The End Is In The...End?

Yes, the end is in the end. Not the beginning, as the saying often goes. For when a semester of coursework ends, one does indeed reflect back on the beginning, but with a different set of eyes, eyes that have learned much and have a greater appreciation for what it sees again anew.

And that's enough with the cliches and purple prose, no? It was hard to pick three articles only to discuss here--I learned much from the searches I did every week, to be sure. But, to show I can follow directions, I did pick just three articles, and here they are, in summation and analysis:

1. "Reading." Farmer's Weekly Museum, 19 October 1805.  This article is against novel-reading--it deems it a "sore malady"--but is not against reading because of the depravity it may bring to the female mind. In fact, the article asserts that "'tis foul slander to assert that the female mind is thus debased. . . . In the rolls of antiquity the name of Sappho, and in modern times a long catalogue of illustrious female writers completely refutes a notion entertained by many of inferiority." The article goes on to say that, as soon as women get the same educational rights as men, everyone will see that they, too, are capable of great genius and taste. I appreciated the proto-feminist slant to this article, especially as it ran in a paper that, according to founder/editor Joseph Tinker Buckingham's Specimen's of Newspaper Literature (1852), had no rival as a literary periodical during its run. Indeed, the Farmer's Weekly had a circulation that spanned from Main to Georgia and was the leading Federalist paper in the 1790s, though it remained influential until it was stopped in 1810.

2. "On Female Education." Philadelphia Album and Ladies Literary Gazette, 6 June 1827. I appreciate the strong rhetorical argument the writer makes--that we cannot and should not settle for some of the small improvements that have been made in female education, as America is a forward-moving, not a stationary, country. Were we stationary, "a republic would have had scarcely any other existence than in the pages of the Utopia." Yet even though the force of this argument is strong, the writer clearly recognizes that it will not be popular with all readers and thus concludes by offering a more "practical" reason to continue advancing the bounds of acceptable female education. A well-educated woman, says the writer, will make a far better wife to a man, as a man will have someone with whom he can have real conversation at the end of a long day, as opposed to merely being able to discuss matters such as children and the poultry-yard while staring vacantly into the fireplace. So, then, the article appeals to multiple kinds of readers for the same end: to advance female education.

3. "Original Criticism," The Tablet, 19 May 1795. This article states the mission of the periodical as a whole: to offer criticism on great literature of the day. "Our intention is to review every poet of eminence untouched by Johnson, and endeavour to point out his poetry. Nor shall we confine ourselves to poetry. . . . We shall endeavour to mark the excellencies and faults in the style of each author, and to make the reader acquainted with his peculiar manner." The article also welcomes readers to write in with their opinions, especially if they are different from opinions expressed by the publication. That such a paper started itself so early and genuinely wanted to create intellectual discourse regarding literature in the public sphere surprised and excited me. Clearly Americans wanted to distinguish themselves as legitimate proprietors of taste, not entirely dependent upon the decrees of the British when it came to selecting what counted as high art.