“Dear Mr. Spectator”: The Relationship Between English Coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th Centuries and the Rise of Print News and Artistic Criticism
“We Should Get Coffee!”: The Coffee Shop, From Early Modern Europe to the 21st Century
What do college students, artists and writers, academics, and entrepreneurs all have in common? Well, they are all likely to be found inhabiting one’s local coffee shop. From Starbucks to the most artisanal of roasters, the public uses these establishments to catch up on current happenings and gossip, read the newspaper (or scroll through Twitter), keep up to date with the music and literary scenes, discuss ideas with others, and, of course, get that coveted caffeine fix. Coffee shops are an important facilitator of public discourse and provide access to both current events and cultural knowledge and perspectives for a relatively low cost — but this role is not unique to the 21st century. In the early modern period, particularly late 17th and early 18th-century England, coffeehouses were not only places of consumption but also of artistic, social, and cultural production that was documented, influenced by, and dispersed through printed mediums. Not only did the circulation of print newspapers in coffee houses create and feed a public hunger to discuss each day’s current events and politics, ultimately, print enabled the flourishing of artistic and literary discourses in new ways.
An Introduction to the English Coffeehouse and Jürgen Habermas’ Theory of the Public Sphere
We can begin to understand the unique impact of the coffeehouse on early modern society by contrasting it to another public gathering place in England, the tavern. While both were places for lively discussion, coffee houses generally had a more intellectual atmosphere. Coffee itself was favored for its ability to foster social interaction without intoxicating, thus attracting a business-minded and initially quite bourgeois crowd to whom both connections with others and the cultivation of cosmopolitan knowledge and current events was important.
Coffeehouses could be small or relatively large, hosting up to 40-50 people at a time; some clientele might stay for the day while others would instead only briefly come by to conduct business. News and coffee would be “bundled together” at coffeehouses and could be consumed in various forms: “in print; both licensed and unlicensed; in manuscript; and aloud; as gossip, hearsay, and word of mouth.” German sociologist Jürgen Habermas considers the coffeehouse, with its discussions of politics and news amongst daily patrons, as a key institution in the emergence of the “public sphere.”
Habermas identifies the public sphere as first occurring within Hellenic society, comprising the marketplace but also other locations during which discussions were held and citizens could rise to prominence by proving their worth and exhibiting certain virtues. In essence, this new realm of life enabled people to gather openly, discuss various ideas, gain status, and form social groups. The British historian of the European Reformation Andrew Pettegree defines the public sphere as “an articulate, engaged political class with the freedom and leisure to participate in political debate.” Importantly, and in slight challenge to Habermas, historian Brian Cowan asserts that the initial establishment of coffeehouses — and their distribution of printed newspapers — doesn’t qualify precisely under the notion of the public sphere because the distributors of such news (specifically Joseph Addison and Richard Steele of the news and commentary publication The Spectator, which will continue to be examined throughout the length of this paper) intended to “construct a social world that was amenable to the survival of Whig politics” at the time, rather than trying to open up a sphere for provocative discussions.
Nevertheless, even the relatively early coffeehouses of London did in fact create new forms of free-flowing discourse, albeit ones largely confined to an upper class. These establishments developed a unique intellectual and artistic spirit and purpose that differed from universities, while still appealing to an elite class of “virtuosi,” or people talented in the arts. Offering classes in areas such as fencing, poetry, math, and astronomy, they gave people access to cosmopolitan and cultural discussions with intellectuals for the price of only a cup of coffee. Through these classes, more informal conversations, and the distribution of news, coffeehouses “quickly established themselves at the heart of the metropolitan circuitry by merging news reading, text circulation, and oral communication all into one institution.” Moreover, they echo an earlier Hellenic public sphere by providing a society’s citizens with the ability to socialize and connect based on shared interests (or disagreements), as well as pathways for ascending into more learned, notable status. Ultimately, as I aim to prove, these places of “bundled” coffee and news created openings for the generation of social discourse, art, and culture that had not previously existed, establishing the institutional foundation for an ever-growing, vibrant public sphere in the modern city.
From Will’s Coffee House to White’s Chocolatehouse: An Inventory of Different Establishments, Their Usage of Print, and Associated Literary and Artistic Scenes
From the beginning, coffeehouse discussions were both fostered and documented in printed news. Printed news, which was often “rather quaint in style” in the form of sheets or as part of journals, provided topics for conversation and debate. Particularly notable journals, founded by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, include The Tatler (1709-11), The Spectator (1711-14), and The Guardian (1713); each issue had 60,000 to 80,000 readers, attracting both individuals and the collective clientele of English coffee houses. With the aid of newsmen such as Henry Muddiman and Giles Hancock, who made businesses out of distributing printed items to coffee houses, by 1712, an estimated total of 70,000 copies of newspapers were published every week for a total national population of around six million.
