Hazlitt and the Reach of Sense

Criticism, Morals, and the Metaphysics of Power

Uttara Natarajan author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:19th Nov '98

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Hazlitt and the Reach of Sense cover

The `only pretension, of which I am tenacious,' declares William Hazlitt in The Plain Speaker, `is that of being a metaphysician'; yet up till now his metaphysics, and particularly what is here identified as his `power principle', have not been examined in detail. This book identifies the metaphysical Hazlitt within the other and better-known Hazlitt, long acknowledged as a master of `the familiar style' and more recently celebrated for the fierceness and intensity of his political prose. Studying his development of the power principle as a counter to the pleasure principle of the Utilitarians, it examines the revelation of power in his philosophy of discourse, his account of imaginative structure, his theory of genius, and his moral theory, and asserts the tenacity of this principle throughout his work. Disseminated through the range of his writings, Hazlitt's metaphysics becomes a metaphysics of power in more senses than one: it is both argument and example, itself manifesting that force of human intellect that it seeks to explicate.

Uttara Natarajan's fine monograph on Hazlitt, Hazlitt and the Reach of Sense: Criticism, Morals and the Metaphysics of Power is a rigorous and scholarly text which examines Hazlitt in relation to the history of ideas. * The Year's Work in English Studies, Vol. 79 *
The book as a whole presents a finely tuned, clearly articulated argument for Hazlitt's consistency as philosopher and critic, remarkable for its erudite and lively engagement with Hazlitt's writings, his contemporary influences, and his critics * John Kandl *

ISBN: 9780198184379

Dimensions: 224mm x 143mm x 17mm

Weight: 406g

224 pages