The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style

In The Day-Star of Liberty, Tom Paulin sets out to place William Hazlitt-master of the essay form, the first major art and drama critic, and one of the most outstanding political and literary journalists Britain has ever produced-in his rightful position as a great prose writer and an exemplary literary artist. Not only are the importance of Hazlitt's Irish background and the significance of the Unitarian culture in which he was brought up central to this portrait but the sheer intellectual joy that is evident in Hazlitt's writing and that he wished his readers to share is communicated with comparable energy and relish through Paulin's own prose. A work of critical restitution, The Day-Star of Liberty restores an unjustly neglected figure to the literary canon and shows the means by which Hazlitt's creative genius transformed journalism and criticism into art forms, making it possible for Hazlitt's collected works to be read as one of the great Romantic autobiographies.

16 Pages of Black-and-White Art Notes/Bibliography/Index

Tom Paulin was born in Leeds, England, in 1949. He is the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford University.