Introduction: Poetry and the Rise of the Fashionable Newspaper

Abstract

This chapter introduces the world of the fashionable newspaper of the eighteenth century. It argues that in a number of important respects, fashionable West End newspapers like the World and the Oracle occupied a similar space in the landscape of eighteenth-century London to the pleasure garden. By the latter decades of the eighteenth century, pleasure gardens such as London’s Vauxhall and Ranelagh had become relatively democratic leisure spaces, open to anyone who could afford a ticket. Similarly, in the poetry pages of the daily papers, a commoner might find herself sharing the same rarified airspace as the haut ton. It can be no mistake that the poetry section of the World and the Oracle—which welcomed anonymous effusions from writers of all backgrounds—was often positioned next to, or directly following, news of the fashionable set. This chapter suggest that the democratization of poetic culture heralded in fashionable newspapers like the World and the Oracle had the capacity to trouble categories of class, taste and propriety (in particular, feminine propriety). Nonetheless, it offered women writers, in particular, a popular and accessible vehicle for the publication of their poetry.