William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt
Name	William Hazlitt
Caption	Portrait of Hazlitt
Birth date	10 April 1778
Birth place	Maidstone, Kent, England
Death date	18 September 1830
Death place	London, England
Occupation	Essayist, critic, journalist, philosopher
Nationality	British

William Hazlitt was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, and social commentator whose energetic prose and pungent opinions influenced 19th‑century literature. A trenchant observer of art, politics, and human character, he wrote for periodicals and produced essays and reviews that engaged with contemporaries across the fields of poetry, painting, theatre, and philosophy. Revered by later figures for his candour and psychological insight, his writings intersected with Romantic poets, liberal politicians, theatrical figures, and philosophers.

Early life and education

Born in Maidstone, Kent, Hazlitt was the son of a Unitarian minister, a background that connected him with Unitarianism, Edmund Burke's opponents in political debate, and dissenting intellectual circles in England. He attended a dissenting academy influenced by radicals linked to Joseph Priestley and the wider American Revolution debates, and later studied at Harrow School‑era instructors and private tutors who introduced him to classical authors such as Homer and Plato. Hazlitt’s early intellectual formation was shaped by readings in John Locke, David Hume, and the empiricist tradition, and by exposure to the literary climate of London and provincial cultural institutions like the Royal Academy and local theatres. Contact with expatriate and reformist networks brought him into conversation with figures associated with the French Revolution and with British radicals such as William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

Literary career and major works

Hazlitt established himself writing for periodicals connected to reformist and liberal causes, contributing to titles that intersected with the careers of editors and writers from The Edinburgh Review to radical pamphleteers associated with Carlile‑style presses. His early published pieces included essays on art and literature that engaged with painters and critics linked to the Royal Academy of Arts and with theatrical practitioners active at the Covent Garden Theatre and Drury Lane Theatre. Major collections include Essays in Criticism and A View of the English Stage, which situated him alongside critics like Charles Lamb and reviewers who wrote on Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. His polemical A Reply to Mr. Coleridge and celebrated Table‑Talk essays placed him in dialogue with poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and prose writers like Samuel Johnson. Hazlitt also produced political pamphlets, collected art criticism engaging names like Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and memoiristic pieces later anthologized with works by Thomas de Quincey and editors of nineteenth‑century miscellanies.

Political views and journalism

Politically, Hazlitt aligned with liberal and radical causes, publishing journalism that engaged controversies over reform, representation, and liberty in debates alongside figures such as Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and politicians like Charles James Fox and John Cam Hobhouse. His journalism addressed crises and events including reactions to the Napoleonic Wars, commentary on the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna, and responses to legal prosecutions reminiscent of those faced by radical publishers like Richard Carlile. He wrote about press freedom in the company of thinkers indebted to the theories of John Stuart Mill’s circle and to dissenting traditions exemplified by Daniel O'Connell and Irish reformers. Hazlitt’s articles appeared in journals tied to London’s partisan press and engaged controversies involving the House of Commons debates on reform and the positions of establishment figures such as William Pitt the Younger and George Canning.

Personal life and relationships

Hazlitt’s personal life intersected with literary and theatrical circles; friendships and feuds connected him to Charles Lamb, whose partnership with Hazlitt reflected shared conviviality and literary sympathy, and to hostile exchanges with critics and dramatists of the London Theatre. Romantic friendships and romantic entanglements involved actors and writers associated with Sarah Siddons’ era and with theatrical managers at Drury Lane Theatre, while his relations with poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge alternated between admiration and estrangement. He maintained intellectual contacts with philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes‑readers and contemporary moralists, and social acquaintances included journalists and publishers like John Murray and editors of influential reviews. Personal controversies—public quarrels and private disappointments—echoed the turbulent social interactions common to the salons and coffee‑houses of Regent Street and literary clubs of London.

Style, themes, and critical reception

Hazlitt’s prose style combined vigorous prose rhythms and rhetorical force with close psychological observation, prompting comparisons to essayists such as Michel de Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, and later admirers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and critics influenced by Matthew Arnold. Central themes in his criticism included individual character, imagination, perception of art, and liberty, aligning him with Romantic preoccupations epitomized by William Blake and John Keats. Contemporary reception was mixed: periodical adversaries and conservative reviewers aligned with figures like Francis Jeffrey and the Quarterly Review often attacked him, while subsequent praise came from critics and novelists such as Charles Dickens and essayists in the Victorian era. His theatrical criticism engaged acting styles exemplified by Edmund Kean and playwrights such as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, provoking spirited debate among performers, managers, and critics.

Legacy and influence

Hazlitt’s influence extended to nineteenth‑ and twentieth‑century writers, critics, and philosophers: admirers and intellectual descendants include Leigh Hunt, John Stuart Mill’s followers, Oscar Wilde’s epigones, and modern critics in the tradition of F.R. Leavis. His essays were mined by biographers and editors alongside collections by Walter Scott and anthologists concerned with the evolution of English prose. Hazlitt’s assessments of drama and painting informed later histories of the London Stage and art criticism associated with institutions like the Tate and the British Museum. Today his work is studied in contexts that also examine Romanticism, the history of liberal thought, and the development of periodical culture with connections to studies of 19th century literature, Victorian studies, and the genealogy of the English essay.

Category:English essayists Category:19th-century British writers