SELF-FASHIONING & SELF-Policing in the 18th Century Gender, Sex, & Fashion
18th C. History and Culture 1702 – Queen Anne 1714 – King George I of Hanover 1715 – Jacobite Rebellion – James III 1727 – George II Characterized by: Movement to political stability Rise of market capitalism Rise of global trade Rise of a “middle class” Changes to the idea of a “self”
18c Changes to Ideas of “Self” Exterior reflects interior, but interior is what counts Individualism privileged over class allegiance (class still there, just more fluid and permeable) Self-improvement not just possible, but necessary Locke’s view of tabla rasa or “blank slate” Diaries used to chart this
18c Changes to Gender & Sexuality Moves from hierarchy to separate spheres Male/commercial/public Female/emotional/private (home) Seen as natural, unchangeable (reflect interior) Behavior & dress should reflect the FIRM boundaries between men and women Men’s clothing becomes much plainer Category of “homosexual” begins to develop Change from behavior to identity Male homosexuality linked to effeminate behavior No understanding of female homosexuality
Addison & Steele Addison
Charles II
The Fop …OR THE DANDY or beau Macaroni Colly Cibber as “Lord Foppington”
I know, let’s blame the French!
Changing Standards for women’s dress… The jilt, prude, beau, coquette
With all this change… HOW DO WE MAKE PEOPLE BEHAVE APPROPRIATELY?
Do we kill THEM? Beat them? Shame them? (SRMM) CONVINCE THEM HOW??
The Tatler April 1709- January 1711 Started by Steele Other, including Addison, contributed Cost one penny Pub’d 3/week Main narrator: Isaac Bickerstaff Explicit goal: “The general Purpose of this Paper, is to expose the false Arts of Life, to pull off the Disguises of Cunning, Vanity, and Affectation, and to recommend a general Simplicity in our Dress, our Discourse, and our Behavior.” Also included political, military and financial news
The Spectator March 1711-December 1712; June-December 1714 Work split between Addison and Steele (except for last six months) Pub’d 6x/week (last six months @3/wk) Main narrator: Mr. Spectator Dropped all straight news; almost all essays
Audience: urban, rising middle class (needs instruction) Circulation: printed periodicals in coffeehouses (part of oral/social “Public Sphere”) “All Accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure and Entertainment, shall be under the Article of White’s Chocolate-house; Poetry, under that of Will’s Coffee-house; Learning, under the Title of the Graecian; Foreign and Domestick News, you will have from St. James’s Coffee-house; and what else I have to offer on any other Subject, shall be dated from my own Apartment” (Tatler no. 1, qtd. in Mackie 50) Topics: “the polite conduct of life in all its arenas, public and private, domestic and professional, social and familial” (Mackie 2)
Goal: to reform the behavior of their readers— “to manage …human desires in ways they consider rational, progressive and useful” (Mackie 2)—to persuade readers to choose the right (virtuous, authentic, tasteful) path Contrast: The Society for the Reformation of Manners and Morals, which focused on problems of sex and drinking among the lower classes; published blacklists
Politics: (implicitly) Whig Tone/method: witty, urbane, ironic, satiric tone in a fictionalized, epistolary essay (became a model) Politics: (implicitly) Whig Problem: papers become fashionable commodities in their own right, partially undermining their own goals Works Cited: Mackie, Erin, ed. The Commerce of Everyday Life: Selections from THE TATLER and THE SPECTATOR Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998.