Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (Cambridge Library Collection - Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama) - Softcover

Hazlitt, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108005292 ISBN 13: 9781108005296

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

The critic, essayist and painter William Hazlitt (1778–1830) published and lectured widely on English literature, from Elizabethan drama to reviews of the latest work of his own time. His first extended work of literary criticism was Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, published in 1817. This volume from 1908 takes the text of the first edition and adds notes explaining complex terms to readers and an introduction by J. H. Lobban, a lecturer in English at Birkbeck College. As such it is the ideal introduction to Hazlitt's criticism. Hazlitt's political view of Shakespeare drew the ire of the Tory Quarterly review, whose hostile review destroyed sales of the second edition. The work remains of value, however, both as a contribution to the study of Shakespeare and, as with all of Hazlitt's prose, as a model of an elegant, persuasive essay.

About this title

Book Description:

Hazlitt's lively, opinionated and, in his own time, highly controversial essays on each of Shakespeare's plays are reprinted here with notes. His first full-length work of literary criticism, the book was first published in 1817.

About the Author:

William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as an art critic, drama critic, social commentator, and philosopher. He was also a painter. 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. Yet 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1108005292
• ISBN 13: 9781108005296
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Lobban J. H.