Question- Discuss Pamphlet.

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When was the Periodical Easssy first attempted in English?

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Who were its major exponents ? Mention a few essays by them.

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Write a note on the Periodical Essay, illustrating its characteristics with appropriate quotations from the text.

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Discuss 'Periodical Essay'.

Ans-

Pamphlet

A Pamphlet is a prose essay which endeavours to persuade the reader on some topic of public interest, usually religious, social or political. It is a small tract, especially of topical interest. It is always, inbound, with or without paper covers. Swift made it a weapon of political controversy. It has become increasingly a means of propaganda, tending to present only one side of an argument, which is usually propounded vigorously. From the time of the Elizabethans, to Milton and Defoe and Swift, to Johnson and Burke and Tom Paine, to Cobbett and Wordsworth and Shelley and Kingsley and Morris, England had had sufficient freedom of speech for good pumphleteering. The result is that English is unusally rich in pamphlet literature and has models for anyone with the itch to reform.
(a) Periodical Essay- Periodical essay aimed at social reform and it was first published in the periodical press. The early part of the 18th century was the hey day of this type of essay. Addison and Steele were pioneers in the field. A revolution in the art of the essay and a great impetus to the essay form came with Richard Steele and Joseph Addison in the periodicals known as the Tatler and the Spectater. They employed the essay for the double purpose of entertainment and the improvement of the morals and manners of contemporary society. Even before the Tatler appeared, there were two periodicals. As early as 1691 appeared John Dunton's Atheran Mercury. Sir William Temple and Jonathan Swift were among the contributors, and Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson wrote verses in praise of this. Daniel Defoe began his review in 1704. The Tatler ran from April 1700, to March, 1711, and the Spectator from March, 1711 to December 1712 and again for a time, under the guidance of Addison in 1714. From 1709 to 1712, Dr. Johnson's (1709-1784) Rambler which appeared twice a week from March 1750 to March 1752. Such periodicals as the adventurer the world, the Connoisseur appeared between 1752 and 1756. They possessed many of the characterics of the Spectator. Goldsmith contributed to the Bee, a periodical that ran only a few weeks.
(b) Formal Essay- The expository essay has an intellectual dimension. It is not personal and autobiographical, intimate and informal. It is objective and formal, discursive and rational. Bacon's Essays, Dryden's prefaces, Macaulay's essays, Froude's short studies and the essays of Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell and George Orwell belong to the category of the expository essay. The work of these writers is duly weighted with purpose, learning and argument. It is also marked by distinction in style and touched by the graces of the writer's mind and the general force of their personality.
(c) Personal Essay- Lamb, Hallitt, De Quincey, Goldsmith, Stevenson, E.V. Lucas, A.G. Gardiner, J.B. Priestley and Max Beerbohm wrote authentic or personal essays. Hugh Walker in his "the English Essay and Essayists" observe that such essays (Personal or authentic Essays) have a "Special literary form. Lamb's essays are the best examples in English, as Montaigne's are in French." It is like the lyric because it also expresses some central mood.

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