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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Record Number: 308


Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I am a reader in ordinary, and I cannot defend the introduction of the First Catilinarian oration, at full length, into a play. Catiline is a very middling play. The characters are certainly discriminated, but with no delicacy. Jonson makes Cethegus a mere vulgar ruffian. He quite fogets that all the conspirators were gentlemen, noblemen, politicians, probably scholars. He has seized only the coarsest peculiarities of character. As to the conduct of the piece, nothing can be worse than the long debates and narratives which make up half of it.'

Century:

1800-1849, 1850-1899

Date:

Between 25 Oct 1800 and 28 Dec 1859

Country:

India

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown


Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

25 Oct 1800

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

historian and critic

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

India

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a


Additional Comments:

n/a



Text Being Read:

Author:

Ben Jonson

Title:

Catiline

Genre:

Drama

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

owned


Source Information:

Record ID:

308

Source:

Print

Author:

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Editor:

George Otto Trevelyan

Title:

The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay

Place of Publication:

Oxford

Date of Publication:

1978

Vol:

2

Page:

402-3

Additional Comments:

Appendix on Macaulay's marginal notes. The quotation is marginalia in Macaulay's handwriting.

Citation:

Thomas Babington Macaulay, George Otto Trevelyan (ed.), The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, (Oxford, 1978), 2, p. 402-3, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=308, accessed: 29 March 2024


Additional Comments:

None

   
   
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