William Hazlitt

Hazlitt, William,

1778–1830, English essayist. The son of a reform-mindeed Unitarian minister, he abandoned the idea of entering the clergy and took up painting, philosophy, and later journalism. He moved to London in 1799, studied painting, and joined the social circle of Charles and Mary LambLamb, Charles,
1775–1834, English essayist, b. London. He went to school at Christ's Hospital, where his lifelong friendship with Coleridge began. Lamb was a clerk at the India House from 1792 to 1825.
..... Click the link for more information. . Beginning in 1812 Hazlitt acted as a parliamentary reporter and a theatrical, literary, and artistic critic for the Morning Chronicle. He later contributed a variety of articles to Leigh HuntHunt, Leigh
(James Henry Leigh Hunt) , 1784–1859, English poet, critic, and journalist. He was a friend of the eminent literary men of his time, and his home was the gathering place for such notable writers as Hazlitt, Lamb, Keats, and Shelley.
..... Click the link for more information. 's Examiner, the Edinburgh Review, the London Magazine, the New Monthly, and other periodicals. By the 1820s he was widely considered London's most influential critic. A student of the art of prose, Hazlitt combined conversational and literary language into his own distinctively lucid and elegant prose style. His penetrating literary criticism (he has been called the father of modern literary criticism) is collected in Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817), Lectures on the English Poets (1818), Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819), Table Talk (1821–22), and The Spirit of the Age (1825), portraits of his contemporaries. His essays on Shakespeare and his Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820) renewed enthusiasm for Elizabethan drama.

Hazlitt was one of the great masters of the miscellaneous essay, displaying a keen intellect, fine sensibility, critical intelligence, and wide scope of interest and knowledge. His most notable single essays include "On Going a Journey," "My First Acquaintance with Poets," "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth," and "Going to a Fight." His interest in and support of the French RevolutionFrench Revolution,
political upheaval of world importance in France that began in 1789. Origins of the Revolution

Historians disagree in evaluating the factors that brought about the Revolution.
..... Click the link for more information. and his strong beliefs in the principles of liberty and the rights of man inspired him to write a life of Napoleon (4 vol., 1828–30).

Bibliography

See his complete works (ed. by P. P. Howe, 21 vol., 1930–34) and New Writings (previously uncollected works, ed. by D. Wu, 2 vol., 2007); selected writings (ed. by D. Wu, 9 vol., 1998); his letters (ed. by Herschel M. Sikes et al., 1978); biographies by C. M. MacLean (1944, repr. 2008), H. C. Baker (1962), P. P. Howe (1947, repr. 1972), S. Jones (1989), A. C. Grayling (2000), and D. Wu (2008); J. Cook, Hazlitt in Love (2008); studies by J. B. Priestley (1960), R. Park (1971), R. M. Wardle (1971), J. Kinnaird (1978), D. Bromwich (1985), H. Bloom, ed. (1986), M. Whelan (2003), and U. Natarajan, T. Paulin, and D. Wu, ed. (2005).

William Carew Hazlitt, 1834–1913, his grandson, was a bibliographer and wrote The Memoirs of William Hazlitt (1867). Among W. C. Hazlitt's works are a valuable Handbook to the Popular, Poetical, and Dramatic Literature of Great Britain (1867) and its supplements and Four Generations of a Literary Family: The Hazlitts (1897).

Hazlitt, William

Born Apr. 10, 1778, in Maidstone, Kent; died Sept. 18, 1830, in London. English critic and essayist.

Hazlitt received his education at a Unitarian academy. In 1810 he began writing for the liberal opposition press. In his journalism, he denounced social injustice—for example, the collections The Round Table (with Leigh Hunt, 1817) and Political Essays (1819)—and presented sharply critical portraits of contemporary political figures—for example, the collection The Spirit of the Age (1825). In his historical and literary essays in the collection Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820), Hazlitt analyzed the poetry of Shakespeare within the framework of romantic aesthetics, singling out the richness and topicality of the poet’s work for Hazlitt’s time. Hazlitt was in the tradition of Addison and Steele; his works are classic examples of the English essay.

WORKS

The Complete Works, vols. 1–21. London-Toronto, 1930–34.

REFERENCES

D’iakonova, N. Ia. Londonskie romantiki i problemy angliiskogo romantizma. Leningrad, 1970.
Park, R. Hazlitt and the Spirit of the Age. Oxford, 1971.

V. Z. RUBCHINSKII

William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt

Hazlitt, William,

Bibliography

Hazlitt, William

WORKS

REFERENCES

William Hazlitt

Synonyms for William Hazlitt

noun English essayist and literary critic (1778-1830)

Synonyms