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156-459: Hazlitt published his first book, a work of philosophy, in 1805. In the years between his authorial debut and the publication of Table-Talk , Hazlitt was employed as a journalist, critic and lecturer, and published several collections of writing on topics such as Shakespearean criticism , politics and literature. In 1819, following the hostile reception of his Political Essays by the Tory press and

312-608: A "love of reputation" and "glory", and a "contempt of popular opinion". Hazlitt also comments on the characters of Coriolanus's mother and wife, and he points out the substantial fidelity of this play to its source in Thomas North's translation of Plutarch 's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans , extracting long passages from the life of Coriolanus. His primary focus, however, is on Shakespeare's dramatisation of "the arguments for and against aristocracy or democracy, on

468-476: A "mystical" theory, as Hazlitt thought his contemporary A.W. Schlegel did (though he approves of many of Schlegel's judgements and quotes him liberally). Without apology, he addresses his readers as fellow lovers of Shakespeare and shares with them the beauties of what he thought the finest passages of the plays he liked best. Readers took to it, the first edition selling out in six weeks. It received favourable reviews as well, not only by Leigh Hunt, whose bias as

624-416: A London dinner party held by William Godwin, Hazlitt met Charles Lamb and his sister Mary . A mutual sympathy sprang up immediately between William and Charles, and they became fast friends. Their friendship, though sometimes strained by Hazlitt's difficult ways, lasted until the end of Hazlitt's life. He was fond of Mary as well, and—ironically in view of her intermittent fits of insanity—he considered her

780-648: A bare living. His outrage at events then taking place in English politics in reaction to Napoleon's wars led to his writing and publishing, at his own expense (though he had almost no money), a political pamphlet, Free Thoughts on Public Affairs (1806), an attempt to mediate between private economic interests and a national application of the thesis of his Essay that human motivation is not, inherently, entirely selfish. Hazlitt also contributed three letters to William Cobbett 's Weekly Political Register at this time, all scathing critiques of Thomas Malthus 's Essay on

936-444: A better likeness than one by the celebrated James Northcote . Recourse to prostitutes was unexceptional among literary—and other—men of that period, and if Hazlitt was to differ from his contemporaries, the difference lay in his unabashed candour about such arrangements. Personally, he was rarely comfortable in middle- and upper-class female society, and, tormented by desires he later branded as "a perpetual clog and dead-weight upon

1092-709: A biography from the Tory Sir Walter Scott . Hazlitt's first wife, Sarah Stoddart, owned property in Winterslow , a village in Wiltshire . Hazlitt regularly travelled from London to the village, and was particularly fond of staying at Winterslow Hut , an inn, where he could write in peace. Many of the Table-Talk essays were composed there. The second volume was completed on 7 March 1822 at Renton Inn , near Edinburgh . An example of Hazlitt's style

1248-465: A century and a half, when critic John Kinnaird pointed out how curiously at odds with the more typical critical theories of poetry Hazlitt's idea was, setting him apart from contemporaries such as Wordsworth and Coleridge: "Students of Hazlitt's thought have strangely neglected this passage, yet the idea it introduces is perhaps the most original, and surely the most heretical, idea in the entire range of his criticism." Kinnaird notes that Lionel Trilling

1404-421: A century and a half. The play's "greatest charm is the character of Imogen ", writes Hazlitt. He observes how, in justifying her actions, "she relies little on her personal charms" or a prudish "affected antipathy to vice" but rather "on her merit, and her merit is in the depth of her love, her truth and constancy." Shakespeare's presentation is full and rounded. We see her beauty as observed by others (as by

1560-449: A certain impression about human nature. Hazlitt observes: [A]s it happens in most of the author's works, there is not only the utmost keeping in each separate character; but in the casting of the different parts, and their relation to one another, there is an affinity and harmony, like what we may observe in the gradations of colour in a picture. The striking and powerful contrasts in which Shakespear abounds could not escape observation; but

1716-476: A character in a play —three plays, in fact, though the two parts of Henry IV are examined in a single essay. In conveying his impressions of Falstaff, Hazlitt first emphasises the sheer physical bulk that we remember him by: "We are as well acquainted with his person as his mind, and his jokes come upon us with double force and relish from the quantity of flesh through which they make their way, as he shakes his fat sides with laughter [...]. Then Hazlitt observes

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1872-554: A close friend might be questioned, but also by Francis Jeffrey, the editor of The Edinburgh Review , a notice that Hazlitt greatly appreciated. Though he contributed to that quarterly, and corresponded with its editor on business, he had never met Jeffrey, and the two were in no sense personal friends. For Jeffrey, the book was not so much a learned study of Shakespeare's plays as much as a loving and eloquent appreciation, full of insight, which displayed "considerable originality and genius". This critical and popular acclaim offered Hazlitt

2028-628: A complete book in 1816 and possibly early 1817. At this time, unhappy with the way his collection The Round Table , issued in the same year, was being promoted by its publisher, he began to promote his new book himself, partly by word of mouth and also by getting a friend to publish the chapter on Hamlet in The Times and requesting Francis Jeffrey , editor of the Edinburgh Review , to notice it in that periodical. He had already had it printed privately (instead of offering it directly to

2184-426: A comprehensive study of all of Shakespeare, play by play, that readers could read and reread with pleasure as a guide to their understanding and appreciation". Somewhat loosely organised, and even rambling, the studies offer personal appreciations of the plays that are unashamedly enthusiastic. Hazlitt does not present a measured account of the plays' strengths and weaknesses, as did Dr. Johnson, or view them in terms of

2340-403: A creation of his own imagination rather than being entirely faithful to the character as created by Shakespeare. More recently the critic Harold Bloom, in a book devoted entirely to Falstaff, approvingly noted Hazlitt's appreciative commentary on the character, quoting Hazlitt's observation that Falstaff "lives in a perpetual holiday and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to

2496-421: A critical instrument. Yet, although his use of quotations is (as many critics have felt) as fine as any author's has ever been, all too often he gets the quotes wrong. In one of his essays on Wordsworth he misquotes Wordsworth himself: Though Hazlitt was still following the model of the older periodical essayists, these quirks, together with his keen social and psychological insights, began here to coalesce into

2652-538: A critique of Wordsworth's poem The Excursion (Hazlitt's review appeared weeks before Francis Jeffrey 's notorious dismissal of the poem with the words "This will never do"). He lavished extreme praise on the poet—and equally extreme censure. While praising the poem's sublimity and intellectual power, he took to task the intrusive egotism of its author. Clothing landscape and incident with the poet's personal thoughts and feelings suited this new sort of poetry very well; but his abstract philosophical musing too often steered

2808-475: A deep and abiding impression on Hazlitt. The curriculum at Hackney was very broad, including a grounding in the Greek and Latin classics , mathematics , history, government, science, and, of course, religion. Much of his education there was along traditional lines; however, the tutelage having been strongly influenced by eminent Dissenting thinkers of the day like Richard Price and Joseph Priestley, there

2964-406: A friend of Mary Lamb and sister of John Stoddart , a journalist who became editor of The Times newspaper in 1814. Shortly before the wedding, John Stoddart established a trust into which he began paying £100 per year, for the benefit of Hazlitt and his wife—this was a very generous gesture, but Hazlitt detested being supported by his brother-in-law, whose political beliefs he despised. This union

