Esta tese procura analisar a obra do ensaísta e crítico inglês William Hazlitt (1778-1830) a partir de um conjunto de imagens que vinculam as diferentes etapas envolvidas durante o ato de confecção do ensaio crítico e literário aos acidentes topográficos e à textura do solo, expressos no arquétipo recorrente do autor, ao résdo- chão. Pela análise interna de texto e do exercício de leitura, perseguimos as passagens em que Hazlitt reflete sobre seu próprio metiê. A defesa do ensaio como forma de arte coloca-lhe a exigência de um altíssimo grau de elaboração que o aproxima, por analogia, à crítica inventiva e a outras formas de arte. Nesse sentido, o estudo desses elementos formais foi indispensável à pesquisa também nos foi de grande valia o exame de alguns aspectos históricos e culturais, como o chamado Romantismo Inglês. Nos interessou, sobretudo, aquilo que definimos como atitudes mentais próprias do ensaísta, experimentadas e vividas por Hazlitt com intensidade, a saber: o retratista, o amigo e o adversário. Desse modo, cada um dos três capítulos desta tese pretende cobrir uma dessas atitudes. No primeiro capítulo, sobre o retratista e o estágio inicial de confecção do ensaio (a inspiração), acompanhamos o autor em suas peregrinações juvenis na leitura cerrada de algumas passagens de dois ensaios em que ele narra a sua experiência de conversão ao mundo das artes, My First Acquaintance with Poets e On the Pleasure of Painting, e no modo como os retratos literários que escreveu de Jean-Jacques Rousseau e de Edmund Burke, seus legítimos precursores, apontaram a ele os caminhos para uma crítica inventiva. No segundo capítulo, sobre a atitude do amigo e a leitura, encontramos Hazlitt ora na solidão de seu quarto, mastigando os pensamentos, ora em companhia de pessoas próximas. Intimidade e convivência são os ingredientes chaves para essa etapa do trabalho. Para Hazlitt, a escrita de ensaio envolve um convite cordial ao leitor, com o qual o ensaísta espera dividir amigavelmente a sua tarefa. No terceiro capítulo, sobre a escrita, investigamos o papel do ensaísta como agente das transformações sociais, própria à atitude do adversário. O ensaio se apresenta como espaço privilegiado onde se travam lutas com ideias e se disputa uma causa; o ensaísta, por sua vez, se apresenta como o homem das ruas (man-about-town), cujas andanças pela metrópole londrina e convivência com os homens, sobretudo aqueles pertencentes às classes baixas, permitiu-lhe combinar à elegância do ensaísta os momentos combativos e ousados de prosa. / This thesis analyzes the works of the English essayist and critic William Hazlitt (1778-1830) from a body of images that binds the different stages involved in the craft of the critical and literary essay to topographical accidents and the texture of the soil, as expressed in the author recurrent archetype on the plain-ground. My point of departure was the internal analysis of texts and close reading of certain passages where Hazlitt reflects on his own metier. The claims he makes in that essay is an art form required from him a high standard of formal elaboration that analogically approaches the literary essay and inventive criticism to other art forms. Thus, a careful examination of these formal elements was indispensable for this study. Moreover, some historical and cultural aspects that encompass Hazlitt and his time, the so called British Romanticism, were also part of my analysis, inasmuch as the author brings them to bear in his writings, and according to what I have conceptualized as mental attitudes proper to the essayist. In my understanding, three are the essayists attitudes as intensely experienced by Hazlitt, namely, the portraitist, the friend, and the adversary. Therefore, each of the three chapters in this dissertation aims at unveiling one of these mental attitudes. In the first chapter, on the portraitist attitude and the first stage in the making of the essay (the insight), I have followed Hazlitt during his youthful pilgrimages from an analysis of a few emblems pertaining in My First Acquaintance with Poets and On The Pleasure of Painting, where he narrates his moment of conversion to a world of art. Furthermore, I have linked these essays to the literary portraits Hazlitt traced of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke, his genuine precursors, in order to understanding the paths along which he was initiated into inventive criticism. In the second chapter, on the friend mental attitude, we find Hazlitt by the fireside, either in the solitude of a room of his own, chewing his thoughts, or in the company of close friends. Intimacy and conviviality are the key ingredients to this stage in the craft of the essay (reading). According to Hazlitt, the writing of essays requires a cordial invitation to readers, with whom the essayist hopes to share his task in a friendly way. In the third chapter, on writing itself, I have inquired into the role of the essayist as an agent of social changes, a mental attitude suitable to the adversary. The essay presents itself as a privileged place where the writer struggles with the world and disputes a cause; and the essayist as the man-about-town, whose rambles in the streets of the metropolis and conviviality with the people, particularly those belonging to lower classes, enabled Hazlitt to combine the sustained and controlled rhythms of the polite culture of the essayist with strenuously argumentative, emphatic speeches.

