In the Archives: William Hazlitt, “On Wit and Humour” (1818)

Originally posted on Humor in America:

Tracy Wuster

For this month’s installment of “In the Archives,” we are featuring “On Wit and Humour,” the printed version of a lecture by William Hazlitt, the influential essayist and critic of the nineteenth century.  Hazlitt’s essay was often cited in discussions of humor throughout the century by English and American scholars and humorists.

I have excerpted a few selections below.  For the whole essay, please see the version at the site of Maarten Maartensz, a Dutch philosopher and psychologist, who prepared a corrected version of the text.  His critiques of GoogleBooks and their preparations of texts raises relevant questions about the preparation and use of digital archives.

The first two paragraphs of the essay seem especially important:

On Wit and Humour.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the
only animal that is struck with the difference between what
things…

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