To call the Romantic period a rich and innovative time for poets would be an understatement. Really, it was a groundbreaking time for writers in general. Such a fact is seen clearly in Hazlitt's essays, who S.T. Coleridge called more than any man he knew “his own in a way of his own—and often times when the synovial juice has come out and spread over his joints he will gallop for half an hour together with real eloquence." Hazlitt made a career of breaking taboos and changing the ways in which one could write for a public audience. He chose subject matters that were controversial and often presented them in ways that were so visceral it was if the words became reality. These essays, because they share a common link of originality and bold vision, have a great way of feeding off of each other. In his more doctrinaire 1817 piece “On Gusto,” Hazlitt describes his central topic as “power or passion defining any object," and then goes on to illustrate pieces of art that both come short of and fulfill this definition. In his 1822 essay “The Fight,” Hazlitt’s method is far different, as instead of prescribing he is describing. Yet his vivid report of a bare-knuckle boxing fight is such a visceral and powerful read that one cannot help but see it as a fulfillment of his idea of gusto. Because bare-knuckle boxing was at the time “not only illegal, but vulgar," Hazlitt’s virtuoso report comes across as all the more innovative. Yet perhaps its real brilliance comes in the way that it serves as a personal answer to his theory on gusto. By offering a definition of this idea followed by concrete examples, and then cementing it with his own report on bare-knuckle boxing, Hazlitt truly fulfills his notion of gusto. The idea of gusto almost anticipates the miracle of cinema, while his essay "The Fight" is arguably a movie in a different medium.
After defining gusto, Hazlitt goes on to offer a myriad
of examples of what it is and is not. The principle behind it, besides the
aforementioned definition, is that a work of art with gusto does not require
imagination. It should possess so much power and realism that one feels that
the art is actually real. He offers the paintings of Titian as an example,
arguing that his use of flesh “seems sensitive and alive all over—not merely to
have the look and texture of flesh, but the feeling in itself." Rather
than requiring the viewer to imagine that the flesh is real, it possesses the
energy and exactness of the thing itself. And an important aspect of art with
gusto requires is that it very little of the beholder because they do not have
strain their mind to consider how the art might be a representation of reality.
Rather, it creates the illusion that it is
reality. Contrary to paintings with gusto are works of art produced “without
passion, with indifference" such as that of Van Dyck, or those that are
too artificial, like Rubens, who “makes his flesh color like flowers." Hazlitt
is in not trying to demean these works that lack gusto, but merely trying to
present them to more clearly define and differentiate the works that do possess
this grand quality. His lack of prejudice comes through when he calls Claude’s
landscapes “perfect,” yet lacking gusto because, for example, his trees are
“perfectly beautiful, but quite immovable—they have a look of enchantment." A final point, or rather an extension, on the theory of gusto is that
being capturing reality, the art becomes tangible. Hazlitt cites Rembrandt as
an example of this: “If he puts a diamond in the ear of a burgomaster’s wife,
it is of the first water—and his furs and stuffs are proof a Russian winter." By defining his terms and offering plenty of examples to prove his
point, Hazlitt has followed a fairly traditional method of proving a very bold
and original idea.
While On Gusto
utilized chiefly art and sculpture as illustrations, Hazlitt’s essay The Fight demonstrates the way this idea
can be found in writing. It is certainly a greater challenge to produce gusto
through the written word seeing as it is not a visual art, and yet through his
vivid descriptions, as well as the structuring of the essay, Hazlitt manages to
do just that. While the chief point of the essay is to report on the boxing
match between Tom ‘The Gas-Man’ Hickman and Bill Neate, Hazlitt ends up
spending more time cataloguing the surrounding events and the different people
he comes in contact with. While his visceral description of the bloody fight is
the greatest example of gusto in the essay, it is the detailed reporting of
other events and people he encounters that give the piece its realism and
innovative quality. While a normal report might simply describe the fight,
Hazlitt wants to give the reader a complete experience of what it is like to
attend a bare-knuckle boxing match. Hence, rather than feeling like a distant
observer, Hazlitt’s obsessive attention to detail makes the reader feel as if they are in his shoes.