Esta tese procura analisar a obra do ensaísta e crítico inglês William Hazlitt (1778-1830) a partir de um conjunto de imagens que vinculam as diferentes etapas envolvidas durante o ato de confecção do ensaio crítico e literário aos acidentes topográficos e à textura do solo, expressos no arquétipo recorrente do autor, ao résdo- chão. Pela análise interna de texto e do exercício de leitura, perseguimos as passagens em que Hazlitt reflete sobre seu próprio metiê. A defesa do ensaio como forma de arte coloca-lhe a exigência de um altíssimo grau de elaboração que o aproxima, por analogia, à crítica inventiva e a outras formas de arte. Nesse sentido, o estudo desses elementos formais foi indispensável à pesquisa também nos foi de grande valia o exame de alguns aspectos históricos e culturais, como o chamado Romantismo Inglês. Nos interessou, sobretudo, aquilo que definimos como atitudes mentais próprias do ensaísta, experimentadas e vividas por Hazlitt com intensidade, a saber: o retratista, o amigo e o adversário. Desse modo, cada um dos três capítulos desta tese pretende cobrir uma dessas atitudes. No primeiro capítulo, sobre o retratista e o estágio inicial de confecção do ensaio (a inspiração), acompanhamos o autor em suas peregrinações juvenis na leitura cerrada de algumas passagens de dois ensaios em que ele narra a sua experiência de conversão ao mundo das artes, My First Acquaintance with Poets e On the Pleasure of Painting, e no modo como os retratos literários que escreveu de Jean-Jacques Rousseau e de Edmund Burke, seus legítimos precursores, apontaram a ele os caminhos para uma crítica inventiva. No segundo capítulo, sobre a atitude do amigo e a leitura, encontramos Hazlitt ora na solidão de seu quarto, mastigando os pensamentos, ora em companhia de pessoas próximas. Intimidade e convivência são os ingredientes chaves para essa etapa do trabalho. Para Hazlitt, a escrita de ensaio envolve um convite cordial ao leitor, com o qual o ensaísta espera dividir amigavelmente a sua tarefa. No terceiro capítulo, sobre a escrita, investigamos o papel do ensaísta como agente das transformações sociais, própria à atitude do adversário. O ensaio se apresenta como espaço privilegiado onde se travam lutas com ideias e se disputa uma causa; o ensaísta, por sua vez, se apresenta como o homem das ruas (man-about-town), cujas andanças pela metrópole londrina e convivência com os homens, sobretudo aqueles pertencentes às classes baixas, permitiu-lhe combinar à elegância do ensaísta os momentos combativos e ousados de prosa. / This thesis analyzes the works of the English essayist and critic William Hazlitt (1778-1830) from a body of images that binds the different stages involved in the craft of the critical and literary essay to topographical accidents and the texture of the soil, as expressed in the author recurrent archetype on the plain-ground. My point of departure was the internal analysis of texts and close reading of certain passages where Hazlitt reflects on his own metier. The claims he makes in that essay is an art form required from him a high standard of formal elaboration that analogically approaches the literary essay and inventive criticism to other art forms. Thus, a careful examination of these formal elements was indispensable for this study. Moreover, some historical and cultural aspects that encompass Hazlitt and his time, the so called British Romanticism, were also part of my analysis, inasmuch as the author brings them to bear in his writings, and according to what I have conceptualized as mental attitudes proper to the essayist. In my understanding, three are the essayists attitudes as intensely experienced by Hazlitt, namely, the portraitist, the friend, and the adversary. Therefore, each of the three chapters in this dissertation aims at unveiling one of these mental attitudes. In the first chapter, on the portraitist attitude and the first stage in the making of the essay (the insight), I have followed Hazlitt during his youthful pilgrimages from an analysis of a few emblems pertaining in My First Acquaintance with Poets and On The Pleasure of Painting, where he narrates his moment of conversion to a world of art. Furthermore, I have linked these essays to the literary portraits Hazlitt traced of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke, his genuine precursors, in order to understanding the paths along which he was initiated into inventive criticism. In the second chapter, on the friend mental attitude, we find Hazlitt by the fireside, either in the solitude of a room of his own, chewing his thoughts, or in the company of close friends. Intimacy and conviviality are the key ingredients to this stage in the craft of the essay (reading). According to Hazlitt, the writing of essays requires a cordial invitation to readers, with whom the essayist hopes to share his task in a friendly way. In the third chapter, on writing itself, I have inquired into the role of the essayist as an agent of social changes, a mental attitude suitable to the adversary. The essay presents itself as a privileged place where the writer struggles with the world and disputes a cause; and the essayist as the man-about-town, whose rambles in the streets of the metropolis and conviviality with the people, particularly those belonging to lower classes, enabled Hazlitt to combine the sustained and controlled rhythms of the polite culture of the essayist with strenuously argumentative, emphatic speeches.

