d. CE 201 - On the Ignorance of the Learned by William Hazlitt
Channel: Ishan Marvel
Date: 2020-10-21

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTSoWRKkWJTYMu6FhrV9JzlNVJaRU4HeI
From 'Reflections from the East and West'

WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830)
* Prominent writer, critic, philosopher and painter of the Romantic Age.
* Known for his 'familiar' essays that dealt with topics ranging from literature to common folk in a conversational and personal tone.
* Went to a theological college in 1793, where he began questioning his Christian faith, and so, he quit the college.
* Moved to London in 1804, where he became acquainted with literary society, and wrote several essays until his death.

ON THE IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED
The present essay has been extracted from 'Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners (1822)
* IRONY: When something happens which is opposite of what was   expected OR When someone's words are saying something, but they mean/feel the opposite.
  SATIRE: Wit mocking human mistakes, political ideas, etc., often through hyperbole, understatement, sarcasm and irony.
* The piece begins with a satirical epigram by Samuel Butler, setting the tone of the rest of the essay.
* Primary theme is to attack bookish knowledge and extol the virtues of common sense.
-- For bookish intellect causes people to lose their spontaneity, power of observation and their capacity for original thought, since they become used to depending on second-hand knowledge borrowed from books.
-- Also, books tend to divorce people from their own senses and emotions since they become bound to hollow words and theories.
-- As a result, such 'learned' people miss out on other art forms like painting         
and music, and simple joys like hunting, fishing, dancing, etc.
* Hazlitt also takes up the country-city divide, whereby he sees formal learning as an urban phenomenon, whereby people become deficient in knowledge of character and practical skills. 
* Meanwhile, the masses are blessed with common sense. Hazlitt argues that the   most sensible people are men of the world and those engaged in business, since they argue from what they have seen and know instead of relying on what they have read or how they believe things ought to be.
* He ends the essay by attributing Shakespeare's genius to his "uneducated mind", claiming that one should read Shakespeare to know human genius, and read his numerous critics and commentators to see the insignificance of intellectual learning.