Even before the rise of focused artistic and literary journals, which will be elaborated upon later, these weeklies generated and encouraged new forms of artistic discourse: their pages, in addition to chronicling politics and current events, span from theoretical discussions of art and poetry to specific analyses of works and creators that one might encounter while out on the town. As an example, The Spectator issue No. 226 is a theoretical exploration of painting as an artistic medium and its use “to the improvement of our manners”; it discusses works such as The Birth of Venus and The Bacchanal of the Adrians. Importantly, however, it is tied to the specific time and place it is written in: at the end it mentions “the pieces which Mr. Boul exposes to sale by Auction on Wednesday next in Shandois-Street.” The issue is simultaneously commentating and practical, basing its cultural analysis on specific city happenings. This format contrasts that of the university in that it is grounded not in private conversations but in public, more easily accessible cultural and commercial events.
The journal’s very next issue, No. 227, further reveals both the intellectual variety and accessible publicizing that is made possible by the joint coffeehouse-print institution. After printing a paper describing a “place called the Lover’s Leap,” this issue includes the correspondence received from readers via letters to “Mr. Spectator,” one from a physician and another from a heartbroken young woman. Significantly, these are two people who likely may not have otherwise been able to access each other’s ideas — a potential element of a public sphere. As demonstrated here, one work or piece of artistic or social commentary, included in a newspaper that is circulated via print amongst the population, can spur a new stream of collective intellectual exploration that proliferates new ideas. Moreover, the circulation of printed news (and more opinionated commentary) becomes inseparable from the clientele reading and discussing, either orally or via letters, it at coffeehouses.
With the proliferation of print inside these establishments, their success was in large part due to their ability to “offer a diverse array of services and cater to different political, professional, and social groups.” This was accomplished in part by the diverse content included in the distributed journals themselves; there was “something for everyone.” The Tatler included a variety of topics spanning reviews of the opera “Pyrrhus and Demetrius” and the comedy “Epsom Wells,” news of relationships and romance, detailed accounts of military happenings and both domestic and foreign developments, a dialogue on the “ridiculous custom of duelling,” and correspondence on the poetry of Sappho and themes of Adam and Eve in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. However, the coffeehouses themselves also began to be shaped by their locations and clienteles, thus establishing specific niches and cultural atmospheres for different forms of discourse, spanning from frivolously socially-minded to more business-oriented.
As an example, we can look at Will’s Coffeehouse, known for its literary and poetic atmosphere and shaped by both its physical location and the makeup of its clientele. It was situated in Covent Garden, which had “more associations, both historical and literary…than with any other part of London” and “special attractions for the lovers of art and letters.” It also provided relatively accessible learning opportunities because entrance was open to anyone who could pay one penny for a food or drink item. Likely influenced by these factors, Will’s became a place where aspiring literary men could prove their wit and share ideas: “When young men graduated at Oxford or Cambridge and came up to London with rhymes and ‘satires’ in their pockets, ready for publication and perhaps derision, their first ambition was to be received at ‘Will’s,’ the coffee or chocolate house most noted as a rendezvous for the wits, scholars, and poets of the day.” The ability for those who desired to be able to prove their status and wit in these coffeehouses connects back to Habermas’ conceptualization of the public sphere. One such person, who acquired quite a reputation simply from being present in and leading discussions in the coffeehouse was poet John Dryden: “There for nearly forty years Dryden was accustomed to spend his after-dinner hours, settling literary disputes, and taking the lead among the wits and lesser lights who gathered round his chair.”
However, as popular discussion topics and regular clientele ebbed and flowed, the nature of Will’s changed as well, including the types of printed material one could find there. “This place is very much altered since Mr. Dryden frequented it; where you used to see songs, epigrams, and satires in the hands of every man you met, you have now only a pack of cards; and instead of the cavils about the turn of the expression, the style, and the like, the learned now dispute only about the truth of the game” Bickerstaff writes in The Tatler.
Other establishments offered different opportunities for discussion and social and intellectual enrichment. At Lloyd’s Coffeehouse, patrons could discuss maritime affairs or participate in insurance sales. In a prime example of how news and coffee were often bundled together, Edward Lloyd monetized the information-hungry patrons by publishing his own financial paper, Lloyd’s News, to distribute in his coffeeshop. On the other hand, chocolate houses were known for being social and fashionable — although their main attraction was chocolate, a complementary item to coffee, “in public mind…they do not appear to have been clearly differentiated from coffee houses.” Chocolatehouses such as White’s, Ozinda’s, and the Cocoa-Tree appealed to a sophisticated virtuosi, of course, also being shaped by their clientele and location “situated amidst some of the finest residences in the capital and close to the fashionable resort of St. James Palace.” Besides the nature of their discussions, they also offered other opportunities to be engaged in high culture, supplying news publications, offering games like basset, and selling tickets to other entertainment events.
