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1 results

  • Chapter 2 - War and the Culture of Politeness

  • from Part I - Developing Ideals
  • Andrew Lincoln, Queen Mary University of London
  • Book:
    Imagining War and Peace in Eighteenth-Century Britain, 1690–1820
    Published online:
    10 January 2024
    Print publication:
    23 November 2023, pp 57-74

  • Summary

    This chapter shows how the two most influential periodicals of Queen Annes reign, The Tatler and The Spectator, reacted to the perceived threat posed by the sometimes chaotic representation of contemporary battles in the newspapers, by offering readers fictionalised and idealised alternatives. This strategy was compatible with the attempts of their authors (mostly Richard Steele and Joseph Addison) to encourage politeness. War is seen to encourage disinterested sociability while the career of soldiering is seen to promote good manners. In the face of growing criticism of the bellicose aspect of European cultural heritage, the periodicals attempt to distinguish morally useful representations of violence from aristocratic codes of honour and from sensational barbarism.