William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt ( born April 10, 1778 in Maidstone, † September 18, 1830 in London ) was an English essayist and writer.
Hazlitt was the son of a Unitarian clergyman. The painter John and Peggy Hazlitt Hazlitt were his siblings. His father moved in 1780 with his family to Bandon, County Cork, and three years later in the United States. There he founded, inter alia, in Boston, the First Unitarian Church.
Hazlitt 1787 came with his family returned to Britain and settled in Wem, Shropshire. At the request of Father Hazlitt theology should study this and he tried at Hackney College in London. After a year Hazlitt abandoned his studies and tried an artistic education in Paris. This he broke off in favor of literature. His brother John was now in Sir Joshua Reynolds in training.
Back in London, he soon made himself a name in the Romantics. With Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, he made friends. Even with the siblings Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb, he made acquaintance. 1808 Hazlitt married Sarah Stoddart at age 30, a close friend of the siblings Lamb. Through this marriage was John Stoddart, editor of The Times his brother in law. Hazlitt settled with his wife in Winterslow, Salisbury.
From 1812 Hazlitt was mainly working as an essayist for various newspapers and magazines including The Times and the Edinburgh Review. While he was a successful career, there were increasing problems in his marriage. 1819 separated from Sarah Hazlitt, 1822, the marriage was finally divorced.
In 1820, Hazlitt lived in a small house in London and had an affair with the 19- year-old daughter of the house, Sarah Walker. He hoped to marry after his divorce, but was rejected. Disappointed, he anonymously published a little veiled account of his love for Sarah Walker under the title Liber Amoris. His authorship was not a secret for long. It came to the scandal and his journalistic career was over.
In 1824 he married a second time, and though Isabella Bridgwater, born in Shaw, but he never mentioned in any of his works.
Impoverished and lonely William Hazlitt died on 18 September 1830 in London and found his final resting place in the cemetery of St. Anne in Soho.
Especially his essays established the fame Hazlitt. You comment and reflect genuine spirit of the times and mostly have not lost to this day important.
Works
- The Characters of Shakespeare's Plays ( 1817)
- The Round Table ( 1817)
- A view of the English stage (1818 )
- Lectures on the English Poets (1818 )
- Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819 )
- Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820 ) t
- Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion (1823 )
- The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits (1825 )
- The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, London, undated ( digitized: Vol 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)