The Spirit of Controversy: And Other Essays

by William Hazlitt, Jon Mee (Editor), James Grande (Editor)

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) is among the most brilliant critics and essayists to have ever written in the English language. Combative and insightful, he was close to two generations of romantic poets. His early friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth as a young man inspired him to a literary career, but he became disillusioned with them as apostates from the cause of liberty he associated with the French Revolution. As a mature writer, he inspired John Keats and contributed to his thinking about imagination and poetic character. A forceful commentator on contemporary London, he was also a committed radical, whose 'What is the People?' is an almost visionary statement of a new democratic politics.

The Spirit of Controversy collects together Hazlitt's most coruscating and influential essays, using versions as they first appeared, including those that originally found their way into print in the cut and thrust of the newspapers and magazines of his day.

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Classics

448 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2021

About the author

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell, but 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 and William Wordsworth.

Hazlitt was the son of the Unitarian minister and writer, William Hazlitt, who greatly influenced his work. Hazlitt's son, also called William Hazlitt, and grandson, William Carew Hazlitt, were also writers.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.

Reviews

[Jack Caulfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Hazlitt, a criminally under-read genius. I read the previous Oxford edition of his essays a few years ago. This newer one has substantial overlap with that edition but contains some different material and omits some essays that appeared there. I wish it were either a more comprehensive selection or one without any overlap with the previous publication, but never mind—it was good to reread the repeated material anyway.

Was inspired to return to Hazlitt by my reading of Keats's letters, which quote him at length. I wish some of the material quoted there were also included here; it's the kind of fiery, scathing stuff that Hazlitt writes in direct exchanges with others where he's at his best.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that I have read this book, I can confidently and boldly claim that there exists no finer essayist, no sharper and more intelligent critic than William Hazlitt. More elegant than Dr. Johnson in prose; greater than Eliot in insight. This volume of Hazlitt has been a treat and a delight to read from cover to cover. Some essays I would like to highlight in this volume as being the best in this edition are:

‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’ — it would be folly not to include one of the finest pieces of prose ever written in the history of English literature.

‘On Familiar Style’ — a fantastic and brilliant denunciation of the style typical of the Enlightenment, riddled with tall words and often difficult prose, in favor of what Mr. Wordsworth called ‘the real language of men’: to write in the everyday language of the day.

‘Lord Byron’ — Hazlitt manages to produce a very accurate and wonderful character sketch of his Lordship, far more fair and accurate than I, for all my high praise and purple prose dedicated to Byron, ever could. If I were to write a character sketch of Lord Byron and his poetry, it should be titled ‘Ode to Byron’ for his Lordship is the finest, and greatest romantic poet, and the best poet English letters have given us.

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Hazlitt, you bitch. Best essays about being an artist, bringing figures like Jeremy Bentham and Coleridge to life, hating on conservatives like Edmund Burke and Joshua Reynolds, and acknowledging his own inadequacies (“The Indian Jugglars”).