Shaftesbury and Literary Criticism: Philosophers and Critics in Early Eighteenth-Century England

Abstract

This article re-examines the assumption that Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Third Earl of Shaftesbury) and Joseph Addison should be studied together as architects of similar theories of criticism. I argue that though Addison may have used some of the same terms as Shaftesbury, their approaches to criticism were, in fact, irreconcilable. In discussing criticism, both men contributed to debates about the encroachment of modern philosophy on the disciplines and areas of knowledge which were traditionally part of the studia humanitatis . This demands a reappraisal of the nature of Shaftesbury’s relationship to English literary and intellectual culture. I argue that this relationship was more hostile and oppositional than is currently understood.