3120-476: A full-length book had appeared, An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff (1777), by Maurice Morgann , often taken as the beginning of that school of Shakespearean criticism which considers the characters of Shakespeare's plays as though they were real people. Hazlitt, who seems to have had little acquaintance with Morgann's work, is careful never to lose sight of Falstaff's status as

3276-446: A house at 19 York Street , Westminster , which had been occupied by the poet John Milton , whom Hazlitt admired above all English poets except Shakespeare . As it happened, Hazlitt's landlord was the philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham . Hazlitt was to write extensively about both Milton and Bentham over the next few years. His circle of friends expanded, though he never seems to have been particularly close with any but

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3432-477: A kind that no one in Hazlitt's country had yet demonstrated, and Hazlitt, sympathising with many of Schlegel's ideas, felt there was a place for a whole book that would provide appreciative criticism of all of Shakespeare's plays. Such a book would provide liberal quotations from the text, and focus on the characters and various qualities particular to each play; and he felt that he could write it. His writing career

3588-543: A language to express itself," was, he openly acknowledged, something he owed to Coleridge. For his part, Coleridge showed an interest in the younger man's germinating philosophical ideas, and offered encouragement. In April, Hazlitt jumped at Coleridge's invitation to visit him at his residence in Nether Stowey , and that same day was taken to call in on William Wordsworth at his house in Alfoxton . Again, Hazlitt

3744-478: A lecturer gained some momentum, and his growing popularity allowed him to get a collection of his political writings published as well, Political Essays, with Sketches of Public Characters . Lectures on "the English Comic Writers" soon followed, and these as well were published in book form. He then delivered lectures on dramatists contemporary with Shakespeare, which were published as Lectures on

3900-435: A liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, etc., [...] we are not offended but delighted with him [...]." The answer is that "he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to shew the humourous part of them. The unrestrained indulgence of his own ease, appetites, and convenience, has neither malice nor hypocrisy in it. In a word, he is an actor in himself almost as much as upon

4056-636: A liberal congregation. His efforts to obtain a post did not meet with success, although he did exert a certain influence on the founding of the first Unitarian church in Boston . In 1786–87, the family returned to England and settled in Wem , in Shropshire . Hazlitt would remember little of his years in America, save the taste of barberries . Hazlitt was educated at home and at a local school. At age 13 he had

4212-616: A madman, drenched in sweat, and was accounted a good player. More than just a distraction from his woes, his devotion to this pastime led to musings on the value of competitive sports and on human skill in general, expressed in writings like his notice of the "Death of John Cavanagh " (a celebrated Fives player) in The Examiner on 9 February 1817, and the essay "The Indian Jugglers" in Table-Talk (1821). Early in 1817, forty of Hazlitt's essays that had appeared in The Examiner in

4368-478: A manner as to lead at last to the most complete developement of the catastrophe." Again, he broadens the discussion and argues against the view of Dr. Johnson "that Shakespear was generally inattentive to the winding-up of his plots. We think the contrary is true; and we might cite in proof of this remark not only the present play, but the conclusion of Lear , of Romeo and Juliet , of Macbeth , of Othello , even of Hamlet , and of other plays of less moment, in which

4524-420: A mutually supportive community, to effect beneficial change by adhering to strongly held principles. The belief of many Unitarian thinkers in the natural disinterestedness of the human mind had also laid a foundation for the young Hazlitt's own philosophical explorations along those lines. And, though harsh experience and disillusionment later compelled him to qualify some of his early ideas about human nature , he

4680-400: A particular train of thought suggesting different inflections of the same predominant feeling, melting into, and strengthening one another, like chords in music." Thus, far more than simply commenting on particular characters, Hazlitt elucidates the character of the play as a whole. Hazlitt's focus in the essay on Coriolanus is less on the various characters of Shakespeare's tragedy than on

4836-474: A premise fundamental to much of the moral philosophy of Hazlitt's day. The treatise was finally published only in 1805. In the meantime the scope of his reading had broadened and new circumstances had altered the course of his career. Yet, to the end of his life, he would consider himself a philosopher. Around 1796, Hazlitt found new inspiration and encouragement from Joseph Fawcett , a retired clergyman and prominent reformer, whose enormous breadth of taste left

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4992-402: A publisher) by his friend the printer Carew Henry Reynell, who purchased the copyright for £100. As a publicity tactic, copies were circulated privately. Finally, Hazlitt got the book published, by Rowland Hunter and the brothers Charles and James Ollier in collaboration, who brought it out on 9 July 1817. It was extremely successful, this first edition selling out in six weeks. A second edition

5148-636: A publisher, and the work, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Argument in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind , was printed in a limited edition of 250 copies by Joseph Johnson on 19 July 1805. This gained him little notice as an original thinker, and no money. Although the treatise he valued above anything else he wrote was never, at least in his own lifetime, recognised for what he believed

5304-427: A reality in the mind of the reader, making them "as real as our own thoughts." Of all Shakespeare's plays, this one is "the most remarkable for the ingenuity, originality, and unstudied developement of character", writes Hazlitt. He thought of Hamlet more often than any of Shakespeare's other plays because "it abounds most in striking reflections on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are transferred, by

5460-614: A recently deceased ironmonger. Of their many children, only three survived infancy. The first of these, John (later known as a portrait painter), was born in 1767 at Marshfield in Gloucestershire, where the Reverend William Hazlitt had accepted a new pastorate after his marriage. In 1770, the elder Hazlitt accepted yet another position and moved with his family to Maidstone , Kent, where his first and only surviving daughter, Margaret (usually known as "Peggy"),

5616-464: A regular column called "The Round Table", along with a dozen pieces by Leigh Hunt in the same series, was collected in book form . Hazlitt's contributions to The Round Table were written somewhat in the manner of the periodical essays of the day, a genre defined by such eighteenth-century magazines as The Tatler and The Spectator . The far-ranging eclectic variety of the topics treated would typify his output in succeeding years: Shakespeare ("On

5772-538: A rump and dozen." Falstaff's appearance in The Merry Wives of Windsor is far less significant; although he found things to admire in this play, to Hazlitt, "Falstaff in the Merry Wives of Windsor is not the man he was in the two parts of Henry IV ." Though at times Hazlitt delighted in actors' interpretations of Shakespearean characters, and he thought some of Shakespeare's plays eminently suited for

5928-606: A series of talks on the British philosophers at the Russell Institution in London. A central thesis of the talks was that Thomas Hobbes , rather than John Locke, had laid the foundations of modern philosophy. After a shaky beginning, Hazlitt attracted some attention—and some much-needed money—by these lectures, and they provided him with an opportunity to expound some of his own ideas. The year 1812 seems to have been

6084-426: A single man comes forward to brave their cries and to make them submit to the last indignities, from mere pride and self-will, our admiration of his prowess is immediately converted into contempt for their pusillanimity." The key for Hazlitt is the innate human "love of power". This love of power is not necessarily expressed by a will to dominate others physically; but there is at least the tendency to side with power in

