly forming public sphere of cultured ladies and gentleman in eighteenth century Britain.  These papers function as prescriptive literature as well as critical satire.  A reader may pick up a paper to learn how to attend the Opera or a play, but will learn more about faux pas and mistakes than actual suggestions.  At the same time, Addison offers genuine discussion points suitable for debate and polite conversation, perhaps in a coffeehouse.  Because Whiggish sensibilities allowed for social and intellectual improvement, cross class interaction and conversation could take place in the public sphere without damaging the social positions of the intellectual elite.  Reading the Spectator or Tatler could be an entry point into a cultural conversation that would have been closed to someone not familiar with the subject.  While Addison and Steele were obviously higher in the intellectual gradient of public social life, all readers could converse and  better themselves through reading and public conversation.  National Public Radio provides a similar service to listeners today.  While anyone can tune in and listen to a program, listeners are seldom experts on the topic, but can carry away information to start a conversation of their own. 

Gay's Beggar's Opera offers satire and criticism from the first page.  Acknowledging lawyers to be no better than thieves, Peachum justifies his crooked enterprise and considers himself as moral as most men.  Marriage and women are satirized, and gender roles are defined by class and gender as well as actions.  Noble ladies, for instance, practice infidelity without a thought and women are influenced to believe men are heroes because of too much novel reading.  Though an opera about the lower classes, the audience was made up of the polite classes of ladies and gentleman who frequented genteel amusements.  Perhaps the large success was not only because of its modern satirical form, but also because the musical airs were written in English, enabling the audience to sing along.  Addison's rule, "That Nothing is capable of being well set to Musick, that is not Nonsense"  places the popular airs of the Opera as nonsense, but beloved nonsense.