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Article: Addison, Joseph (1672–1719)
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672
–
1719)
ADDISON, JOSEPH
(1672
–
1719), English poet, essayist, and critic. Addison helped to elevate the literary status of English prose while holding important political offices for the Whig party. He was born in 1672 at Milston, Wiltshire. His father, the Reverend Launcelot Addison, was the dean of Lichfield, Staffordshire, and Addison attended Lichfield Grammar School and then, in 1686, Charterhouse School in London, where he met Richard Steele. Addison's study of classical poetry and his Latin poems at Queen's College, Oxford, won him a demy (scholarship) in the 1690s to Magdalen College, where he took his M.A. and was a fellow from 1697 to 1711. ...