6240-476: A style very much his own. In the meantime, Hazlitt's marriage continued its downward spiral; he was writing furiously for several periodicals to make ends meet; waiting so far in vain for the collection The Round Table to be issued as a book (which it finally was in February 1817); suffering bouts of illness; and making enemies by his venomous political diatribes. He found relief by a change of course, shifting

6396-493: A tendency he saw disturbingly prominent in Coriolanus . A lifelong advocate of individual freedom and the cause of the people as against the oppression of aristocracy, the tyranny of " legitimate " monarchy, Hazlitt was disturbed by this tendency in the human imagination as expressed in poetry, and it was here that these misgivings first entered into his general theory of poetry. These thoughts were not particularly noticed for

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6552-463: A thinker: "He sends well-headed and well-feathered Thoughts straight forwards to the mark with a Twang of the Bow-string." Meanwhile, the fact remained that Hazlitt had chosen not to follow a pastoral vocation . Although he never abandoned his goal of writing a philosophical treatise on the disinterestedness of the human mind, it had to be put aside indefinitely. Still dependent on his father, he

6708-516: Is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed upon the principles of poetical justice; it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in which the spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase though they do not share in the spoil. We may depend upon it that what men delight to read in books, they will put in practice in reality. In this way Hazlitt demonstrated how poetry might be used to glorify tyranny and oppression,

6864-499: Is as much an individual, as those in life itself". After reviewing various other critics of Shakespeare, Hazlitt focuses on two of the most important, including the influential Dr. Johnson. Hazlitt found the Shakespearean criticism of Johnson, the premier literary critic of the previous era, troubling in several ways. He insufficiently valued the tragedies; he missed the essence of much of the poetry; and he "reduced everything to

7020-439: Is as much in imagination as in reality. His sensuality does not engross and stupify his other faculties [...]. His imagination keeps up the ball after his senses have done with it. He seems to have even a greater enjoyment of the freedom from restraint, of good cheer, of his ease, of his vanity, in the ideal exaggerated description he gives of them, than in fact." This leads Hazlitt to consider why, when Falstaff "is represented as

7176-712: Is as strong a principle in the mind as the love of pleasure." Alarmingly, this tendency, as shown in Coriolanus , could seem to so glorify tyranny and oppression as to lead people to accept it in practice: The whole dramatic moral of Coriolanus is that those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left. The people are poor; therefore they ought to be starved. They are slaves; therefore they ought to be beaten. They work hard; therefore they ought to be treated like beasts of burden. They are ignorant; therefore they ought not to be allowed to feel that they want food, or clothing, or rest, that they are enslaved, oppressed, and miserable. This

7332-431: Is discussed as an occasion for noting how Shakespeare depicted what is most contradictory in human nature. Cloten, "with all the absurdity of his person and manners, is not without shrewdness in his observations." And again Hazlitt steps back and points out how Shakespeare set one character off against the other and presented characters of similar types but with slight modifications of their otherwise similar traits to convey

7488-625: Is important for understanding the breadth and depth of Hazlitt's own taste in his later critical writings. Aside from residing with his father as he strove to find his own voice and work out his philosophical ideas, Hazlitt also stayed over with his older brother John, who had studied under Joshua Reynolds and was following a career as a portrait painter. He also spent evenings with delight in London's theatrical world , an aesthetic experience that would prove, somewhat later, of seminal importance to his mature critical work. In large part, however, Hazlitt

7644-449: Is largely on the character of Prince Hamlet, Hazlitt also comments on the movement of the dramatic action. Shakespeare lends all the characters and settings an air of verisimilitude, so that the reader might consider "the whole play [to be] an exact transcription of what might be supposed to have taken place at the court of Denmark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, before the modern refinements in morals and manners were heard of. [...]

7800-410: Is left: the table, the chair, the window where I learned to construe Livy, the chapel where my father preached, remain where they were; but he himself is gone to rest, full of years, of faith, of hope, and charity! Another essay in the volume, "The Indian Jugglers", is often included in anthologies of Hazlitt's writings. After philosophically musing on the nature of greatness and genius, Hazlitt concludes

7956-423: Is long-drawn-out, "the interest becomes more aerial and refined from the principle of perspective introduced into the subject by the imaginary changes of scene, as well as by the length of time it occupies." Regarding Shakespeare's weaving together of the story's threads, Hazlitt marvels at the "ease and conscious unconcern" with which "[t]he most straggling and seemingly casual incidents are contrived [and] in such

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8112-432: Is of the very nature of poetry to glorify the aristocrat, the solitary hero, and the monarch, while being much less suited to represent, in ways that capture the imagination, the social problems of the common people. Poetic "imagination naturally falls in with the language of power. The imagination is an exaggerating and exclusive faculty: it takes from one thing to add to another: it accumulates circumstances together to give

8268-417: Is on the characters that appear in the plays, but he also comments on the plays' dramatic structure and poetry, referring frequently to commentary by earlier critics, as well as the manner in which the characters were acted on stage. The essays on the plays themselves (there is a "Preface" as well as an essay on "Doubtful Plays of Shakespear" and one on the "Poems and Sonnets") number thirty-two, but with two of

8424-427: Is perhaps the most tender and most artless." Hazlitt broadens the scope of these reflections into a consideration of "Shakespear's heroines" in general, writing, "No one ever hit the true perfection of the female character, the sense of weakness leaning on the strength of its affections for support, so well as Shakespear". (Here Hazlitt incorporates material from his essay "Shakespear's Female Characters", published in

8580-482: Is provided by the first essay in the volume, entitled "On the Pleasure of Painting". The piece was originally intended to be a reflection on the life of Hazlitt's father , who died in 1820. However, it grew into an account of Hazlitt's views on the nature of art and the mental satisfaction to be derived from painting. It concludes with a deeply personal account of an occasion when Hazlitt painted his father's portrait in

8736-422: Is the logic of the imagination and the passions; which seek to aggrandise what excites admiration and to heap contempt on misery, to raise power into tyranny, and to make tyranny absolute; to thrust down that which is low still lower, and to make wretches desperate: to exalt magistrates into kings, kings into gods; to degrade subjects to the rank of slaves, and slaves to the condition of brutes. The history of mankind

8892-487: Is too deliberate and formal." This, he felt, is a play to be read, and he noted that by his time it had already been so often read as to have become part of the common culture. "This is that Hamlet the Dane, whom we read of in our youth". One might say, he observes, that Hamlet is just a character in a play: "Hamlet is a name; his speeches and sayings but the idle coinage of the poet's brain." Yet Shakespeare gives those sayings

9048-480: The Examiner on 28 July 1816.) Hazlitt comments to a lesser degree on other characters, such as Bellarius, Guiderius , and Arviragus ; more often he shows how the characters relate to each other and to the structure of the play. These three, for example, "are a fine relief to the intrigues and artificial refinements of the court from which they are banished." The character of Cloten, "the conceited, booby lord",

9204-468: The Marquis de Condorcet , and Baron d'Holbach . From this point onwards, Hazlitt's goal was to become a philosopher. His intense studies focused on man as a social and political animal and, in particular, on the philosophy of mind, a discipline that would later be called psychology . It was in this period also that he came across Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who became one of the most important influences on

