Re-reading Reading in Eighteenth-Century Literary Criticism

By bringing a focus on reading from book history into the history of literary criticism, this essay traces a debate over the definition of reading in the work of influential English literary critics. This approach reveals a persistent Restoration and eighteenth-century concern that the relatively democratic access to the press in the 1640s contributed to the political violence of the English Civil Wars. Consequently, the focus on reading also facilitates reconsidering the Habermasian "public sphere" model through which the history of eighteenth-century criticism is generally understood.