William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) was an English essayist, literary critic, and social commentator closely associated with the Romantic era. Born in Maidstone, Kent, he was raised in a dissenting family and studied at Hackney College. After an early attempt at painting, he turned to writing and became one of the leading prose stylists of his time. Hazlitt wrote influential criticism on Shakespeare and contemporary poets, and he championed figures such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge while later criticizing their political shifts. His major works include *Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays* (1817) and *The Spirit of the Age* (1825). He died in London.