9360-626: The Midsummer Night's Dream "), Milton ("On Milton's Lycidas "), art criticism ("On Hogarth's Marriage a-la-mode "), aesthetics ("On Beauty"), drama criticism ("On Mr. Kean's Iago "; Hazlitt was the first critic to champion the acting talent of Edmund Kean ), social criticism ("On the Tendency of Sects", "On the Causes of Methodism ", "On Different Sorts of Fame"). There was an article on The Tatler itself. Mostly his political commentary

9516-662: The Old Masters hanging in The Louvre . This was one of the great opportunities of his life. Over a period of three months, he spent long hours rapturously studying the gallery's collections, and hard thinking and close analysis would later inform a considerable body of his art criticism . He also happened to catch sight of Napoleon , a man he idolised as the rescuer of the common man from the oppression of royal " Legitimacy ". Back in England, Hazlitt again travelled up into

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9672-536: The Tory literary magazines of the day. Although some interest continued to be shown in Hazlitt's work as an essayist, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century, long after Hazlitt's death, that significant interest was again shown in his interpretations of Shakespeare. In the twentieth century, the influential critic A.C. Bradley and a few others began to take seriously the book's interpretations of many of Shakespeare's characters. But then Hazlitt along with Bradley

9828-490: The Unitarian chapel at Wem , Shropshire. The use of the pronoun "I" here, along with the personal subject matter, is indicative of Hazlitt's mastery of the familiar essay . I used regularly to set my work in the chair to look at it through the long evenings; and many a time did I return to take leave of it before I could go to bed at night... I think, but am not sure, that I finished this portrait (or another afterwards) on

9984-455: The comedies , tragedy was to him inherently more important, and he weights the tragedies much more heavily. In this he differed from Johnson, who thought Shakespeare best at comedy. The greatest of the plays were tragedies—particularly Macbeth , Othello , King Lear , and Hamlet —and Hazlitt's comments on tragedy are often integrated with his ideas about the significance of poetry and imaginative literature in general. As he expressed it at

10140-402: The neoclassical approach to Shakespeare 's plays typified by Samuel Johnson , it was among the first English-language studies of Shakespeare's plays to follow the manner of German critic August Wilhelm Schlegel , and, with the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge , paved the way for the increased appreciation of Shakespeare's genius that was characteristic of later nineteenth-century criticism. It

10296-524: The Lambs and to an extent Leigh Hunt and the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon . His low tolerance for any who, he thought, had abandoned the cause of liberty, along with his frequent outspokenness, even tactlessness, in social situations made it difficult for many to feel close to him, and at times he tried the patience of even Charles Lamb. In The Examiner in late 1814, Hazlitt was the first to provide

10452-429: The Lambs, who visited them when they set up a household in Winterslow , a village a few miles from Salisbury , Wiltshire, in southern England. The couple had three sons over the next few years, Only one of their children, William , born in 1811, survived infancy. (He in turn fathered William Carew Hazlitt .) As the head of a family, Hazlitt was now more than ever in need of money. Through William Godwin, with whom he

10608-520: The Principle of Population (1798 and later editions). Here he replaced the dense, abstruse manner of his philosophical work with the trenchant prose style that was to be the hallmark of his later essays. Hazlitt's philippic , dismissing Malthus's argument on population limits as sycophantic rhetoric to flatter the rich, since large swathes of uncultivated land lay all round England, has been hailed as "the most substantial, comprehensive, and brilliant of

10764-536: The Romantic ripostes to Malthus". Also in 1807, Hazlitt undertook a compilation of parliamentary speeches, published that year as The Eloquence of the British Senate . In the prefaces to the speeches, he began to show a skill he would later develop to perfection, the art of the pithy character sketch. He was able to find more work as a portrait painter as well. In May 1808, Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart ,

10920-610: The best of Kean's performances, Othello . (These were written for the Morning Chronicle , the Champion , and the Examiner ; he was to continue as principal drama critic for the last of these for three years.) Kean was hitherto unknown in London. Hazlitt, having recently begun a career as a theatrical reviewer, was no better known than the subject of his reviews. These notices quickly brought both Kean and Hazlitt before

11076-433: The budding philosopher's thinking. He also familiarized himself with the works of Edmund Burke , whose writing style impressed him enormously. Hazlitt then set about working out a treatise, in painstaking detail, on the "natural disinterestedness of the human mind". It was Hazlitt's intention to disprove the notion that man is naturally selfish (benevolent actions being rationally modified selfishness, ideally made habitual),

11232-410: The characters think and speak and act just as they might do, if left entirely to themselves. There is no set purpose, no straining at a point." William Hazlitt William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic , painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in

11388-549: The common standard of conventional propriety [...] the most exquisite refinement or sublimity produced an effect on his mind, only as they could be translated into the language of measured prose". Johnson also believed that every character in Shakespeare represents a "type" or "species", whereas Hazlitt, siding with Pope, emphasised the individuality of Shakespeare's characters, while discussing them more comprehensively than anyone had yet done. Rather than an English critic, it

11544-441: The components of Hazlitt's style begin to take shape in these Round Table essays. Some of his "paradoxes" are so hyperbolic as to shock when encountered out of context: "All country people hate each other", for example, from the second part of "On Mr. Wordsworth's Excursion". He interweaves quotations from literature old and new, helping drive his points home with concentrated allusiveness and wielded extraordinarily efficiently as

11700-438: The connection between Falstaff's body and his "wit": "Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humour and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and good fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease, and over-contentment with himself and others." Answering those who consider Falstaff a "mere sensualist", he points out how little we actually see Falstaff indulging himself. "All this

11856-493: The country, having obtained several commissions to paint portraits. One commission again proved fortunate, as it brought him back in touch with Coleridge and Wordsworth, both of whose portraits he painted, as well as one of Coleridge's son Hartley . Hazlitt aimed to create the best pictures he could, whether they flattered their subjects or not, and neither poet was satisfied with his result, though Wordsworth and their mutual friend Robert Southey considered his portrait of Coleridge

12012-553: The county of Antrim to Tipperary in the early 18th century. Also named William Hazlitt, Hazlitt's father attended the University of Glasgow (where he was taught by Adam Smith ), receiving a master's degree in 1760. Not entirely satisfied with his Presbyterian faith, he became a Unitarian minister in England . In 1764, he became pastor at Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, where in 1766 he married Grace Loftus, daughter of

12168-470: The discussion, and Hazlitt ends his essay on the two history plays by balancing his personal feelings about Falstaff with a more distanced, objective comment on the dramas as history plays in a broader context: "The truth is, that we never could forgive the Prince's treatment of Falstaff [...]" by banishing him after the Prince has become King Henry V, "though perhaps Shakespear knew what was best, according to

12324-464: The edge of calamity and disappointment, it strengthens the desire of good." Yet, he remained alert to ways in which poetry can also express and reinforce our less admirable tendencies. Following an observation of Burke he notes that "people flock to see a tragedy; but if there were a public execution in the next street, the theatre would very soon be empty. [...] We are [...] fond of indulging our violent passions [....] We cannot help it. The sense of power

