Lectures on the English Poets

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William Hazlitt, Edited by Alfred Rayney Waller and Ernest Rhys
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Title: Lectures on the English Poets
Delivered at the Surrey Institution
Author: William Hazlitt
Editor: Alfred Rayney Waller and Ernest Rhys
Release Date: July 5, 2005 [eBook #16209]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS***
E-text prepared by R. W. Jones >
Transcriber's note: This file was proofed, using a text-to-speech reader,
against the hard copy 2nd. edition
published in 1819.
N o attempt has been made to change
the text of any of
the quoted verse to reflect later
editors' amendments.
Italics are indicated thus. The
footnotes are
serially numbered from the first
to the last Lecture,
unlike in the original.

LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS
Delivered at the Surrey Institution
by
WILLIAM HAZLITT
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY.--ON POETRY IN GENERAL.
LECTURE II.
ON CHAUCER AND SPENSER.
LECTURE III.
ON SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON.
LECTURE IV.
ON DRYDEN AND POPE.
LECTURE V.
ON THOMSON AND COWPER.
LECTURE VI.
ON SWIFT, YOUNG, GRAY, COLLINS &c.
LECTURE VII.
ON BURNS, AND THE OLD ENGLISH
BALLADS.
LECTURE VIII.
ON THE LIVING POETS.
LECTURE I.--INTRODUCTORY
ON POETRY IN GENERAL.
The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is the
natural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting an
involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing, by
sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it.
In treating of poetry, I shall speak first of the subject-matter of it, next
of the forms of expression to which it gives birth, and afterwards of its
connection with harmony of sound.

Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. It relates to
whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind. It
comes home to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing but what
so comes home to them in the most general and intelligible shape, can
be a subject for poetry. Poetry is the universal language which the heart
holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot
have much respect for himself, or for any thing else. It is not a mere
frivolous accomplishment, (as some persons have been led to imagine)
the trifling amusement of a few idle readers or leisure hours--it has
been the study and delight of mankind in all ages. Many people
suppose that poetry is something to be found only in books, contained
in lines of ten syllables, with like endings: but wherever there is a sense
of beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea,
in the growth of a flower that "spreads its sweet leaves to the air, and
dedicates its beauty to the sun,"--there is poetry, in its birth. If history is
a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: its materials lie deeper,
and are spread wider. History treats, for the most part, of the cumbrous
and unwieldly masses of things, the empty cases in which the affairs of
the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue or war, in different
states, and from century to century: but there is no thought or feeling
that can have entered into the mind of man, which he would be eager to
communicate to others, or which they would listen to with delight, that
is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not a branch of authorship: it is "the
stuff of which our life is made." The rest is "mere oblivion," a dead
letter: for all that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it. Fear
is poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry; contempt,
jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness,