Essays and Sketches (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

Author: Leigh Hunt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781330467534
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Excerpt from Essays and Sketches Although, perhaps, most generally known as the good friend of greater men, Leigh Hunt had an important influence on his generation, and cannot be summarily dismissed as a mere reflection of others. The occupation, and the purpose, of his life may be summed up in his own words of the paper he edited for so many years, to the permanent advantage of the Press - 'to assist in producing a fusion of literary tastes into all subjects whatever.' His politics were honest and enlightened; his moral teaching, if somewhat sentimental, was courageously sincere; he established theatrical criticism in England. But his greatest and most lasting contribution to literature was an appreciation of good books and great writers far more catholic and sympathetic than much of our brilliant or scholarly criticism. Lamb, Hazlitt, and Coleridge (among his contemporaries) worked with rare insight over certain fields; but their limitations and prejudices are obvious. Leigh Hunt's distinction is universality. He never missed a good thing, ancient or modern. He insisted, again and again, on the beauty (then entirely neglected) of Chaucer and the old ballads, on the superiority of Shakespeare over the 'improvements' of Dryden and his peers, on the forgotten music of Spenser's verse. He defended Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth against the scurrilous attacks of 'established' criticism, and many a less robust genius owed its birth and development to his generous encouragement. He lived to recommend Tennyson for the Laureateship, and to welcome, with rare insight, the Paracelsus and other 'difficult' poems of Robert Browning. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.