12480-498: The end of "Lear", tragedy describes the strongest passions, and "the greatest strength of genius is shewn here in describing the strongest passions: for the power of the imagination, in works of invention, must be in proportion to the force of the natural impressions, which are the subject of them." In the "Preface" Hazlitt establishes his focus on "characters" by quoting Pope 's comment that "every single character in Shakespear,

12636-482: The essay with a reprise of his obituary of John Cavanagh , a noted fives player who died in 1819. For some years, Hazlitt's work had been routinely attacked by Tory critics, particularly those associated with Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly Review . The reception of the first volume of Table-Talk by the Tory journals was, unsurprisingly, negative. Leigh Hunt , an erstwhile friend of Hazlitt,

12792-515: The essays encompassing five of the plays, the plays discussed amount to thirty-five in number. Though each essay constitutes a chapter in a book, in style and length they resemble those of Hazlitt's miscellaneous collection The Round Table (published also in 1817, a collaboration with Leigh Hunt ), which followed the model for periodical essays established a century earlier in The Spectator . Though Hazlitt could find much to appreciate in

12948-408: The face of Hazlitt's growing bitterness, short temper, and propensity for hurling invective at friends and foes alike. For relief from all that weighed on his mind, Hazlitt became a passionate player at a kind of racquet ball similar to the game of Fives (a type of handball of which he was a fan) in that it was played against a wall. He competed with savage intensity, dashing around the court like

13104-458: The fickleness of the people: yet, the instant he cannot gratify his pride and obstinacy at their expense, he turns his arms against his own country. If his country was not worth defending, why did he build his pride in its defence?" Ultimately, Hazlitt tried to form a balanced judgement of the play. Comparing Hazlitt's account with that of a famous contemporary, David Bromwich thought that nothing like this critical stance can "be found anywhere in

13260-467: The focus of his analysis from the acting of Shakespeare's plays to the substance of the works themselves. The result was a collection of critical essays entitled Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817). His approach was something new. There had been criticisms of Shakespeare before, but either they were not comprehensive or they were not aimed at the general reading public. As Ralph Wardle put it, before Hazlitt wrote this book, "no one had ever attempted

13416-548: The following year: his marriage deteriorated, and he spent more and more time away from home. His part-time work as a drama critic provided him with an excuse to spend his evenings at the theatre. Afterwards he would then tarry with those friends who could tolerate his irascibility, the number of whom dwindled as a result of his occasionally outrageous behaviour. Hazlitt continued to produce articles on miscellaneous topics for The Examiner and other periodicals, including political diatribes against any who he felt ignored or minimised

13572-557: The fundamental moral and political principles behind their actions. For Hazlitt, this play showed in action the concepts behind political writings of his own day, such as Edmund Burke 's Reflections on the Revolution in France and Thomas Paine 's Rights of Man . The character of Coriolanus is a type of the aristocratic hero, though presented as a well-rounded individual, with a "pride" consisting of "inflexible sternness of will",

13728-466: The greatest philosophers of that century, as a charlatan. Nonetheless, the experience impressed on the young Hazlitt, at 20, the sense that not only philosophy, to which he had devoted himself, but also poetry warranted appreciation for what it could teach, and the three-week visit stimulated him to pursue his own thinking and writing. Coleridge, on his part, using an archery metaphor, later revealed that he had been highly impressed by Hazlitt's promise as

13884-400: The greatest possible effect to a favourite object." On the other hand, the language that would be used to argue the cause of the people relies more on "the understanding", which "is a dividing and measuring faculty: it judges of things not according to their immediate impression on the mind, but according to their relations to one another. [...] Poetry [on the other hand] is right-royal. It puts

14040-587: The history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell . He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is currently little read and mostly out of print. During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon , including Charles and Mary Lamb , Stendhal , Samuel Taylor Coleridge , William Wordsworth , and John Keats . The family of Hazlitt's father were Irish Protestants who moved from

14196-401: The history, the nature of the times, and of the man." Hazlitt's enthusiastic explanation of how Falstaff's fatness contributes to our amused sympathy with him was later especially admired by the critic John Dover Wilson . And John Kinnaird considered the "sketch of Falstaff" in this essay to be a "masterpiece", "a brilliant [...] portrait of comic exuberance incarnate", though perhaps in part

14352-441: The ideals of liberty and the rights of man. Rambling across the countryside, they talked of poetry, philosophy, and the political movements that were shaking up the old order. This unity of spirit was not to last: Hazlitt himself would recall disagreeing with Wordsworth on the philosophical underpinnings of his projected poem The Recluse , just as he had earlier been amazed that Coleridge could dismiss David Hume , regarded as one of

14508-522: The imagination, to be swayed and carried away emotionally by the power of poetic language. Hazlitt's own worship of Napoleon, it was later observed, could be taken as an example of this tendency. Hazlitt for the most part agreed with his contemporary Romantics that poetry can make us better human beings. The following year, in his Lectures on the English Poets , referring to tragic poetry especially, he would observe how "in proportion as it sharpens

14664-451: The individual for the species, the one above the infinite many, might before right." "So we feel some concern for the poor citizens of Rome when they meet together to compare their wants and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and with blows and big words drives this set of 'poor rats,' this rascal scum, to their homes and beggary before him. There is nothing heroical in a multitude of miserable rogues not wishing to be starved [...] but when

14820-439: The last act is crowded with decisive events brought about by natural means." Beyond plot, beyond individual characters, Hazlitt rounds out his discussion by noting the prevailing mood, the "tender gloom [that] overspreads the whole" play. He sees the parallel yet subtly contrasting lines of the story playing against each other "unconsciously" in the mind of the reader as of the author, working by "the force of natural association,

14976-445: The last in which Hazlitt persisted seriously in his ambition to make a career as a painter. Although he had demonstrated some talent, the results of his most impassioned efforts always fell far short of the very standards he had set by comparing his own work with the productions of such masters as Rembrandt, Titian , and Raphael . It did not help that, when painting commissioned portraits, he refused to sacrifice his artistic integrity to

15132-599: The lectures, he had met Peter George Patmore , Assistant Secretary of the Surrey Institution where the lectures were presented. Patmore soon became a friend as well as Hazlitt's confidant in the most troubled period of the latter's life. The Surrey Institution lectures were printed in book form, followed by a collection of his drama criticism, A View of the English Stage , and the second edition of Characters of Shakespear's Plays . Hazlitt's career as

15288-445: The light of day until 1816, and so provided no financial gain to satisfy the needs of a young husband and father. Hazlitt in the meantime had not forsaken his painterly ambitions. His environs at Winterslow afforded him opportunities for landscape painting, and he spent considerable time in London procuring commissions for portraits. In January 1812 Hazlitt embarked on a sometime career as a lecturer, in this first instance by delivering

15444-420: The list of periodicals that accepted Hazlitt's by-now profuse output of literary and political criticism . A critique of Joshua Reynolds ' theories about art appeared there as well, one of Hazlitt's major forays into art criticism . Having by 1814 become established as a journalist, Hazlitt had begun to earn a satisfactory living. A year earlier, with the prospect of a steady income, he had moved his family to

