Question: Account for the popularity of Addison as an essayist.

Or, Evaluate Addison as an essayist.

Answer: Addison is a great name in the history of English literature, especially for his style of writing. His style of writing makes him an important essayist. His popularity lies in him as an essayist. Their success and popularity depend on his essays. Now we will evaluate the popularity of an essayist.

A glance at the titles of Addison’s essays is enough to intricate the variety of his subjects. There are the Roger de Coverley essays; there are the literary essays and those devoted to a discussion of the theatre or the opera; there are the purely moral and didactic essays; and there are the satirical essays in which the manners of the age are depicted and ridiculed. The subjects of these essays are not of a profound or philosophical nature; nor are the treatment excessively learned or scholarly.

In choosing his subjects, Addison tried to kill two birds with one stone. He selected those topics in which the audiences of his time had an opportunity to be interested and which, at the same time, gave him an opportunity to ensure the vices and follies of the reading public. There was the theatre; there was the opera; and there were the manners and habits of the men and women of the time. The essays of Addison are “a faithful reflection of the life of the time, viewed with an aloof and dispassionate observation”.

The quality of humor in these essays is another marked ingredient that makes them popular. Apart from the purely moral and didactic essays which are serious and grave in tone and atmosphere, the others are full of Addison’s satirical and ironical humor which makes these compositions delectable. He ridicules in “Stage Realism” and “Nicolini and the Lions” the preposterous artifices and devices that were employed on the stage in his time. His humor is free from bitterness and scorn.

The avoidance of political controversy also made for the popularity of Addison’s essays. In these prefatory essays, Addison wrote:

”

I never espoused any party with violence and am resolved to observe strict neutrality between the Whigs and Tories.”

Even though Addison did not maintain a strictly neutral attitude in politics, his essays are free from political fanaticism and bias. The exclusion of political discussion from his essays contributes to their continued popularity today.

Addison’s essays are full of illustrations in the form of fables, parables, analogies and allusion, which help the elucidation of arguments and aid the reader’s comprehension. This is the reason for the popularity of his essays. These kinds of illustrations lend concreteness to the essays and enrich them.

Sir Roger de Coverley and other figures lend to the particular essays in which they appear in character interest which has a large share in bringing wide popularity to the author. Sir Roger de Coverley is Addison’s greatest achievement. We are made to love this country gentleman for his humanity, his wide sympathies, etc. But we are made to laugh at him also. We laugh at his foibles and his eccentricities, his absurdities and his inconsistencies.

Addison’s prose style is also noteworthy for its homely expression. He sometimes makes use of very homely expressions. He had better have let it alone. He was fully alive to the beauty of metaphor. A noble metaphor when it is placed to advantage casts a kind glory around it and darts a luster through a whole sentence. Without being learned or making pretensions to learning, Addison adds to the value and beauty of his essays through his wonderfully apt quotations from and allusions to noble passages in literature.

The prose style of Addison is hued with his personal note. The introduction of something like a personal note in prose naturally brought it nearer to actual life and actually talk. The prose before Addison conspicuously lacks the character and element of informal conversation, for it was seldom used for social purposes.

To sum up, we may say that Addison is a great essayist for his extraordinary treatment of simplicity, dignity, lucidity, subject matter, and so on. These very qualities prove him as an essayist.