'Not Intense, But Discursive'

Good writers can rehabilitate a word, reclaim it for a respectable second life. Such a word is gusto, once the property of Madison Avenue. I associate it with a beer commercial from the 1970’s. It suggested faux-heartiness and steroidal masculinity. It was a word impossible to use with a straight face. William Hazlitt set me straight. In “On Gusto,” he attaches the word most often to painters. Titian and Rembrandt had it; Rubens, less so. He associates gusto with two writers, and who can argue with him?

“The infinite quantity of dramatic invention in Shakespeare takes from his gusto. The power he delights to show is not intense, but discursive. He never insists on any thing as much as he might, except a quibble. Milton has great gusto. He repeats his blow twice, grapples with and exhausts his subject. His imagination has a double relish of its objects, an inveterate attachment to the things he describes, and to the words describing them.”

The OED gives “keen relish or enjoyment displayed in speech or action; zest [another Madison-Avenue-tainted word].” It’s from the Latin gustare, “to taste.” Thus, de gustibus non est disputandum. Gusto in prose suggests energy, passion, excitement – but contained, not gushing. Gusto is best expressed concisely. It’s an extravagant quality that counters extravagance, and the best example I can give is Hazlitt at his best:

“We may eat a mutton-chop without complaining, though we should consider a haunch of venison as a greater luxury if we had it. Again in travelling abroad, the mind acquires a restless and vagabond habit. There is more of hurry and novelty, but less of sincerity and certainty in our pursuits than at home. We snatch hasty glances of a great variety of things but want some central point of view. After making the grand tour, and seeing the finest sights in the world, we are glad to come back at last to our native place and our own fireside. Our associations with it are the most steadfast and habitual, we there feel most at home and at our ease . . .”

Hazlitt was born on this date, April 10, in 1778, and is one of the supreme writers of prose in the language, despite being a sometimes rather silly man.