Abstract
IN THREE NUMBERS of the Spectator, Addison laid the foundations of English ballad criticism. Papers Nos. 70 and 74 demonstrated the extreme natural and poetical sentiment, the majestic simplicity, of the old song of Chevy Chase to all readers that were not unqualified for such entertainment by their affectation or their ignorance. Two weeks later (No. 85) Addison recommended in more restrained language Two Children in the Wood, one of the darling songs of the common people, to the same special audiencethe restraint was induced by the facetious squibs that had appeared in the interval, ridiculing his championing of such vulgar stuff. These three papers, coming in 1711 and from Addison, have been regarded as something of an anomaly. Unlike his volatile collaborator Steele, long a Romantic before Romanticism,l Addison is invariably placed well on the neoclassic side of the critical spectrum, indeed a classic of the classics.2 The date of the papers, the year of the Essay on Criticism and a half century before Percy's Reliques, lies distressingly deep in neoclassic territory, and it is an axiom of literary history that a serious interest in popular poetry was not consonant with the dominant standards of the early eighteenth century. Yet, when these papers are carefully examined and placed in their correct context, it appears that Addison was not torturing strange
Published Version
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