15600-511: The message of the plays. But he also noted ways in which no actor's interpretation could live up to the dramatist's conception. As his musings developed along these lines, Hazlitt continued to contribute miscellaneous articles to various periodicals. In February 1816, he reviewed August Wilhelm Schlegel 's Lectures on Dramatic Literature for the Edinburgh Review . The German critic Schlegel showed an appreciation for Shakespeare of

15756-514: The most reasonable woman he had ever met, no small compliment coming from a man whose view of women at times took a misogynistic turn. Hazlitt frequented the society of the Lambs for the next several years, from 1806 often attending their famous "Wednesdays" and later "Thursdays" literary salons. With few commissions for painting, Hazlitt seized the opportunity to ready for publication his philosophical treatise, which, according to his son, he had completed by 1803. Godwin intervened to help him find

15912-415: The most trifling or painful pursuits ... is one of the greatest happinesses of our nature". In "On Different Sorts of Fame", "In proportion as men can command the immediate and vulgar applause of others, they become indifferent to that which is remote and difficult of attainment". And in "On Good-Nature", "Good nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all the virtues...." Many of

16068-509: The music of the spheres ", he wrote years later in his essay "My First Acquaintance with Poets". It was, he added, as if "Poetry and Philosophy had met together. Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of Religion." Long after they had parted ways, Hazlitt would speak of Coleridge as "the only person I ever knew who answered to the idea of a man of genius". That Hazlitt learned to express his thoughts "in motley imagery or quaint allusion", that his understanding "ever found

16224-457: The nature of drama and poetry in general, such as expressed in the essay on Coriolanus , gained renewed appreciation and influenced other Shakespearean criticism. Hazlitt's ideas about many of the plays have now come to be valued as thought-provoking alternatives to those of his contemporary Coleridge, and Characters of Shakespear's Plays is now viewed as a major study of Shakespeare's plays, placing Hazlitt with Schlegel and Coleridge as one of

16380-564: The needs and rights of the common man. Defection from the cause of liberty had become easier in light of the oppressive political atmosphere in England at that time, in reaction to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars . The Hunts were his primary allies in opposing this tendency. Lamb, who tried to remain uninvolved politically, tolerated his abrasiveness, and that friendship managed to survive, if only just barely in

16536-494: The plays' dramatic structure and poetry and on the central themes and general mood of each play laid the groundwork for later critics' more elaborate interpretations. Frequently expressing the view that stage presentation could not do justice to Shakespeare's plays, Hazlitt nevertheless also found certain plays eminently actable, and he frequently admired the performances of certain actors, particularly Edmund Kean . At first highly acclaimed—it made an immediate and powerful impact on

16692-418: The poem into didacticism, a leaden counterweight to its more imaginative flights. Wordsworth, who seems to have been unable to tolerate anything less than unqualified praise, was enraged, and relations between the two became cooler than ever. Though Hazlitt continued to think of himself as a "metaphysician", he began to feel comfortable in the role of journalist. His self-esteem received an added boost when he

16848-427: The poet John Keats , among others—then brutally criticised, Hazlitt's book lost much of its influence in the author's lifetime, only to re-enter the mainstream of Shakespearean criticism in the late nineteenth century. The first edition sold out quickly; sales of the second, in mid-1818, were at first brisk, but they ceased entirely in the wake of harshly antagonistic, personally directed, politically motivated reviews in

17004-462: The poet and essayist, who edited the weekly paper. Hazlitt admired both as champions of liberty, and befriended especially the younger Hunt, who found work for him. He began to contribute miscellaneous essays to The Examiner in 1813, and the scope of his work for the Chronicle was expanded to include drama criticism , literary criticism , and political essays. In 1814, The Champion was added to

17160-418: The privileges of the few and the claims of many". Shakespeare shows the weaknesses of both the nobles and the people, but, thought Hazlitt, he was biased somewhat in favour of the nobility, leading him to gloss over their defects more so than those of the common people. But Hazlitt goes further, to develop an idea that only much later was seen to have radical implications for literary theory: he claims that it

17316-444: The prospect of getting out of debt, and allowed him to relax and bask in the light of his growing fame. In literary circles however, his reputation had been tarnished in the meantime: he had openly taken both Wordsworth and Coleridge to task on personal grounds and for failing to fulfill the promise of their earlier accomplishments, and both were apparently responsible for retaliatory rumours which seriously damaged Hazlitt's repute. And

17472-433: The public eye. In the course of his preparing for a drama review, Hazlitt was in the habit of reading or rereading the play he was soon to see, and his reviews came to include extensive commentary on the plays themselves, turning rapidly from dramatic criticism to literary criticism. With Shakespeare in particular, this led to considerations of the ways in which the actors—again, particularly his favourite Kean—communicated

17628-503: The reader the "paradoxes" of human nature. The first of the collected essays, "On the Love of Life", explains, "It is our intention, in the course of these papers, occasionally to expose certain vulgar errors, which have crept into our reasonings on men and manners.... The love of life is ... in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions". Again, in "On Pedantry", Hazlitt declares that "The power of attaching an interest to

17784-481: The reason," he made an overture to a local woman while visiting the Lake District with Coleridge. He had however grossly misread her intentions and an altercation broke out which led to his precipitous retreat from the town under cover of darkness. This public blunder placed a further strain on his relations with both Coleridge and Wordsworth, which were already fraying for other reasons. On 22 March 1803, at

17940-493: The reformist thinker whose recently published Political Justice had taken English intellectual circles by storm. Hazlitt was never to feel entirely in sympathy with Godwin's philosophy, but it gave him much food for thought. He spent much of his time at home in an intensive study of English, Scottish, and Irish thinkers like John Locke , David Hartley , George Berkeley , and David Hume , together with French thinkers like Claude Adrien Helvétius , Étienne Bonnot de Condillac ,

18096-572: The repressive legislation introduced after the Peterloo Massacre , Hazlitt foreswore writing further essays on political subjects. Political insight is by no means absent from Hazlitt's subsequent works, and publications such as The Spirit of the Age (1825) condemn figures such as Robert Southey for their abandonment of political radicalism, while Hazlitt's biography of Napoleon (four volumes; 1828–1830) aimed to defend his reputation against

18252-426: The same day that the news of the battle of Austerlitz came; I walked out in the afternoon, and, as I returned, saw the evening star set over a poor man's cottage with other thoughts and feelings than I shall ever have again. Oh for the revolution of the great Platonic year, that those times might come over again! I could sleep out the three hundred and sixty-five thousand intervening years very contentedly!--The picture

18408-753: The satisfaction of seeing his writing appear in print for the first time, when the Shrewsbury Chronicle published his letter (July 1791) condemning the riots in Birmingham over Joseph Priestley 's support for the French Revolution . In 1793, his father sent him to a Unitarian seminary on what was then the outskirts of London, the New College at Hackney (commonly referred to as Hackney College). The schooling he received there, though relatively brief, approximately two years, made

18564-402: The stage, and we no more object to the character of Falstaff in a moral point of view than we should think of bringing an excellent comedian, who should represent him to the life, before one of the police offices." Hazlitt goes on to present extracts of his favourite scenes, including those between Falstaff and Prince Hal, and Falstaff and Mistress Quickly. This is merged into a consideration of

