Etudes Anglaises - N1/2013: Reconsidering Romantic Essay-Writing and Some Romantic Essayists [French]

Jean RAIMOND: Robert Southey: an essay addict? "If I have many irons in the fire, one reason, therefore, is that there is a large pot to boil." Because he depended exclusively on his pen for his livelihood, Robert Southey found his most reliable source of income in periodical reviewing. He thus contributed to such journals as the Monthly Magazine, the Critical Review and the Annual Review before becoming, from 1809 onwards, an eminent contributor to the Quarterly Review. If that periodical owed much of its prosperity to the Laureate's unflinching support, Southey's contributions to the Tory rival of the Edinburgh Review were instrumental in increasing his reputation as one of the most effectual and controversial essayists of the Romantic age. His reviews of literary works, travel books, biographies or historical studies may not hold the twentieth-century reader's interest as his "essays, moral and political" still do. Southey's penchant for the essay is also perceptible in several works of his which are not essays in the first place, like Letters from England, the Colloquies, and The Doctor. The drudgery of reviewing and the strenuous work of documentation required were beneficial to Southey who, whenever anything distressed him, would "fly to hard employment, as many fly to the bottle." Si j'ai beaucoup de fers au feu, c'est, entre autres, parce qu'il y a une grosse marmite a faire bouillir . Parce qu'il dependait entierement de sa plume pour vivre, Robert Southey a tire le plus clair de ses revenus de sa collaboration a des revues. C'est ainsi qu'il a travaille pour le Monthly Magazine, la Critical Review et -l'Annual Review, avant de devenir, a partir de 1809, un collaborateur eminent de la Quarterly Review. Si ce periodique dut l'essentiel de son succes au soutien indefectible du Laureat, les articles ecrits par Southey dans la revue Tory rivale de l'Edinburgh Review contribuerent a accroitre sa reputation et a faire de lui l'un des essayistes les plus percutants et les plus portes sur la controverse de l'epoque romantique. Ses recensions d'oeuvres litteraires, de recits de voyages, de biographies, d'etudes historiques ne retiendront peut-etre pas l'attention du lecteur du vingtieme siecle au meme titre que ses essais moraux et politiques . Le gout marque de Southey pour l'essai transparait egalement dans plusieurs de ses ouvrages qui ne sont pas des essais a proprement parler, tels les Letters from England, les Colloquies et The Doctor. Le pensum des recensions tout comme l'ereintant et indispensable travail de documentation devaient se reveler benefiques pour Southey qui, des qu'un malheur l'affligeait, se jetait a corps perdu dans un travail de forcat comme beaucoup d'autres se jettent sur la bouteille . Mark SCHOENFIELD: Ticklers and Nic-Nacs: weekly entertainments among the Romantic periodicals Quarterly reviews such as the Edinburgh and Quarterly exploited the literary market to gain political dominance for their respective parties, while monthlies like Blackwood's claimed originality and aesthetic judgment among their domains. From the shadow of these ambitious quarterlies and monthlies emerged a genre of smaller magazines with names like The Tickler, The Nic-Nac and Saturday Night. Striving not for originality but readability, seeking an audience through entertainment and not political allegiance, these journals, filled with reprinted quips, puns, and valorization of the ordinary, developed, through an aesthetic of imitation, readership as a form of economic consumption and authorship as a technological effect of publishing. Les trimestriels comme l'Edimburgh Review et la Quarterly Review exploitaient le marche litteraire afin d'assurer une position politique dominante a leurs partis respectifs, alors que les mensuels comme Blackwood's pretendaient, dans leur domaine propre, a l'originalite et au jugement en matiere d'esthetique. A cote de ces trimestriels et mensuels de premier plan emergea un genre de magazines moins importants, par exemple, The Tickler, The Nic-Nac et le Saturday Night. Leur but n'etant pas d'etre originaux, mais d'etre lus et de seduire leur public par le divertissement et non pas le discours politique. Ces revues, regorgeant de jeux de mots et de traits d'esprit, et valorisant l'ordinaire, permirent l'essor du lectorat en tant que forme de consommation economique, et contribuerent a developper la profession d'auteur consideree comme une simple consequence technologique de la publication. Duncan WU: Hazlitt as Romantic Hazlitt's credentials as a Romantic are placed within a biographical context, beginning with the observation that the profession of essayist was not the one to which he first aspired. He resorted to journalism only when he failed to become a Unitarian minister, painter, philosopher and lecturer. It is in his arguments concerning the imagination, particularly such aspects as "gusto," "sympathy" and "genius," that justification is found for aligning him with Romantic contemporaries. His ideas are argued to have a source in the theories of Joseph Priestley, his former teacher, who was also an influence on Coleridge and Wordsworth. Yet Hazlitt's association with those precursors is argued only to be partial, for he was ahead of his time both in his atheism, and rejection of necessitarian and millenarian philosophies. Les elements permettant de considerer Hazlitt comme un romantique sont places ici dans un contexte biographique. On notera d'abord que le metier d'essayiste n'etait pas celui auquel il aspirait en premier lieu. Il n'eut recours au journalisme que lorsqu'il echoua a devenir ministre du culte unitarien, peintre, philosophe et conferencier. Ses arguments concernant l'imagination, en particulier les notions de gusto, de sympathie et de genie, justifient

• Format: Paperback
• Language: French
• ISBN: 2252038888
• ISBN13: 9782252038888
• Release Date: May 2013
• Publisher: Klincksieck
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.