The varied coffeehouses also shaped the print journals that they distributed. For example, The Tatler writes its musings and news “from” the coffeehouse the topic most resonates with. Isaac Bickerstaff states, “All Accounts of Gallantry, leisure, and Entertainment, shall be under the Article of White’s Chocolate-house; Poetry, under that of Will’s Coffee-house; Learning, under the Title of Graecian; Foreign and Domestick News, you will have from St. James’s Coffee-house; and what else I shall on any other Subject offer, shall be dated from my own Apartment.” In this declaration, Bickerstaff (a character created by Steele and Addison) makes clear the integral role of coffeehouses in the publication. While patrons at all of these coffeehouses may read it, they may choose to focus on the subject matter tied to a certain establishment and thus most aligned to their interests. For example, the content under the White’s heading most appeals to its upscale, social clientele, including “themes such as love, gambling, and fashion.” In this manner, The Tatler’s conceptualization of various coffeehouses serves almost as a map with which to read, navigate, and digest current happenings and reflections. The vibrancy of the different establishments continues in the pages of The Tatler as a continuous documentation of not only news but the different forms of artistic, literary, and educational analysis and criticism generated by these budding social spheres. Early newspaper culture and coffeehouse culture are evidently not separate from one another; they are intertwined, with much sociocultural osmosis between the printed pages and the walls of White’s, Will’s, and other establishments.
Furthermore, print acts as a medium to enable the discussions and ideas had in coffeehouses to be shared across customers visiting on different days and engaged in different loci of discussions. In turn, the newspapers bring in outside cultural touchstones, happenings, etc. from other places and shape and inspire the conversations happening in the establishments. These accounts of the bundling of coffee and news creates a new institution that blurs boundaries between more established and newer clientele, surrounding cultural institutions and the walls of the coffeehouse, print and dialogue, poetry and reporting. The development, spread, and formation of printed discourse in the style of news or journalistic reflections all happens in the coffee shop; meanwhile, social tastes, aesthetic preferences, and perceptions of the coffee shops are also being shaped by how they are written about in printed news.
With this in mind, we can understand how the coffeehouse would create a modern “public sphere” similar to that of the Hellenic period. Habermas defines a key part of the public sphere as enabling the ascension of people into social or intellectual status based on an ability to “prove themselves” or gain access to ideas and knowledge, in the coffeehouse, this possibility was available for the price of cups of coffee rather than needing to be enrolled in the private university. He states, “The coffee house not merely made access to the relevant circles less formal and easier; it embraced the wider strata of the middle class, including craftsmen and shopkeepers.” Coffee houses “preserved a form of social intercourse that, far from presupposing the equality of status, disregarded status altogether.” Moreover, people became aware that they were part of a larger community of ideas, discussions, and intellectuals: “The public of the first generations, even when it constituted itself as a specific circle of persons, was conscious of being part of a larger public.”
Cowan points out that this opening up of public dialogue occurred not because of a push for accessibility and equality on the part of coffeehouses, but rather, because they created an environment that did away with the stifling formalities of other forums. Habermas explains that the public sphere coffeehouses created was still relatively small, especially given limits in literacy and the ability of the masses to pay for literature. Ultimately, the discourse and atmosphere of the coffeehouses were shaped by a public that was relatively aristocratic and learned. However, as we have begun to see with the aforementioned examples, patrons did not necessarily envision coffeehouses as a place for the serioust of scholarly study, but were frequently rowdy and spontaneous. This is important to consider when examining how news, print, and artistic discourses proliferated within and beyond their walls. “Any attempt to link sober coffee drinking with serious consideration of important matters would fail to explain the often playful and unserious nature of early coffeehouse sociability and newsmongering. There was no necessary functional association between the coffeehouse and news culture—the link had to be invented,” Cowan states. Rather, the “construction of this link between news and the coffeehouse” can be explained by “the virtuoso culture of curiosity that had also nurtured the initial interest in coffee itself.” The values such as curiosity and cosmopolitanism that had reflected in the desire for coffeehouse learning classes on topics like astronomy and poetry also established the conditions in which printed news and commentary could thrive. This playful curiosity is also reflected in the fact that many establishments, such as White’s Chocolatehouse, were decidedly not focused on the serious or practical, but on what was considered frivolous.