18720-438: The stage, he opens the chapter on Hamlet by proclaiming, "We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all, Hamlet". Here, more than anywhere else, he sides with Charles Lamb in believing Shakespeare's plays to suffer in stage presentation. Neither John Kemble nor his favourite actor Edmund Kean played the role of Hamlet to his satisfaction. "Mr. Kean's Hamlet is as much too splenetic and rash as Mr. Kemble's

18876-483: The style of Rembrandt . In this fashion, he managed to make something of a living for a time, travelling back and forth between London and the country, wherever he could get work. By 1802, his work was considered good enough that a portrait he had recently painted of his father was accepted for exhibition by the Royal Academy . Later in 1802, Hazlitt was commissioned to travel to Paris and copy several works of

19032-403: The temptation to flatter his subjects for remunerative gain. The results, not infrequently, failed to please their subjects, and he consequently failed to build a clientele. But other opportunities awaited him. In October 1812, Hazlitt was hired by The Morning Chronicle as a parliamentary reporter. Soon he met John Hunt , publisher of The Examiner , and his younger brother Leigh Hunt ,

19188-706: The three most notable Shakespearean critics of the Romantic period . On 26 January 1814, Edmund Kean debuted as Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice at London's Drury Lane theatre. William Hazlitt, drama critic for the Morning Chronicle since the previous September, was in the audience. He wrote a stunning review, followed by several others applauding (but sometimes censuring) Kean's performances in other Shakespearean tragedies, including King Richard II , King Richard III , Hamlet , Macbeth , Romeo and Juliet , and, what Hazlitt considered

19344-418: The truth that would remain with him for life. He had thoroughly absorbed a belief in liberty and the rights of man, and confidence in the idea that the mind was an active force which, by disseminating knowledge in both the sciences and the arts, could reinforce the natural tendency in humanity towards good. The school had impressed upon him the importance of the individual's ability, working both alone and within

19500-408: The turn of his mind, to the general account of humanity." "The character of Hamlet [...] is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment", writes Hazlitt, and he sides with Schlegel and Coleridge in thinking that Hamlet "seems incapable of deliberate action". "His ruling passion is to think, not to act". Although the focus in this essay

19656-517: The uniqueness of Shakespeare's characters and looks back at earlier Shakespearean criticism. Two concluding chapters on "Doubtful Plays of Shakespear" and the "Poems and Sonnets" round out the book. The centre of attention is in large part on the characters, described often with a personal slant and using memorable expressions ("It is we who are Hamlet") and incorporating psychological insights that were to become highly influential in later criticism. Though at first less influential, Hazlitt's comments on

19812-402: The use he makes of the principle of analogy to reconcile the greatest diversities of character and to maintain a continuity of feeling throughout, has not been sufficiently attended to. As he does with character, Hazlitt observes patterns he discovers in the plot. He will have nothing of criticising it in terms of the classical " unities ". The plot must be taken on its own terms. If the action

19968-490: The villain Iachimo), but more often we see her from the inside, and are touched when, after endless nights of crying herself awake over the loss of Posthumus, she is outraged to learn (as she is falsely informed) that " 'Some Jay of Italy [...] hath betrayed him. ' " And we witness a moment in the development of her character, as her resolve to disguise herself to seek out Posthumus grows firmer. "Of all Shakespear's women she

20124-408: The want of it; for our admiration cannot easily surpass his genius." As one of his favourites, Hazlitt places Cymbeline first in his discussions of Shakespeare's plays, according it extensive treatment. This includes his personal impressions of individual characters—as the book's title would lead us to expect—but also the kind of broader consideration for which he would not be credited for at least

20280-414: The way Falstaff interacts with some other characters, and the way Shakespeare's characters reflect on one another, each in his or her behaviour shedding light on key traits in the others. This in turn leads to commentary on the "heroic and serious parts of" Henry IV , parts 1 and 2, and, finally, to more general reflections on Shakespeare's genius. But the character of Falstaff has had the lion's share of

20436-465: The whole range of Coleridge's criticism." The character of Sir John Falstaff appeared in three of Shakespeare's plays, Henry IV, Part 1 , Henry IV, Part 2 , and The Merry Wives of Windsor . The bulk of Hazlitt's commentary on the two history plays is devoted to Falstaff, whom he considers to be "perhaps the most substantial comic character ever invented". Falstaff had been of interest to Shakespearean commentators for years. Forty years earlier,

20592-404: The worst was yet to come. Nonetheless Hazlitt's satisfaction at the relief he gained from his financial woes was supplemented by the positive response his return to the lecture hall received. In early 1818 he delivered a series of talks on "the English Poets", from Chaucer to his own time. Though somewhat uneven in quality, his lectures were ultimately judged a success. In making arrangements for

20748-413: The young Hazlitt as well. While, out of respect for his father, Hazlitt never openly broke with his religion, he suffered a loss of faith, and left Hackney before completing his preparation for the ministry. Although Hazlitt rejected the Unitarian theology , his time at Hackney left him with much more than religious scepticism . He had read widely and formed habits of independent thought and respect for

20904-495: The young thinker awestruck. From Fawcett, in the words of biographer Ralph Wardle, he imbibed a love for "good fiction and impassioned writing", Fawcett being "a man of keen intelligence who did not scorn the products of the imagination or apologize for his tastes". With him, Hazlitt not only discussed the radical thinkers of their day, but ranged comprehensively over all kinds of literature, from John Milton 's Paradise Lost to Laurence Sterne 's Tristram Shandy . This background

21060-401: Was also much that was nonconformist . Priestley, whom Hazlitt had read and who was also one of his teachers, was an impassioned commentator on political issues of the day. This, along with the turmoil in the wake of the French Revolution, sparked in Hazlitt and his classmates lively debates on these issues, as they saw their world being transformed around them. Changes were taking place within

21216-606: Was also the first book to cover all of Shakespeare's plays, intended as a guide for the general reader. Then becoming known as a theatre critic, Hazlitt had been focusing increasingly on drama as literature, contributing miscellaneous literary criticism to various journals, including the prestigious Edinburgh Review . This was the first of his book-length literary studies. The plays, the thirty-five that Hazlitt considered to be genuine, are covered in thirty-two chapters, with new material added to passages reworked from periodical articles and reviews. A Preface establishes his main theme of

21372-540: Was born that same year. William, the youngest of the surviving Hazlitt children, was born in Mitre Lane, Maidstone, in 1778. In 1780, when he was two, his family began a nomadic lifestyle that was to last several years. From Maidstone his father took them to Bandon, County Cork , Ireland; and from Bandon in 1783 to the United States , where the elder Hazlitt preached, lectured, and sought a ministerial call to

21528-399: Was born. Considerable material that he had already worked up in his drama reviews was incorporated into the book. One essay, on A Midsummer Night's Dream , was taken entire from a contribution to "The Round Table" series in the Examiner , first published on 26 November 1815, with a concluding paragraph tacked on from a drama review, also published in the Examiner , on 21 January 1816. There

