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Unit 16: Hazlitt--On Genius and Common Sense...

Self Assessment Notes
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Hazlitt On Genius and Common Sense appeared in Table talk in
(a) 1821 (b) 1830 (c) 1810 (d) 1825
(ii) ‘The Examiner’ published in
(a) 1819 (b) 1821 (c) 1825 (d) 1820
(iii) Fogle is remarkably disturbed by mention of love and beauty in the final clause of his
outline.
(a) Hazlitt (b) Coleridge (c) Hunt (d) None of these

16.6 Summary
• Hazlitt’s literary tastes are catholic. He read widely and wisely. He knew intimately the
literature of the Elizabethan age. He brought his sympathetic insight into an understanding
of the Restoration drama, admired Pope for his technical virtuosity, and joined no group to
condemn or praise any period in its entirety. Cazamian observed: “he it was who traced the
first roads, marked out the vantage points and gauged the heights on the virgin soil of
Romanticism, and almost in every case his literary judgment remains that of today; he
anticipates the future, and sees with the eyes of posterity”.His remarks on Shakespeare,
Pope, Burns, and Coleridge show his understanding and estimate of the nature of genius.
• Hazlitt’s literary criticism is at times a “prodigious variation” on the subject. He continues to
say, without being tired, what poetry is and what it is not in his Lectures on English Poets.
At other times he reveals a peculiar attitude exemplified in his treatment of specific texts and
authors.
• Hazlitt’s literary theory is clearly expressed in three essays. These are “On Poetry in General”,
“On Gusto”, and “Why the Arts are not Progressive”. In these essays we find that poetry is
“the language of the imagination and the passions”. In his approach to poetry he sought to
understand “the internal character, the living principle” and to arrive at an acceptable standard
for the “improvement of taste”
• The basic principle he followed as a literary critic was expressed by him thus: “I have
undertaken merely to read over a set of authors with the audience, as I would do with a
friend, to point out a favourite passage, to explain an objection; or of a remark or a theory as
it occurs to state it in illustration of the subject: but neither tire him nor puzzle myself with
pedantic rules and pragmatical formulas of criticism that can do no good to any body.
• 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”.
• Hazlitt wrote an essay “On Familiar Style”. This essay gives us in broad outline the salient
features of Hazlitt’s own style. It is a style which is neither simple, nor ornate, nor grotesque.
It is a familiar style which demands a great effort on the part of the writer because it is not
common or colloquial. If one writes as he likes, it may become a cheap style. The familiar
style is characterised by precision and purity of expression.
• Hazlitt observes that Johnson’s style does not attach significance to discrimination, selection,
or variety in the choice of words. Johnson employs many polysyllabic words derived from
Greek or Latin. A native Englishman would normally use pure Anglo-Saxon word to express
his feelings, emotions, and basic thoughts.
• “Common sense” for Hazlitt is a powerful and firm guide to action. It is the “just result” of
“the sum-total” of the unconscious impressions that constitute experience. Common sense,
then, is accurate human feeling, directly representative of a pure humanity uncontaminated

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