The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lectures on the English Poets, by William
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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 <rwj@freeshell.org>

Transcriber's note: This file was proofed, using a text-to-speech reader,
against the hard copy 2nd. edition published in 1819.
No 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