21684-526: Was censured for displaying faults of the "character" school of Shakespearean criticism, primarily that of discussing dramatic characters as though they were real people, and again Hazlitt's contributions to Shakespearean criticism were deprecated. A revival of interest in Hazlitt, as a thinker, began in the mid-20th century. His thoughts on Shakespeare's plays as a whole (particularly the tragedies), his discussions of certain characters such as Shylock , Falstaff , Imogen , Caliban and Iago and his ideas about

21840-496: Was enraptured. While he was not immediately struck by Wordsworth's appearance, in observing the cast of Wordsworth's eyes as they contemplated a sunset, he reflected, "With what eyes these poets see nature!" Given the opportunity to read the Lyrical Ballads in manuscript, Hazlitt saw that Wordsworth had the mind of a true poet, and "the sense of a new style and a new spirit in poetry came over me." All three were fired by

21996-504: Was extremely offended by the fact that he had been included in Hazlitt's essay titled "On People with One Idea". The reception of the second volume was similar, with Blackwood's describing it as a "gaping sore of wounded and festering vanity". Characters of Shakespear%27s Plays Characters of Shakespear's Plays is an 1817 book of criticism of Shakespeare's plays , written by early nineteenth century English essayist and literary critic William Hazlitt . Composed in reaction to

22152-635: Was frequently in touch, he obtained a commission to write an English grammar , published on 11 November 1809 as A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue . Another project that came his way was the work that was published as Memoirs of the Late Thomas Holcroft , a compilation of autobiographical writing by the recently deceased playwright, novelist, and radical political activist, together with additional material by Hazlitt himself. Though completed in 1810, this work did not see

22308-465: Was invited to contribute to the quarterly The Edinburgh Review (his contributions, beginning in early 1815, were frequent and regular for some years), the most distinguished periodical on the Whig side of the political fence (its rival The Quarterly Review occupied the Tory side). Writing for so highly respected a publication was considered a major step up from writing for weekly papers, and Hazlitt

22464-428: Was issued by Taylor and Hessey in 1818, and later that year an unlicensed edition was brought out in Boston by Wells and Lilly. No further editions appeared in Hazlitt's lifetime. Characters of Shakespear's Plays consists primarily of Hazlitt's impressions of and thoughts about all of William Shakespeare's plays he believed to be genuine. It was the first book of the kind that anyone had yet written. His main focus

22620-448: Was its true worth, it brought him attention as one who had a grasp of contemporary philosophy. He therefore was commissioned to abridge and write a preface to a now obscure work of mental philosophy, The Light of Nature Pursued by Abraham Tucker (originally published in seven volumes from 1765 to 1777), which appeared in 1807 and may have had some influence on his own later thinking. Slowly Hazlitt began to find enough work to eke out

22776-701: Was left with a hatred of tyranny and persecution that he retained to his dying days, as expressed a quarter-century afterward in the retrospective summing up of his political stance in his 1819 collection of Political Essays : "I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools ... I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, and I have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry by which they are defended." Returning home, around 1795, his thoughts were directed into more secular channels, encompassing not only politics but, increasingly, modern philosophy, which he had begun to read with fascination at Hackney. In September 1794, he had met William Godwin ,

22932-411: Was material from other essays. Most of "Shakespear's Exact Discrimination of Nearly Similar Characters" (the Examiner , 12 May 1816) made its way into the chapters on King Henry IV , King Henry VI , and Othello . Portions of "Shakespear's Female Characters" (the Examiner , 28 July 1816) found a place in the chapters on Cymbeline and Othello . Hazlitt filled out the rest of what he needed to make

23088-406: Was not a love match , and incompatibilities would later drive the couple apart; yet, for a while, it seemed to work well enough, and their initial behavior was both playful and affectionate. Miss Stoddart, an unconventional woman, accepted Hazlitt and tolerated his eccentricities just as he, with his own somewhat offbeat individualism, accepted her. Together they made an agreeable social foursome with

23244-427: Was now moving in this direction (he had been contributing miscellaneous literary criticism to the Examiner and elsewhere during this period), he needed the money to support his family, and his growing reputation as a drama critic enabled him to have his name appear on the title page (as a reviewer for periodicals, his contributions were anonymous, as was customary at the time). Thus, Characters of Shakespear's Plays

23400-477: Was now obliged to earn his own living. Artistic talent seemed to run in the family on his mother's side and, starting in 1798, he became increasingly fascinated by painting. His brother, John, had by now become a successful painter of miniature portraits . So it occurred to William that he might earn a living similarly, and he began to take lessons from John. Hazlitt also visited various picture galleries, and he began to get work doing portraits, painting somewhat in

23556-511: Was proud of this connection. On 18 June 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo . Having idolised Napoleon for years, Hazlitt took it as a personal blow. The event seemed to him to mark the end of hope for the common man against the oppression of "legitimate" monarchy. Profoundly depressed, he took up heavy drinking and was reported to have walked around unshaven and unwashed for weeks. He idolised and spoiled his son, William Jr., but in most respects his household grew increasingly disordered over

23712-504: Was reserved for other vehicles, but included was a "Character of the Late Mr. Pitt ", a scathing characterisation of the recently deceased former Prime Minister. Written in 1806, Hazlitt liked it well enough to have already had it printed twice before (and it would appear again in a collection of political essays in 1819). Some essays blend Hazlitt's social and psychological observations in a calculatedly thought-provoking way, presenting to

23868-743: Was the German August Wilhelm Schlegel, whose lectures on the drama had recently been translated into English, whom Hazlitt believed to be the greatest critic of Shakespeare's plays. Hazlitt here includes long extracts from Schlegel on Shakespeare, differing with him principally with respect to what he called a "mysticism" that appears in Schlegel's interpretations. He shared with Schlegel an enthusiasm for Shakespeare that he found lacking in Dr. Johnson. "An overstrained enthusiasm", he remarks, "is more pardonable with respect to Shakespear than

24024-536: Was the first critic to grasp the "originality and importance of this passage", though even Trilling interpreted Hazlitt's idea of the human love of power in too narrow a sense. Having observed the workings of what he thought an alarming tendency of the poetic imagination, as well as Shakespeare's possible aristocratic bias, Hazlitt then observes that, after all, traits of Coriolanus's character emerge, even in this dramatic context, that Shakespeare clearly shows to be less than admirable. For example, "Coriolanus complains of

24180-453: Was then living a decidedly contemplative existence, one somewhat frustrated by his failure to express on paper the thoughts and feelings that were churning within him. It was at this juncture that Hazlitt met Samuel Taylor Coleridge . This encounter, a life-changing event, was subsequently to exercise a profound influence on his writing career that, in retrospect, Hazlitt regarded as greater than any other. On 14 January 1798, Hazlitt, in what

24336-556: Was to prove a turning point in his life, encountered Coleridge as the latter preached at the Unitarian chapel in Shrewsbury . A minister at the time, Coleridge had as yet none of the fame that would later accrue to him as a poet, critic, and philosopher. Hazlitt, like Thomas de Quincey and many others afterwards, was swept off his feet by Coleridge's dazzlingly erudite eloquence. "I could not have been more delighted if I had heard

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