Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature

Book excerpt: The present selection of Hazlitt's critical essays has been planned to serve two important purposes. In the first place, it provides the materials for an estimate of the character and scope of Hazlitt's contributions to criticism and so acquaints students with one of the greatest of English critics. And in the second place, what is perhaps more important, such a selection, embodying a series of appreciations of the great English writers, should prove helpful in the college teaching of literature. There is no great critic who by his readableness and comprehensiveness is as well qualified as Hazlitt to aid in bringing home to students the power and the beauty of the essential things in literature. There is, in him, a splendid stimulating energy which has not yet been sufficiently utilized.