William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man

by Duncan Wu

Overview

Romanticism is where the modern age begins, and Hazlitt was its most articulate spokesman. No one else had the ability to see it whole; no one else knew so many of its politicians, poets, and philosophers. In this first full biography, Duncan Wu draws upon over a decade of archival research to explore all aspects of Hazlitt's life, from his early aspirations to become a painter, his engagement with revolutionary politics, his rise to prominence as one of England's greatest literary critics, and the disillusionment and poverty of his final years. Along the way, Wu reveals countless new details concerning Hazlitt's relationships with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, William Godwin, J. M. W. Turner, and other important figures of the Romantic era. But Wu sees Hazlitt as an essentially modern writer who took political sketch-writing to a new level, invented sports commentary as we know it, and created the essay-form as it is practiced in our own time. Painstakingly researched and filled with original insight, this biography benefits also from Wu's New Writings of William Hazlitt, many of which make their appearance here, illuminating obscure passages of Hazlitt's life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191615368
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	11/11/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Duncan Wu is Professor of English at Georgetown University Washington DC. He is a former Fellow of St Catherine's College and Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. His previous books include Wordsworth: An Inner Life (2000), and Romanticism: An Anthology, a standard text now in its third edition. He is the editor of Selected Writings of William Hazlitt (9 vols, 1998), William Hazlitt, The Plain Speaker: Key Essays (1998), (with Tom Paulin and Uttara Natarajan) Metaphysical Hazlitt: Bicentenary Essays (2005), and New Writings of William Hazlitt (2007).

Table of Contents

IntroductionProloguePart I: The Road to Nether StoweyPart II: Beyond XanaduPart III: A Philosopher in Grub StreetPart IV: The Plain SpeakerPart V: The New PygmalionPart VI: Mr Hazlitt's Grand TourPart VII: London SolitudeEpilogue

Editorial Reviews

If this workmanlike biography, by the editor of the two-volume New Writings of William Hazlitt, does not live up to the expansive promise of its subtitle, it nonetheless extends a welcome new hand to a transitional figure of the romantic age. Wu admirably reveals his subject's faults and virtues at every point of a crowded life. Always hard up for cash, and often considering himself a failure in the eyes of his Unitarian minister father, Hazlitt (1788-1830) was generally celebrated as a journalist and prose stylist by his contemporaries. He was also an exceptional philosopher and painter. Among his intimates, Hazlitt counted Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Coleridge, Bryon and Keats, Charles Lamb and Robert Southey. Hazlitt was a passionate lover of many women and frequent brothel visitor, all of which doomed his marriage to a wealthy woman from the start. He was also done in by an understandably suspicious brother-in-law. Hazlitt has been more fortunate in his modern critics, among them Somerset Maugham and Virginia Woolf. As Wu notes, Hazlitt's modernity depends on his penetrating grasp of psychology and on his place as "the father of modern literary criticism." 30 b&w illus. (Jan.)

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Publishers Weekly

Wu (English, Georgetown Univ.), the editor of The Selected Writings of William Hazlitt and New Writings of Hazlitt, is well qualified to write this biography of the essayist and critic. Hazlitt (1778-1830) knew great authors and artists of the Romantic period, including William Wordsworth, John Keats, Charles and Mary Lamb, J.M.W. Turner, and Leigh Hunt. Wu hopes that his biography will save Hazlitt from the lasting effects of the devastating criticisms that have stuck to him long after his death. Hazlitt had strong opinions about colleagues, enemies, and even friends, but he was consistent in his beliefs and principles, especially his hatred of the monarchy and Tories and his love of revolutionary movements. Despite the plethora of endnotes, this book is written in an entertaining style, with liberal quotations from Hazlitt's essays, criticism, and letters. Though there are other biographies of Hazlitt (notably Stanley Jones's Hazlitt: A Life), Wu's effort benefits from newly discovered documents and his passionate defense of his subject. This should be the standard by which all future biographies will be judged; recommended for academic libraries and larger public library collections.
—Morris Hounion

Library Journal

"Fun to read."—The New Yorker

"Excellent biography of the criticWu's splendidly detailed portrait could scarcely be more timely."—arper's

"Wu's finely attuned to his subject's qualities and sympathetic to the many personal, professional, and religious struggles that so complicated Hazlitt's tumultuous life."—The Atlantic

"A broad, persuasive argument, an astonishingly detailed account of Hazlitt's life...We sink into Hazlitt's world itself."-Saul Rosenberg, The Wall Street Journal

"A distinctly eye-opening biography."-Washingtonpost.com

"This book is written in an entertaining style, with liberal quotations from Hazlitt's essays, criticism, and lettersWu's effort benefits from newly discovered documents and his passionate defense of his subject. This should be the standard by which all future biographies will be judged."-Library Journal

"Wu admirably reveals his subject's faults and virtues at every point of a crowded life."-Publishers Weekly

"A much needed concise, clear and readable account." - The Independent

"An eminently clear, readable and altogether available account of Hazlitt's life, based on staggeringly impressive research. Read it, by all means."—The Wordsworth Circle

"An exceptional study." — Times Higher Education Supplement

"Wu's biography is, like its subject, passionately partisan, and throws objectivity to the winds."— Sunday Times

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