The late eighteenth century marks an era where authors began forging identities that rebuffed the influences of the local communities to which they belonged. As literacy increased, so too did the notion of individuality, as members of the middle and lower orders soon saw themselves as separate, independent beings. The crowd, of course, helped simplify the management of complex emotions like anger through mutual demonstration; the greater number of participants in a protest, the more fitting the sense of indignation seemed to be. For cases of personal anger, however, the suitability and expression of the emotion were problematic, especially for those marginalized by gender, status, and political affiliations. While polite society deemed their anger unwarranted, odious, and threatening, subaltern authors simultaneously realized that the continued denial of the passion would cripple individual and artistic development, but excessive expression would yield further ridicule and ostracism. Anger, therefore, stimulated these authors to discover their actual worth as artists and individuals and carve unique identities that completely disregarded the restrictive characterizations assigned by a hierarchical society. Nevertheless, anger’s volatility meant that discovering oneself from a passion commonly represented as a moment “when we are not ourselves” was a particularly precarious endeavor since righteous indignation could quickly ignite into a mindless, destructive rage. Subaltern authors needed to authenticate the legitimacy of their anger to not only a largely unsympathetic audience, but also themselves, and the apparent foreignness of rage created confusion over the passion’s exact relation to the individual; anger is frequently emblematized in contradictions—internal vs. external, activity vs. passivity, sanity vs. insanity, reality vs. fantasy—to emphasize its deceptive fluidity. As this study argues, anger was fundamental to marginalized figures in achieving selfhood, but the passion’s overall instability and the objection by hierarchical society encouraged a literary treatment that was cautious, unique, and at times, clandestine.

Contemporary scholarship has seen increasing interest in the study of elegy. The present work attempts to elevate and expand discussions of death and survival beyond the ambit of elegy to a more genre-inclusive and ethically sensitive survey of Romantic posthumous life writings. Combining an ethic of remembrance founded on mutual fulfilment and reciprocal care with the Romantic tendency to hybridise different genres of mourning and commemoration, the study re- conceives 'posthumous life' as the 'inexhaustible' product of endless collaboration between the dead, the dying and the living. This thesis looks to the philosophical meditations of Francis Bacon, John Locke and Emmanuel Levinas for an ethical framework of human protection, fulfilment and preservation. In an effort to locate the origin of posthumous life writing, the first chapter examines the philosophical context in which different genres and media of commemoration emerged in the eighteenth century. Accordingly, it will commence with a survey of Enlightenment attitudes toward posthumous sympathy and the threat of death. The second part of the chapter turns to the tangled histories of epitaph, biography, portraiture, sepulchre and elegy in the writings of Samuel Johnson, Henry Kett, Vicesimus Knox, William Godwin and William Wordsworth. The Romantic culture of mourning and commemoration inherits the intellectual and generic legacies of the Enlightenment. Hence, Chapter Two will try to uncover the complex generic and formal crossovers between epitaph, extempore, effusion, elegy and biography in Wordsworth's 'Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg' (1835-7) and his 'Epitaph' (1835-7) for Charles Lamb. However, the chapter also recognises the ethical repercussions of Wordsworth's inadequate, even mortifying, treatment of a fellow woman writer in his otherwise successful expression of ethical remembrance. To address the problem of gender in Romantic memorialisation, Chapter Three will take a close look at Letitia Elizabeth Landon' s reply to Wordsworth's incompetent defence of Felicia Hemans. Mediating the ambitions and anxieties of her subject, as well as her public image and private pain, 'Felicia Hemans' (1838) is an audacious composite of autograph, epitaph, elegy, corrective biography and visual portraiture. The two closing chapters respond to Thomas Carlyle's outspoken confidence in 'Portraits and Letters' as indispensable aids to biographies. Chapter Four identifies a tentative connection between the aesthetic of visual portraiture and the ethic of life writing. To demonstrate the convergence of both artistic and humane principles, this cross-media analysis will first evaluate Sir Joshua Reynolds's memoirs of his deceased friends. Then, it will compare Wordsworth's and Hemans's verse reflections on the commemorative power and limitation of iconography. The last chapter assesses the role of private correspondence in the continuation of familiar relation and reciprocal support. Landon's dramatic enactment of a 'feminine Robinson Crusoe' in her letters from Africa urges the unbroken offering of service and remembrance to a fallen friend through posthumous correspondence. The concluding section will consider the ethical implications for the belated memorials and services furnished by friends and colleagues in the wake of her death.