Hazlitt, William (1778–1830)

English essayist and critic. His work is characterized by invective, scathing irony, an intuitive critical sense, and a gift for epigram. His essays include ‘Characters of Shakespeare's Plays’ (1817), ‘Lectures on the English Poets’ (1818–19), ‘English Comic Writers’ (1819), and ‘Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth’ (1820).

Other works are Table Talk (1821–22); The Spirit of the Age (1825), literary studies in which he argues that the personality of the writer is germane to a criticism of what they write; and Liber Amoris (1823), in which he revealed aspects of his love life.

Hazlitt was born in Maidstone, Kent. At his father's request he studied for the Unitarian ministry but his interests were more philosophical than theological. The turning point in his intellectual development was his meeting with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798, described in ‘My First Acquaintance with the Poets’. Soon after this he studied art but turned to literature and in 1805 published his first book, Essay on the Principles of Human Action, which was followed by various other philosophical and political essays. He also worked for the daily press and magazines in London, writing from the liberal viewpoint.

His Life of Napoleon (1828–30), intended to be his chief work, was written with great ability but it embodied unpopular views and failed. His last work was a life of the painter Titian, in which he collaborated with the painter James Northcote. His earlier Conversations of James Northcote (1827) is one of his most fascinating books, and many of his best essays appeared in the posthumous Literary Remains (1836), Sketches and Essays (1839), and Winterslow (1850).

Hazlitt is one of the most honest and acute of English critics. His chief critical principle was that ‘a genuine criticism should reflect the colour, the light and shade, the soul and body, of a work’. His peculiar temper led to quarrels with most of his friends and two failed marriages, but few writers have left work of such uniformly high quality.