Hazlitt, William (1778-1830), was one of the best essayists and critics in English literature. His critical essays were sensitive and analytical. They were marked by enthusiasm and the pure enjoyment that Hazlitt felt in describing the effect of a literary work. He discussed poets, dramatists, essayists, and novelists of his own and earlier times. His essays were collected in Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817), English Poets (1818-1819), English Comic Writers (1819), and A View of the English Stage (1818-1821). See Essay (Formal essays).
The cornerstone of Hazlitt’s thinking and writing was his belief in the human imagination’s ability to promote moral behavior. Hazlitt emphasized the “disinterestedness” (or selflessness) of the imagination. His writings and lectures on the imagination and on William Shakespeare influenced poet John Keats.
Hazlitt’s vigorous, informal prose style distinguished his personal essays, which appeared in Table Talk (1821-1822). The collection includes “My First Acquaintance with Poets,” which describes his early encounters with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. The Spirit of the Age (1825) analyzes the character and social significance of leading personalities of his time. Hazlitt was born on April 10, 1778, in Maidstone. He died on Sept. 18, 1830.
