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"The permanent popularity, now of mythic intensity, of Romeo and Juliet is more than justified," writes eminent scholar Harold Bloom, "since the play is the largest and most persuasive celebration of romantic love in Western literature."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) based his early romantic tragedy on Arthur Brooke's 1562 poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet. Shakespeare's resulting masterpiece, in turn, has inspired countless retellings around the world in mediums that include literature, dance, stage, and screen.

"It is Shakespear all over, and Shakespear when he was young," declares William Hazlitt (1778-1830), acclaimed British essayist and critic, in his exuberant Introduction to this Modern Library edition.

"Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventuríd piteous overthrows, Do with their death bury their parents' strife."
--Prologue
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The 205 new writings by William Hazlitt collected for the first time in this volume provide a fuller picture than has hitherto been available of his career as journalist, particularly his work for the Morning Chronicle, The Times and The Atlas. Newly discovered works include major essays on the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, a defence of Byron and Shelley against charges of immorality, an analysis of the three trials of the Regency publisher and writer William Hone, and a series of reminiscences and anecdotes from Hazlitt's last years. In addition, there are important essays on Napoleon, the Vienna Congress, and on Southey's appointment as Poet Laureate; notices of Edmund Kean, Dora Jordan and Fanny Kemble; reviews of Coleridge's Christabel, Byron's Sardanapalus and Hunt's Rimini; and essays on the fine arts, including exhibitions at the British Institution. Duncan Wu has surveyed all the publications for which Hazlitt wrote, as well as many for which he didn't, to find these neglected works. Each one is edited from its original printed source, prefaced with a detailed explanation of its attribution, and annotations providing information necessary to a full understanding of context and content. The volume also provides a partial bibliography of Hazlitt's journalism. ... Read more

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1930. Hazlitt was an English writer remembered for his humanitarian essays. He was one of the great masters of the miscellaneous essay, displaying a keen intellect, sensibility, and wide scope of interest and knowledge. His best-known work is The Spirit of the Age, a collection of portraits of his contemporaries, including Lamb, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Jeremy Bentham, and Sir Walter Scott. The essays in this volume are divided into the following headings: On Life in General; On Writers and Writing; On Painters and Painting; On Actors and Acting; and Characters. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Gusto In All Things
The essays of William Hazlitt reveal a personality that ranges from a spectrum of an undiluted general antagonism, to one that shares an affinity with nature and art, and to one that insists on the right to be alone.He writes as if his life were discrete chapters with each one emerging as a finely crafted essay.It would be too easy to conclude that his life was absolutely typical of any one essay as one might be tempted to based on, for example, "On the Pleasure of Hating" that his entire existence was given over to misogyny.Rather, the corpus of his essays depicts a man, often in torment, who chose to reveal his feelings of the moment.Whatever demons may have been driving him to write, one quality of character is eternally present--a passion for expression that rings true regardless of the essay topic.

Hazlitt was a man who was reviled by many and he in turn was not bashful about returning the sentiment.As a young man, he was attracted by the promise of liberty of the French Revolution.He was dismayed and disgusted by the turn it took toward bloody excess.Nevertheless, he continued to nostalgically peer backward even as he looked ahead to future and ongoing disappointment.When he first met Wordsworth and Coleridge, he idolized both as lions of liberty.Eventually, they drifted toward conservatism, leaving him fuming at what he saw as no less than rank betrayal.In "My First Acquaintance with Poets," he takes the uncomfortable position of praising them from the vantage of their decade's long drift from liberalism all the while seeming to praise them as elite members of the Romantic pantheon.This essay is one of the very few in which Hazlitt is circumspect in his true feelings. In the majority of his other essays, Hazlitt has no problem venting his spleen on a world that gladly returned that spleen.For those readers who seek to know the source of Hazlitt's general bitterness toward mankind, they need look no further than "On the Pleasure of Hating."Here, he sees hating others as a God-given right, one that is essentially therapeutic in nature.The list of reasons for this hatred is legion, but a common thread was his revulsion toward the inanities of life.He railed against foolish chatter, worn out clichés, and worn out comrades.In "On Going a Journey," Hazlitt shrinks his general hatred of people to those who insist on accompanying him on walks about the country side.The more a chatterbox a traveling companion was, the more Hazlitt felt a deep revulsion toward that one who stood as a barrier between Hazlitt and a healing nature that demanded to be admired in solitude.

