Essay periodical [ Reading & Writing / Communication / Literary & Artistic genres / Taste & Manners ]
… 005727193, 1746. Abstract The rise of the leisure press after 1690 caused the appearance of new forms of middle-class sociability. The tea-table is a case in point, around which the two sexes gathered, read periodical essays together, which provided subject matter to polite conversation. Periodicals, however, also staged new forms of sociability in their columns, constructing communities of readers which they endeavoured to instruct and educate. Periodical essayists promoted a Whig reformist agenda, which dictated new forms of sociability along gender lines. They projected an ideal of reasonable femininity which largely restricted female …
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