Addisison...quite a funny chap

The seminar reading this week were a few of Addison's short, and rather humorous essays. The first I read was The Spectator. The main points I picked from this were that ordered, and structured writing is of benefit to writer and reader. Addison believed that the printing press was a major development in the Field of writing and getting messages around educated people.

Locke's thoughts in this essay developed a discussion in the (very small) class of how we ourselves structure our writing and the different ways in which a piece may be best written. It was interesting to hear opposing points of view and how others write. I feel that Addison can become very bias, almost ignorant, of other people in his writing. He does not shy from making comments on different ways of doing things which are not the same as his, and being critical of them.

My favourite of the essays was The Shilling. I found it fun to read and clever in how he had described the trade scene well and managed to put in lots of description. Yet, it did not sound laboured or boring to the reader. This is another example of how I think he may slyly makes comments on other races, cultures and belief systems but tries to make them less offensive by with the use of humour.

I think we may have been asked to read these essays as they show a way of writing where you can show some bias, which as a journalist you may have to do sometimes, in a clever way which is less likely to cause upset in a community. Addison could sometimes also be called the first modern journalist. His works in Tattler and The Spectator would be among the early texts to be publically available to a wide audience.