The Commodification of Culture and the Coffeehouse Auction
Referring back to the aforementioned Spectator issue No. 226 which discusses pieces available at an upcoming auction, the print news available in coffeehouses connected them to a larger metropolitan network of both cultural and commercial events, which patrons could seek out. Not only did the coffeehouse as an emerging public sphere make intellectual and social knowledge more accessible, it also offered the ability to connect to and consume significant cultural works in a commodified arena. Cowan describes, “The precious icons of a virtuoso’s erudition and prestige, such as rare works of art or natural curiosities, were now freely bought and sold in the public houses of London; even the less material markers of virtuosic status, such as knowledge of foreign lands and cultures or a familiarity with the codes of elite civility, could now be acquired for the price of a dish of coffee by any patron with a penchant to learn about such matters.” This development and expression of culture continued, in addition to dialogues, through auctions that were also documented and shaped by printed materials. Print news would publicize upcoming auctions:
“A catalogue of the genuine and entire collection of Mr. William Powell…Consisting of his books, prints, books of prints, mauscrpts, several curious Roman missals, on vellum…and also, all his coins and medals, microscopes… will be sold by auction…at St. Paul’s Coffee-House.”
“A choice collection of valuable paintings most which are the originals by the best ancient and modern masters…will be sold by auction at Wills Coffee-house.”
The coffeehouse became the preferred venue for the selling and exhibiting of art, books, and other cultural works, establishing it also as a center of commerce and capital. While the items sold mostly appealed to the virtuosi, patrons of other classes could also participate simply by attending the coffeeshop, just as they could with daily dialogues, thus opening up cultural knowledge to a wider sect of people. Moreover, as the cultural product became a commodity more accessible to people, it also became more available for critique — people could “profane” it as much as they needed to “state explicitly what precisely in its implicitness for so long could assert its authority.” Art criticism also began to be written more thoroughly in printed mediums.
The Invention of “Culture,” Art Criticism, and the Specialized Journal
Habermas connects the development of early forms of art criticism in these coffeeshops and auctions to Welsh academic, critic, and socialist writer Raymond Williams’ theory about the development of culture and art as separate spheres from the rest of social life that occurred during the 18th century. Williams states how the usage of the word “culture” changed from being “a culture of something” to “culture as such, a thing in itself.” This was reflected in print by the development of journals to discuss aspects of culture; this specializing evolution occurred and grew out of the more traditional news reporting which was integrally part of the coffeehouse culture and social scene. While The Spectator and The Tatler combined art and artistic criticism, literature and literary criticism in one publication, these journals were more specialized, and perhaps “removed” from the social context they were written in, as “culture” as an idea too became separated.
Journals offered a more in-depth look at specific fashions than the miscellaneous nature of The Spectator and Tatler, offering criticism and taste in a lighter tone than the aforementioned. At the helm of these journals was a new kind of writer: the Kunstrichter, or art critic, while the occupations of the literary critic, theater critic, and music critic were also invented. In addition to art and music, topics such as medicine, agriculture, and commerce also had journals dedicated to them.
The conversations included in these journals were often quite aristocratic, with publishers regarding “high society, and the fashionable doings of the great, as a subject of obsessive interest. What was in vogue became the business of the journals; and the social elite, and their enterprises, were often very much à la mode.” We can see that even today, the level of “separation” between culture and cultural critique from the rest of the social order remains hotly contested and often controversial, with many believing that it is made too inaccessible to those not in top socioeconomic classes and thus rendered “useless” (but this is a discussion for another time).
Coffee, News, and Culture in the 21st Century
While both coffee (third wave, anyone?) and news have experienced several drastic changes since their 17th-century London origins, the elemental instrumental cultural and commercial role of the metropolitan bundling of coffee and news in coffeehouse establishments remains. Perhaps a more modern application of Habermas’ concept of the public sphere, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg references the coffeehouse — now the coffee shop — as an example of a “third place,” a “designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” A modern-day coffee shop-third place shares many of the characteristics as early modern predecessors: it is a leveler (“The charm and flavor of one’s personality, irrespective of his or her station in life, is what counts”), it invites vibrant conversation, it is accessible, it draws a particular crowd or clientele (“the regulars”), and it is playful, boisterous, even rowdy, thus creating cultural contributions that are noticeably different from what might come out of a private university. But there is one thing we must take care to notice. While both coffeehouses and coffee shops contain news, the latter often does so without the use of newspapers. Rather than print, technology — from online news to television broadcast, blogs and tweets — is the main current carrying cultural importance, recent events, political debates, and endless more colorful possibilities — and harrowing potential harms. Ultimately, all of the long-term effects of technology on coffee establishments, and society as a whole, have yet to be seen.
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