My First Acquaintance With Poets 1823

by William Hazlitt

46 pages, Hardcover

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
William^Hazlitt

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell, but his work is currently little-read and mostly out of print. During his lifetime, he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon, including Charles and Mary Lamb, Stendhal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

Hazlitt was the son of the Unitarian minister and writer, William Hazlitt, who greatly influenced his work. Hazlitt's son, also called William Hazlitt, and grandson, William Carew Hazlitt, were also writers.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.

Reviews

[Olivia McQ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun, but all I can imagine is Hazlitt writing this and adding his little passive-aggressive comments in - he comes across with equal amounts of admiration and sarcasm, which makes for a very fun experience of deducing how much of this is actually to be taken seriously/what he actually thought. Also my man LOVES a synonym.

‘On this occasion Coleridge spoke of Virgil’s Georgics, but not well. I do not think he had much feeling for the classical or elegant.’ looooooool

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reflections of meeting a handful of poets, how they changed his views on life and the literary work. Often very boring but a short read.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite dull. He occasionally and protentiously writes in French, for no apparent reason. Educated ponce.