William Hazlitt
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The Age of Spirit:A Short Biography of William Hazlitt
Since William Hazlitt is one of the greatest literary critics to have lived, it is important to examine his childhood and background to see what brought him to such high accomplishment that his spirit still lives in the thinking of today. William Hazlitt was born in 1778 to an Irish father and English mother. His father, also named William, was very candid on political matters and openly supported the American War of Independence despite his being a minister. As a result of his outspokenness, various incidents caused the family to move from Ireland to England to the United States and back to England all before young William was nine years old. William was a very bright student and went on to study for the ministry in London at the Unitarian New College. Before the institution closed in 1796, an incident occurred in which Hazlitt’s tutor realized he had not completed the given assignment. Upon reading an essay Hazlitt had written instead of doing the assignment, the tutor encouraged him to continue with his independent work. This essay on civil justice later became A Project for a New Theory of Civil and Criminal Legislation. After the college shut down and Hazlitt pursued a few years of private study, he met and became friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth in 1798 before moving back to London. There he attempted to make a living as a portrait painter, perhaps inspired by his older brother John who was a painter. John helped instruct Hazlitt, and Hazlitt soon began to find some success in painting; he was commissioned in 1802 to make some copies of works from the Louvre. He earned a small living as a portrait painter after returning to England and soon met Charles Lamb and started a friendship that would remain steady throughout his life. Lamb very likely had a strong influence encouraging Hazlitt’s writing. Hazlitt’s first publication appeared in a book on philosophy called “An Essay on the Principles of Human Action” in 1805. In the next two years he published five more works, leaning more toward the genre of social policy, but still heavily influenced by philosophy and writers focused on nature such as Hume. Hazlitt’s political, philosophical, and psychological views were ahead of his time; he has even been hailed as a “Freudian John the Baptist” (Whelan). He held very critical views of the admiration of power and of all political parties. After marrying Sarah Stoddart in 1808, Hazlitt continued to write and began giving public lectures on philosophy in 1812. He soon got his first job as a parliamentary reporter for the popular Whig newspaper, the Morning Chronicle. Though he gave up his career as a painter, he soon became known as a very prominent art and drama critic, essayist, and political commentator. This prominence led to an expansion in Hazlitt’s circle of friends. In 1817 he was introduced to Percy Bysshe Shelley by a mutual friend, Leigh Hunt. He also met John Keats, who became very strongly influenced by Hazlitt. Regular meetings between a circle of friends also including Charles Lamb, William Godwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth took place in different homes, leading many gatherings to occur in Godwin’s home. Mary Shelley did not a receive formal education, but was tutored by her father William Godwin at home. Godwin allowed Mary to sit and listen to the group’s discussions and debates while she sat quietly in the corner. Mary was undoubtedly influenced heavily by what she learned through these discussions, which were one of the main sources of her education; she had the privilege of passively participating in debates between some of the most prominent figures of Romanticism. Hazlitt and Percy Shelley seemed to have a very strong political affinity with each other, and it is recorded that they stayed up till three in the morning discussing current politics. Despite a few correspondences in which they both seemed eager to meet often and continue their friendship, the two ended up losing touch after a few years. Shelley and Hazlitt both continued to hold high regards for each other, however; each has referenced the other in later published writings. This bond with Percy Shelley gave Hazlitt another outlet in influencing Mary Shelley and her writings. Hazlitt continued to have a strong influence as a major thinker his time, but his greatest impact on the Romantic era was via The Spirit of the Age (1825), which was a collection of profiles of major players such as Coleridge, Lamb, Wordsworth, and Lord Byron. This work compiled the greatest ideas of the Romantics and put into perspective what would become more evident after the era. By defining the age in which he lived, Hazlitt made an impact that would continue to be felt years after his death. Before this was published, however, Hazlitt had a falling out with his wife because of rumors of an affair with a maid, Sarah Walker. He soon published all of his and Sarah’s letters in Liber Amoris in 1823, which made him an easy target for the far right end of the political spectrum. Though Hazlitt undeniably wrote some of the best critiques of Shakespeare’s works, his political writings that so heavily influenced individual thinkers of the Romantic movement also were radical enough that his popularity within established institutions steeply declined. His favorable opinions toward Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution did not help his case any further. His affair with Sarah Walker seemed to be exactly what the right-wing press wanted; they took no hesitation in demolishing Hazlitt’s career with scandal. He soon died with very little material worth in 1830. In The Spirit of the Age, Hazlitt embodied not only the thoughts of the time, but also very much his own spirit. His spirit guided many great thinkers who have, in turn, influenced the present. Hazlitt was more than a literary critic or a prominent political or philosophical essayist; his works shaped the age of Romanticism, which is considered by many scholars to merge directly into the present. It is in this way that Hazlitt’s spirit remains truly ageless, forever existing in modern thought and culture. - by Haley Beaupre
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