Output details
29 - English Language and Literature
University of Essex
Dear Mr Spectator, Series 1 and 2.
The research problem investigated here was how to exploit the unique resources of radio to illuminate both the content and form of the 'Spectator' itself in a way that would engage listeners and resonate with twenty-first-century concerns. The first series explores the more philosophical meditations in the 'Spectator' on time, mortality, and death; while the second series is dominated by Robert Harley’s founding of the South Sea Trading Company in 1711 (the cause of the South Sea Bubble). Formally, each episode resembled an edition of Mr Spectator’s daily newspaper. The notion of Mr Spectator as a ‘blogger’ was an early starting-point for the series, helping emphasise – through juxtaposing soundscapes of eighteenth- and twenty-first century London - the parallels between the emergence of the discursive spaces of the coffeehouse and the internet. Insights from research on the public sphere by scholars such as Markman Ellis and Brian Cowan were embedded in the series, as well as accurate details of eighteenth-century life and culture, from the viewing of marvellous beasts such as the ‘Rhino Saurus’ in the coffeehouses, to the details of how tobacco was purchased and the treasury’s use of hazel-twigs to keep accounts. Key primary texts drawn on include Ned Ward’s 'A London Spy' (1703); the pamphlet attributed to Daniel Defoe, 'True Account of the Design and Advantages of the South-Sea Trade' (1711), and of course, the 'Spectator' essays themselves.
