What happens when essaying ceases to be a private act and becomes a public conversation?
The question marks a turning point in the history of essaying.
With Michel de Montaigne, the essay begins in solitude. A man retreats to his library and turns examination inward. The self becomes both subject and instrument. The essay is not a declaration but an experiment in thought. Through the observation of his own experience, Montaigne discovered a method of inquiry that remains recognisable today.
Francis Bacon carried the essay in a different direction. His attention moved outward. Rather than exploring the movements of his own mind, he examined the structures of the world: truth, studies, friendship, ambition, marriage, power. The essay became concise, disciplined and practical. It sought not self-understanding so much as understanding itself.
Yet both Montaigne and Bacon still wrote largely from a position of distance. The essayist considered the world, but did not fully enter its everyday flow. Something remained apart.
In the early eighteenth century, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele changed this relationship. Through periodicals such as The Tatler and The Spectator, essaying entered society. The significance of this change is easy to underestimate. Modern readers encounter newspapers, magazines, blogs, newsletters and online commentary so naturally that they scarcely notice the form itself. But in Addison and Steele’s England a new social world was emerging. Cities were growing. Literacy was increasing. Trade was expanding. Most importantly, public spaces of conversation were multiplying.
The coffeehouse became one of the defining institutions of the age. Here merchants, politicians, writers, lawyers, clergymen and curious citizens gathered to exchange news and opinion. Information circulated rapidly. Ideas travelled. Debates unfolded daily. Society was becoming conversational/
Addison and Steele recognised that this new world required a new kind of writing. The essay could no longer remain solely the product of solitary reflection. It needed to become a participant in public life. Their innovation was deceptively simple. They produced frequent essays intended to be read by ordinary people engaged in the business of living together. The subjects were not only politics or philosophy but manners, taste, conversation, fashion, social conduct, marriage, literature and civic behaviour. The essayist became an observer of society itself.
This represented a subtle but profound shift. Montaigne had asked: What can I learn by examining myself? Bacon had asked: What can be learned by examining the world? Addison and Steele increasingly asked: How shall we live together? The centre of gravity moved from self and object to relationship. The essay became a medium through which a society could reflect upon itself.
This does not mean that Addison and Steele abandoned inquiry. On the contrary, they expanded its field. Human beings were no longer observed primarily as individuals but as participants in a shared social order. A conversation at a coffeehouse table, a disagreement between friends, an act of courtesy, a public debate, a theatrical performance; all became material for reflection. The essay entered the everyday.
Perhaps this explains why Addison and Steele feel unexpectedly modern. Their concerns are recognisably ours. They worried about public discourse, misinformation, civility, superficiality, good judgement and the quality of social interaction. The settings have changed. The human questions have not. Indeed, one can view their work as an early attempt to cultivate what might now be called a healthy public sphere. The essay was not merely a vehicle for opinion. It was an instrument through which habits of attention, reflection and judgement might be improved.
This aspiration distinguished essaying from argument. Argument seeks victory. Essaying seeks understanding. The distinction mattered to Addison and Steele. Their purpose was rarely to defeat an opponent. Instead, they sought to encourage reflection through observation, wit, example and conversation. They approached society not as prosecutors but as inquirers.
In this respect they remained faithful to the deeper spirit of essaying. The essay is often mistaken for a form of writing. More fundamentally, it is a form of attention. Montaigne directed that attention inward. Bacon directed it outward. Addison and Steele directed it between people. Their achievement was to show that inquiry could become social without ceasing to be reflective. The essayist need not stand apart from society in order to examine it. One could participate in the conversation while simultaneously exploring it.
This insight would prove enormously influential. Much of the later history of essaying unfolds within the space Addison and Steele helped create. From Samuel Johnson’s observations of urban life to Charles Lamb’s familiar essays, from Hazlitt’s conversational criticism to Orwell’s reflections on politics and culture, the essay increasingly became a way of thinking in public.
The coffeehouse may have vanished, but its spirit endures. Today the settings are different. We gather not around printed periodicals but across websites, newsletters, podcasts and digital platforms. Yet the underlying question remains remarkably similar. How might thoughtful inquiry survive within the noise of public conversation?
Addison and Steele did not solve the problem once and for all. No essayist ever does. The essay has always been less interested in solutions than in the patient exploration of relationships. What they demonstrated, however, was that reflection need not retreat from society. The essay could leave the study. It could enter the street. And in doing so, it could help a society think about itself.
Sources: Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s The Spectator(1711-12); historical accounts of The Tatler and The Spectator; their role in the coffeehouse culture and emerging public sphere of eighteenth-century Britain.