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Prose

Notes formulas of criticism that can do no good to any body. I do not come to the task with a pair of
compasses or a ruler in my pocket to see whether a poem is round or squre, or to measure its
mechanical dimensions, like a metre. In a word, I have endeavoured to feel what is good and to
give a reason for the faith that was in me, when necessary and when in my power. This is what I
have done and what I must continue to do”. He attempted to see how far ad in what way he could
justify the impressions he received from the literary texts. Always alive to the significance of
situation, character, phrase,or word, he tried to rationalise his judgements. Starting with an
assumption that life and literature form an organic whole, he gave an account of the critical
intelligence in the essays “On the Conversation of Authors” and “On the Ignorance of the Learned”.
This account is ably illustrated by appropriate texts. Thus we have an individualistic criticism
which breathes his feelings, intuitions, and imagination.
Yet Hazlitt’s conclusions are not sporadic utterances of a lay mind. They were based on long and
repeated encounters with the great work of literature; and they were ably reasoned out. Even if he
condemns Sidney’s Arcadia as being perverse, he gives his reasons.
His central theory appears in the essay “Thoughts on Taste” There we read: “Genius is the power
of producing excellence; taste is the power of perceiving the excellence thus produced in its
several sorts and degrees, with all their force of refinement, distinctions and connections. In other
words, taste is strictly the power of being properly affected by works of genius. It is the
proportioning admiration to power, pleasure to beauty; it is entire sympathy with the fitnest
impulses of imagination, not antipathy, not indifference to them”. The critic must have taste
which is a form empathy. The artist reads human interest, Values, and feelings into his objects;
and the critic reads or finds his values, feelings and interests in the work of art. This explains the
ever-present of gusto of Hazlitt, and also his antipathies. This doctrine of empathy is the foundation
of much criticism that Hazlitt gave. In this criticism we notice his unique admiration for his
authors, and his pleasure and sympathy in defining or describing his experience of the works. The
kind of taste he enunciated is an active reaction of a keen and sensitive mind, and it becomes the
work of genius when he embodies it in words. The resulting criticism is both on expression and a
communication. Though he could not divine the actual nature of the creative process, he was
richly compensated by a fine taste, a vigorous understanding, a disposition to argue coherently,
and a living speech. For example, he observes with tact and with a modulated response born of a
sensitivity, what happened when he met Lamb for the first time: It was at Godwin’s that I met him
with Holcroft and Coleridge, when they were disputing fiercely which was the best–man as he
was,or man as he is to be. ‘Give me’, says Lamb, ‘man as he is not to be’, This saying was the
beginning of a friendship between us, which I believe still continues”. This passage tells us more
about Lamb and Hazlitt than all the works written by them or on them.
Hazlitt was guilty of many errors in his critical evaluations. But these are not many if we remember
that he lived in an age which did not possess any sound textual scholarship as we understand it
today. He was never worried by the sources of a text, for “the play is the thing”.

16.2 Wit, Humour, Irony and Satire

Wit is based on the activity of the intellect. The critical disposition on Hazlitt made him exercise
his wit very powerfully. He speaks of “a conceited fellow.... who talks always and every where on
this subject (Kantean philosophy). He wears the categories round his neck like a pearl-chain; he
plays off the primary and transcendental qualities like rings on his fingers. He talks of the Kantean
system whole he dances: he talks of it while he dines, he talks of it to his children, to his apprentices,
to his customers”. This person displays his knowledge of philosophy every where; and this is a
symptom of an incurable disease. Hazlitt loved philosophy deeply; and yet he wanted philosophy
to keep to its own proper sphere. One should be aware of his limitations. Even this awareness can
be made to look witty. He notes that “Goldsmith consoled himself that there were places where he

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