In 1719, the former secretary of State and famous English writer Joseph Addison passed away and was burried in Westminster Abbey among the great national poets. A few decades later, the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined Joseph Addison's prose style as the quintessence of Englishness in his Lives of the English Poets. This selection of essays ambitions to celebrate the tercentenary of his death by showing that Addison was part of the European as much as the English Enlightenment. It explores how European countries and cultures played a decisive, if somewhat ambiguous role in his career and writing. It finally offers insights of Addison's huge literary and journalistic legacy in Europe.

Autorentext

Claire Boulard Jouslin is senior lecturer in British history in Université Sor-bonne Nouvelle-Paris3. Her research interest include various aspects of the English eighteenth-century society such as landscape gardening, the history of the periodical press, women s journalistic writings and Franco-British cultural transfers. Klaus-Dieter Ertler is Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Graz (Austria). His main research interests include the "Spectators" in the Romance cultures and the francophone and hispanophone novel.

Inhalt

List of Contributors Introduction Avant-propos Europe s influence on Addison s writings/L influence de l Europe sur l écriture addisonienne Amélie Junqua A moment in Amsterdam Joseph Addison and Jacob Tonson in 1703 Endre Szécsényi The Jesuit thread in Joseph Addison s aesthetics Dan Poston Still on classic ground: Joseph Addison s Italy Paul Davis "Misguided by the tuneful throng": Addison at the Rubicon Klaus-Dieter Ertler Addison, lecteur de Bayle Addison s legacy to Europe/L héritage addisonien en Europe María José Rodríguez Sánchez de León "Varying life": The idea of fiction in the Spanish version of Joseph Addison s The Pleasures of the Imagination Klara Leszczynska How Mr. Spectator became the father of the Polish essay Carmen García Cela La Spectatrice (1728 1729): scenes de lecture ? Claire Boulard-Jouslin Joseph Addison in Lausanne: Reading Addison s works at the Societe du Comte de la Lippe