ABSTRACT

The rediscovery and restitution of William Hazlitt as a canonical Romantic author has been among the latest and most significant developments in present-day Romantic studies. This volume, a collection of previously unpublished essays by the foremost scholars in the field presents Hazlitt as a philosophical, and not simply a 'familiar' essayist. It offers a comprehensive statement of the significance and transmission of Hazlitt's philosophical principles, in his own work and in that of his contemporaries and succeeding writers. This book is an essential contribution to a vital new aspect of Romantic studies and shows Hazlitt to be, as his memorial claims, 'The first (unanswered) Metaphysician of the age'.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

Hazlitt's Essay on the Principles of Human Action – 1805–2005

part I|66 pages

Foundations

chapter 2|13 pages

Hazlitt and the Idea of Identity

chapter 3|13 pages

‘The Future in the Instant’

Hazlitt's Essay and Shakespeare

part II|42 pages

Influences

chapter 6|15 pages

The Road to Nether Stowey

chapter 7|14 pages

One Impulse

Hazlitt, Wordsworth and The Principles of Human Action

chapter 8|11 pages

Circle of Sympathy

Shelley's Hazlitt

part III|37 pages

Parallels

chapter 9|12 pages

‘Darkening Knowledge’

Hazlitt and Bentham on the limits of empiricism

chapter 11|9 pages

‘A Nature Towards One Another’

Hazlitt and the inherent disinterestedness of moral agency