ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the term had a complex relationship to ‘enthusiasm’, especially with regard to William Hazlitt’s writings on religion and his particular hostility to Methodism. Hazlitt’s interpretation of gusto eluded some readers. This is apparent from the ‘flippant censure’ of William Gifford’s detrimental comparison of Hazlitt’s philosophical analysis of the arts with that of Addison. In Hazlitt’s writings, the terms gusto and enthusiasm are generally conceptually distinct, his more positively connotated ‘gusto’ largely distanced from the pejorative associations of enthusiasm. Hazlitt’s explicit definition of gusto with reference to the expressive arts, as ‘the power or passion defining any object’, denotes the passion invested in creative expression that invites a reciprocal response, and, in a kind of inspired fusion of production and reception, represents an intimate relationship of connection and engagement. Hazlitt’s early exposure to pulpit rhetoric would undoubtedly have shaped his own lecturing style. Hazlitt was to express admiration for the combative spirit of Dissent in public debate.
