English Literature & Language: Print, Poetry and Prose: Exploring Eighteenth-Century Print Culture with Joseph Addison’s The Free-Holder by Adam Smith, The University of Sheffield

This session will serve as an introduction to the many varieties of literature appearing in the Restoration and Long Eighteenth-Century as it attempts to situate a little known eighteenth-century journal, The Free-Holder, within its original social and cultural context.

The session will demonstrate a series of skills vital for the study of English at university level, as it uses close reading techniques to look at poetry (from such canonical poets as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift) and prose (by figures like Daniel Defoe and Francis Burney); before ultimately turning to pick out the persuasive and rhetorical devices in Joseph Addison non-fictional paper.

Aside from demonstrating research approaches the session will also serve as an introduction to a period of literary history that is guaranteed to appear on any University syllabus. It will explain a series of major events that immediately preceded this historical moment (the Civil War, the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution and the Hanoverian Succession) and suggest that the new medium of print allowed the public to question and discuss these serious changes in a way never seen before.

Lecturer Profile: Adam Smith

Suitable for: Year 12 students studying English Literature/Language AS/A level – and possibly considering an application to English Literature, English Language or English and History.

Preparation/Pre-reading: It would be helpful for students to have a look at Jonathan Swift’s ‘Description of a City Shower.’