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| Cool "Russian Doll" Pacman latte |
- Practice John Donne's sonnet while you wait for class to start.
- ID 7569972 - English401
- ID 7569984 - English403
- ID 7569988 - English405
- By midnight tomorrow, you must submit your final PDF to turnitin.
- Anyone like coffee? Coffee houses? For those of us who do, we have the Middle East and east Africa to thank, as well as England for importing this most exquisite of fruits. To get an idea about the connection between coffee houses, authors, and literature, enjoy this excerpt from William Ukers' massive tome All about Coffee, originally published in 1922:
The two most picturesque chapters in the history of coffee have to do
with the period of the old London and Paris coffee houses of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Much of the poetry and romance of
coffee centers around this time.
"The history of coffee houses," says D'Israeli, "ere the invention of
clubs, was that of the manners, the morals and the politics of a
people." And so the history of the London coffee houses of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is indeed the history of the
manners and customs of the English people of that period. . . .
The
Tatler and the Spectator were born in the coffee house, and probably
English prose would never have received the impetus given it by the
essays of Addison and Steele had it not been for coffee house
associations.
Pope's famous Rape of the Lock grew out of coffee-house gossip. The
poem itself contains one charming passage on coffee.
Another frequenter of the coffee houses of London, when he had the money
to do so, was Daniel Defoe, whose Robinson Crusoe was the precursor of
the English novel. Henry Fielding, one of the greatest of all English
novelists, loved the life of the more bohemian coffee houses, and was,
in fact, induced to write his first great novel, Joseph Andrews . . .
The second half of the eighteenth century was covered by the reigns of
the Georges. The coffee houses were still an important factor in London
life, but were influenced somewhat by the development of gardens in
which were served tea, chocolate, and other drinks, as well as coffee. At the coffee houses themselves, while coffee remained the favorite
beverage, the proprietors, in the hope of increasing their patronage,
began to serve wine, ale, and other liquors. This seems to have been the
first step toward the decay of the coffee house.
The coffee houses, however, continued to be the centers of intellectual
life. When Samuel Johnson and David Garrick came together to London,
literature was temporarily in a bad way . . .
It was not until after Johnson had met with some success, and had
established the first of his coffee-house clubs at the Turk's Head, that
literature again became a fashionable profession.
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| Samuel Johnson at the Turk's Head Coffee House |
This really famous literary club met at the Turk's Head from 1763 to
1783. Among the most notable members were Johnson, the arbiter of
English prose; Oliver Goldsmith; Boswell, the biographer; Burke, the
orator; Garrick, the actor; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter. Among
the later members were Gibbon, the historian; and Adam Smith, the
political economist.
Certain it is that during the sway of the English coffee house, and at
least partly through its influence, England produced a better prose
literature, as embodied alike in her essays, literary criticisms, and
novels, than she ever had produced before.
- Thus we embark on a historical overview of this England whose caffeine-steeped literary imagination brewed up some of the strongest satirical beverages on record. Let us begin reading and taking notes on The Restoration and the 18th Century
HW:
- (due Tues night) Your Don Satan essay must be submitted to Turnitin.com in PDF format by Tuesday night (11:59 PM).