When Hazlitt was not reviling others, he could pass comment on what he saw as glaring deficiencies in those others.He chastises the young in "On the Feelings of Immortality in Youth" for their unwarranted optimism that the glory days of their youth shall continue indefinitely.One can sense the scorn he heaps on the young as those who recognize intellectually that time really is the great leveler but they refuse on a visceral level to accept the same rationale.

Hazlitt's penchant for passion is no more evident than in "On Gusto."For Hazlitt, life had little meaning if passion were absent.He discourses on painters, authors, and sculptors who could reach out to grab their audience to make them feel the passion of the moment.In his own writings, Hazlitt could do no less.Whatever the topic happened to be Hazlitt insisted on communicating in a style that combined his own personal sense of gusto with an infallible command of the English language.Words were near holy things to him.There were words which were close to his feeling and those which exactly captured the moment of that feeling.In "On Familiar Style," Hazlitt takes to task an entire generation of writers who insisted on writing at a level that he saw as overly vulgar or florid.Any writer who chose to call himself by that name had an obligation to write on the very highest of levels.Such a writer had to be full of gusto, had to possess the means to express himself clearly and directly, and had the need to do so in peaceful solitude.That the number of writers who could do all three was generally limited to William Hazlitt goes a long way toward explaining why there was so much rancor directed at a man who felt it his bounden duty to reply in the same manner.We honor William Hazlitt today for the very qualities that caused that rancor in the first place.

The spirit of the life
I would recomend this book because Hazlitt is a absolutely expert respect of the people mind and character. After you read to Shakespeare, you must read, by obligation, to William Hazlitt. The clean and wise life it's necesary for a deep spirit. My english seem the most horrible expresion. But the Hazlitt english is the most perfect english. I'm sorry. A good thinking life it's an whole avalaible life. Thank you ... Read more

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While acknowledging the scope of PP Howe's Centenary Edition of Hazlitt's complete works, Duncan Wu is swift to demonstrate the difference in his approach and use of copy texts. Howe took as copy text a set by Waller and Glover published 1902-6, thus perpetuating the minor errors and editorial ideosyncracies of the earlier edition. 'While paying tribute to the work of my predecessors it is an important element in my procedure that neither Howe nor Waller and Glover has provided copy-text at any point; Hazlitt's lifetime editions and manuscripts take priority throughout.' Duncan Wu, Introduction to the edition The new edition takes all copy texts from early printed sources, collated with lifetime editions and manuscripts. We do not claim to supersede Howe, but wish to complement, and supplement, him. The new edition thus succeeds in its aim of providing today's Hazlitt scholars with a selection of highly accurate resource texts, further enhanced by editorial matter from eminent academics.The set is fit to stand alone as a primary resource in any library which does not have an older Hazlitt edition, and also has a place beside Howe as an authoritative, up-to-date collection, indispensable to modern research. Duncan Wu has written a detailed account of the editorial policy in his introduction to the edition, which you can read online- click here to view the introduction. You can also read the reviews of our set on this page, several of which provide a detailed comparison between the Howe and the Pickering sets- click here for reviews. William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was probably the most distinguished of the non-fiction prose writers to emerge from the Romantic period; an associate of Wordsworth and Coleridge, he went on to write some of the greatest essays in the English language. The Spirit of the Age, a collection of contemporary portraits or newspaper profiles, is acknowledged as a critical masterpiece, but a number of his other works - Political Essays, The Plain Speaker, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, A View of the English Stage, The Round Table, Table Talk - have been too long neglected and most of his writings are out of print.Uniquely, Hazlitt brings a knowledge of philosophy, history, drama, politics and the visual arts to his literary criticism. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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The Plain Speaker was the last great original work of William Hazlitt (1778-1830), the finest prose writer of the romantic period.It is written with characteristic passion, and displays his erudition and wit to fine effect in some of his most important essays: "On the Prose-Style of Poets", "On the Conversation of Authors", "On Reason and Imagination", and "On Envy", to name a few.In this selection from the two-volume Plain Speaker, Tom Paulin and Duncan Wu have given priority to essays that address key critical issues both in romantic studies today and the poetics of prose.The volume contains a brilliant introduction to the central themes of the volume by Tom Paulin who reads Hazlitt's improvisatory, intensely physical and tactile prose, along a dazzling line of critical discourse that ranges from Burke to Barthes and Derrida, embracing en route, Lawrence and Hughes, Picasso and Pollock, and Stravinsky.Appended are: the "Advertisement" to the Paris edition of Table Talk in which Hazlitt speaks of combining literary and conversational styles; "A Half-length" portrait by Hazlitt of the Tory politician and reviewer John Wilson Croker, an impassioned piece of writing revealed here to have been of demonstrable importance to Charles Dickens; and another portrait in words, this time of Hazlitt, by John Hamilton Reynolds, the friend of Keats. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Why Paulin Loves Hazlitt
One of the great quotes from Hazlitt says that if something isn't controversial, it isn't interesting. Paulin hates the Brooklyn born land-grabbers because he sees in them the same bigotry and fanaticism that he saw in his fellow Protestants growing up in Belfast. He resents the fact that they are using the bible as a real estate development manual and he resents the notion that some clown from New York can simply get off a plane and claim land that has belonged to local families for generations. As this volume shows, Hazlitt dedicated his life to sparking thought and piercing the pieties of the self righteous. A knitted yarlmuke does not entitle one to the keys to the kingdom. I'm sure Hazlitt (and Paulin!) wouldn't really want them shot; but they would surely wish for them a ticket back to Bensonhurst.

