When I first started maintaining a reading list in a consistent, written fashion, I was rather more cavalier about what I added to it than I am now; unfortunately, that sometimes means that I pick up a book I put on the list years ago and end up wondering why it made the list. I…don’t know if that’s the case for The Spectator, but I will admit now that I did not read all eight collected volumes of what is essentially a daily cultural column. By the time I finished the first volume, I felt I had enough sense of what I was getting, and what I was getting wasn’t enough to justify thousands more pages when there are always more books to read.
Yet, I would not say that it is not worth reading, if just enough to gain a feel and understanding for what The Spectator is. It is a sliver, a peek into a unique time in history when, for arguably the first time, something like the modern middle class was beginning to appear and gain influence. It is to them that The Spectator is written, as a way of developing a culture unique to the middle class, one not based in the impractical and unapproachable notions of the aristocracy, but simultaneously approaching topics which the lower class was not interested in and did not, in a broad stroke, have time to worry about in their day-to-day existences. Thus, it is part cultural critique, part moralizing advice column, and part write-in discussion column, but presented as a kind of daily essay.
Some are quite interesting, and there are references to pieces which you might recognize if you’ve read some of the other books we’ve reviewed here, like Paradise Lost, Divine Comedy, and of course the works of the great Greek philosophers (I always get a certain pleasure out of understanding references that old works make to even older works). Others are random letters from random citizens about the proper formation of a Club for doing nothing. A less generous interpretation, then, would say that The Spectator was little more than the seventeenth century equivalent of a loosely focused personal blog.
My edition contained an extensive essay preceding the volumes of daily Spectators, detailing some of the history of the two main authors behind the daily papers. This was interesting in places, and in other places rather belabored the point, but some understanding of the context, both personal and historical, that The Spectator was written and published in is helpful to appreciating their significance. Without some advanced warning, they may seem somewhat random.
I don’t have a straightforward recommendation for you with which to conclude this review; I don’t even know how precisely to rate The Spectator. The writing is of reasonable quality, and they were enjoyable enough to read, but they made for a confusing mix of occasionally historically interesting nuggets and stretches of writing about operas that I will never see, read, hear, or have any interest in because they haven’t been produced for three hundred years. They are historically important and significant, marking an effort by the English middle class to define itself, and showcasing a unique period in the history of journalism, but a modern reader will only find a fraction of the contents relevant. It’s certainly not a must-read, but the more historically inclined amongst you may find it worthwhile.
IGC Publishing 