The first section of Hazlitt’s essay concerns his attempt
to actually make it to the scene of the fight (because they were illegal, they
were often held many miles outside of town). After missing the coach, Hazlitt
is dejected, lamenting that if he “had not stayed to pour out that last cup of
tea” (784), he would have caught his transportation. Then, by luck, another
coach coasts up behind him, and after concluding that “even a Brentford stage
was better than my own thoughts” (784) he hops aboard the top of it. Though he
has a lousy seat, and there was a “Scotch mist drizzling through the air,”
Hazlitt describes himself as feeling “warm and comfortable” when normally
in such a situation he would be irritated and restless. These details might
seem a bit extraneous, yet they’re vital to the effect of the essay. Not only
do they offer details normally one would never get in a magazine report, but
they give the essay a sense of psychological realism. Because he is able to anticipate
the fight (which he previously revealed as his first fight, what would typically be a terrible experience
aboard a coach suddenly becomes a good one. In turn, this heightens the
reader’s own eagerness to encounter the fight. It is gusto in that one can feel
what Hazlitt is feeling: the bumpy ride, the mist, and the fever.
Despite occasionally offering random, unrelated anecdotes
or personal opinions (“I cannot deny that one learns more of what is in this
desultory mode of practical study, than from reading the same book twice over,”
785), Hazlitt structures the essay in such a way that he never veers too far
away from the subject of the fight. This comes not just in the event itself,
but in instances as when he describes the training regimens of the fighters or the importance of modesty and how it “should accompany the Fancy as its shadow” (789). Why does
Hazlitt structure the essay this way? Perhaps it is because it mirrors his own
experience of the event: “We talked of this and that, roving and sipping of
many subjects, but still invariably we returned to the fight." A dull
report will focus merely on one thing, but a report with gusto captures the
experience as it is lived by the spectator. This includes random events, people,
and tangents that will inevitably surround the object of focus.
The real visceral impact of the essay comes though on the
day of the fight, when Hazlitt puts his theory of gusto to vivid use. He first
of all brings the scene to life by describing the crowd: Open carriages were
coming up, with streamers flying and music playing, and the country-people were
pouring in over hedge and ditch in all directions, to see their hero be beat or
be beaten." He describes the bets, and how because of his egoism few
wished for the Gas-Man to win but for those who had put money on him; he
describes the physical atmosphere, how most of the grass was dead, but that the
boxing ring had a fresh layer “that shone with dazzling brightness in the
midday sun” and he describes the sickening, nervous feeling of the
spectator enduring that final hour before the fight commences. The effect
of this detailed reporting seems to be the same as that of the paintings of
Rembrandt or Titian. Though we are merely reading words, just as with the
artwork we are merely looking at paint on canvas, there is enough power and
passion in the presentation as to make it seem physically present to us. This
comes to complete fruition in Hazlitt’s spectacular description of the fight
itself. Sentences like “all one side of his face was perfect scarlet, and his
right eye was closed in dingy blackness, as he advanced to the fight, less
confident, but still determined” and “to see two men smashed to the
ground, smeared with gore, stunned, senseless, the breath beaten out of their
bodies; and then to see them rise up with new strength and courage, and rush
upon each other ‘like two clouds over the Caspian’—this is the most astonishing
thing of all” truly take the reader into the scene of the battle. The
energy is not just read, but felt.
Gusto
is not a terribly complex or philosophical idea, and in its emphasis on feeling
and passion it is almost the antithesis of intellectual thought. And yet the
importance of the idea is that it lies in a very distinct type of art that
requires a very special craft in order to succeed. That particular craft
existed long before Hazlitt’s time, yet his innovation comes in defining the
term and, more importantly, incorporating it into his own work. It is all the
more impressive considering the strict nature magazine reporting during the 19th
century. Hazlitt’s work today still comes across with a visceral impact, but to
read it in his day would be to experience a writer who was almost unhinged
compared to the norms of the time. He is not just ambitious, but fearless.
Now consider how Hazlitt's idea of gusto and his electric essay on fighting might indicate a born filmmaker. I recommend reading "The Fight" in full to really get a good sense of how it's particularly cinematic, yet hopefully I've given at least a glimpse of how it fulfills this notion. I believe had Hazlitt been born in the 20th century, he would have made some amazing motion pictures.
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