A Study On William Hazlitt's Literary Criticism

William Hazlitt was an important English essayist,literary theorist in romantic period,who has left after him a large number of beautiful essays of rich content,representing,to some extent,the peak of the romantic prose writing.His writings are in a very wide range,covering politics,law,religion,philosophy,literature,painting,and even linguistics.Although,it is difficult for us to use systematicness to define his works,his works are still of precious value.This study is mainly focused on Hazlitt's literary criticism,closely reading his literary criticism works and assessing his theoretic origins from the perspective of literary history as well.This part illustrates life of William Hazlitt and his main works.The Complete Works of William Hazlitt consist of 21 books.His main works are introduced in chronological order in this part.The value of these thesis and current research status of William Hazlitt,research methodology and methods are also mentioned in this part.William Hazlitt study is of different situations in China and abroad.In western countries,especially in English-speaking countries,Hazlitt study has fruitful research findings,covering academic papers,thesis papers on Master and Doctoral levels,academic monograph,biography,etc.However,in China,there's almost a blank in Hazlitt study.This study aims to shed a light on this important romantic critic through studying on William Hazlitt's literary criticism.Lectures on The English Poets offers a proper perspective for the study on Hazlitt's poetic theory,in which he not only defined poetry,but also explained the relation between poetry and nature,poetic language and outstanding poets.From his point of view,poetry is not a simple imitation of nature,neither an emotional display on the spur of the moment.Nature inspires the generation of poetry,but poetry is not all about nature,poetry has a counteraction towards nature.Poets imitate nature,at the same time recreate nature and show it according to people's inner anticipation of goodness.This reveal of goodness is realized through poetic language forming "phonological harmony".Based on the above views,William Hazlitt proposed a criterion for judging excellent poet.They shouldn't be pure subjective,but follow the objective law,melting themselves in nature,observing things,applying abundant passion to show people's vision of nature's magnificence and glory.Standing on the position of romanticism,William Hazlitt's Shakespeare criticism objects classicism,played an important role in English Romanticism system,and even the world history of Shakespeare criticism.Hazlitt used typical romantic criticism methods---characteristic criticism to comments on characters in Shakespeare's plays.Hazlitt's characteristic criticism is actually a psychological motivation theory.In one of the most important Shakespeare criticism works if Characters of Shakespeare's Plays,he made profound character analysis on a large number of characters in Shakespeare's plays.His Shakespeare criticism can be taken as a literary recreation,boasting valuable reference for Shakespeare researchers,and also great readability for ordinary Shakespeare lovers.Hazlitt's historical position was underrated,partly because of his notorious reputation in the world of letters of his age.As a literary critic,he made wonderful comments on many writers.Of the so-called “wonderful”,spleen is a part of that.He disparaged writers of his age,even his teachers and friends,whereas,making many enemies.Many writers of his age can't treat and evaluate Hazlitt with a relatively speaking neutral point of view.It's understandable that he couldn't get the position and glory that he deserved.Studying his relation with other writers of his age enable us to know Hazlitt better and reevaluate his historical position and influence.In Lectures on the English Poets,besides of making comments on poetry in general,Hazlitt reviewed a series of English poets,including Chaucer,Spenser,Milton,Shakespeare,Dryden,Pope,Swift and some other poets in Hazlitt's time.This chapter makes a detailed introduction of the poets that Hazlitt reviewed and pictures English poetry and poets from another portfolio.As a transitional essayist and literary theorist of the romantic period,William Hazlitt is worth later generations' more attention.His unique insights in many aspects in philosophy,literature and art,bear typical features of the romanticism,and are also of great foresight.His points of view are dispersed in his prose works,the researchers of later generations should make systematic review on them.