A review of the actual book
Hazlitt is one of the greatest writers of English prose. The Plain Speaker is an essential book and Blackwells have done our culture a service by re-issuing it.

Duncan Wu is a highly-regarded scholar of romanticism. Therefore one can totally rely on the integrity of the text.

Tom Paulin is a foremost authority on Hazlitt and his book The Day-Star of Liberty is also, incidentally, one of the most stimulating books on Edmund Burke of recent times.

Hazlitt's work, sadly, has become obscure even to well-educated readers. It is most regrettable that a 'reviewer' abuses this public platform to mug this fine edition because he is angry at Paulin's intemperate views on Israel. Giving a one-star rating to a great work by one of the finest writers in world literature is surely an inappropriate response.

The best essays in English
One can admire William Hazlitt for his criticism (and I do) but his major contribution, I think, comes in the form of the personal essay, in which he outstrips all other competitors in English. (I don't count Samuel Johnson,since his genre was not really the "personal" essay but ratherthe prudential and moral one.)

This volume, edited by the well-knownRomantic scholar Duncan Wu, includes all the essential Hazlittessays--especially the one I consider most ignored, "The Pleasure ofHating": his masterpiece, I feel. I am still a "young man"(20), and whenever I read these essays I figure Hazlitt had some directconnection to whatever makes youth youth. His writing is perpetuallycontroversial, stormy, eloquent and NEW. ... Read more

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In The Day-Star of Liberty, Tom Paulin sets out to place William Hazlitt-master of the essay form, the first major art and drama critic, and one of the most outstanding political and literary journalists Britain has ever produced-in his rightful position as a great prose writer and an exemplary literary artist. Not only are the importance of Hazlitt's Irish background and the significance of the Unitarian culture in which he was brought up central to this portrait but the sheer intellectual joy that is evident in Hazlitt's writing and that he wished his readers to share is communicated with comparable energy and relish through Paulin's own prose.A work of critical restitution, The Day-Star of Liberty restores an unjustly neglected figure to the literary canon and shows the means by which Hazlitt's creative genius transformed journalism and criticism into art forms, making it possible for Hazlitt's collected works to be read as one of the great Romantic autobiographies.

16 Pages of Black-and-White ArtNotes/Bibliography/Index

Tom Paulin was born in Leeds, England, in 1949. He is the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford University. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more