Richard Steele
1672-1729, Irish writer, soldier and politician. After an education at Oxford, Steele entered the army in 1694. He also started writing around that time, his first literary success being The Christian Hero (1701), which discusses the role of men in society.
Journalistic Career
In 1707, Steele began his hugely successful journalistic career. Together with Joseph Addison, he published the magazines The Tatler (1709-1711), The Spectator (1711-1712) and The Guardian (until 1713), all of which gained big popularity and immense influence: the Spectator reached a readership of around 40,000 per issue between March 1711 and December 1712. In their journalistic writings, Steele and Addison concerned themselves with a wide variety of social, literary and philosophical issues, such as the cultivation of sociability in the rural gentry, domestic harmony and the Separation of Spheres. The stylistic formula introduced by the Spectator – a polite correspondence between various writers and on several issues – was adopted and imitated by a number of subsequent papers.
Political Career
In 1713, Steele joined the Whigs and became MP for Stockbridge. He published The Crisis, a telling pamphlet on the Hanoverian succession in 1714. Apart from that, he edited the Whig magazine The Englishman (October 1713 – February 1714), once again in cooperation with Joseph Addison. After a quarrel in 1718, however, the cooperation between the two men ceased.
Literary Career
Steele’s later works were primarily literary. His dramatic works can be grouped under the label of Sentimental Comedy, an attempt to support values such as morality, chastity and sensibility in drama. The most famous example from Richard Steele’s feather is probably his last play The Conscious Lovers (1722), which was an immediate hit and greatly contributed to the new cult of sensibility and emotions. For his services on the Hanoverian succession, Steele was knighted and appointed supervisor of Drury Lane theatre.
Sources
- Arnold-Baker, Charles. The Companion to British History. Tunbridge Wells: Longcross Press, 1996.
- Cannon, John. A Dictionary of British History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.
- Dickinson, H.T. A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006.