Metaphysical Hazlitt: Bicentenary Essays [Paperback]

The rediscovery and restitution of William Hazlitt as a canonical Romantic author has been among the latest and most significant developments in present-day Romantic studies. This volume, a collection of previously unpublished essays by the foremost scholars in the field presents Hazlitt as a philosophical, and not simply a 'familiar' essayist. It offers a comprehensive statement of the significance and transmission of Hazlitt's philosophical principles, in his own work and in that of his contemporaries and succeeding writers. This book is an essential contribution to a vital new aspect of Romantic studies and shows Hazlitt to be, as his memorial claims, 'The first (unanswered) Metaphysician of the age'.This collection of previously unpublished essays is an essential contribution to a vital new aspect of Romantic studies and shows Hazlitt to be, as his memorial claims, 'The first (unanswered) Metaphysician of the age'.Introduction, Uttara Natarajan; Part I Foundations; Chapter 1 Disinterested Imagining and Impersonal Feeling, David Bromwich; Chapter 2 Hazlitt and the Idea of Identity, James Mulvihill; Chapter 3 The Future in the Instant, Philip Davis; Chapter 4 Hazlitt and the Selfishness of Passion, John Whale; Chapter 5 Hazlitt and the Kings of Speech, Paul Hamilton; Part II Influences; Chapter 6 The Road to Nether Stowey, Duncan Wu; Chapter 7 One Impulse, Tom Paulin; Chapter 8 Circle of Sympathy, Uttara Natarajan; Part III Parallels; Chapter 9 Darkening Knowledge, Tim Milnes; Chapter 10 Schelling and Hazlitt on Disinterestedness and Freedom, Frederick Burwick; Chapter 11 A Nature Towards One Another, A.C. Grayling;Uttara Natarajan is Lecturer in English at the Department of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmiths College, University of London, and the author of Hazlitt and the Reach of Sense: Criticism, Morals, and the Metaphysics of Power (1998). >Tom Paulin is G.M. Young Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford and the author of The Dlƒ‡