Snug Retreats : The Romantic Essay’s Grammar of Domesticity

The history of the essay as a genre notoriously began in a very peculiar room: the library of Michel de Montaigne’s estate near Bordeaux. After many centuries, the form has passed through many other rooms, such as Robert Burton’s and Sir Thomas Browne’s libraries or the apartments of Sir Isaac Bickerstaff and Mr. Spectator, retaining an undeniable conjunction to the lodgings of its author. The house of the essayists has always been a place to which their readers were granted a special right of entry. This article aims to reflect on the spatial dimension of the English Romantic familiar essay as exemplified by the writings of Leigh Hunt and Charles Lamb. In particular, I will discuss the importance both writers attributed to the domestic interior as the most congenial scenario in which the essayistic act should be performed. Romantic essayists seemed to be more attuned with the early modern model of Montaigne. This allegiance is striking as the most frequent outlet through which essays in early nineteenth-century England were published was the same periodical press that during the eighteenth century seemed to have repudiated the private space of the parlor in favor of the socialized communal dimension of the coffee house.