Attempt the critical appreciation of Charles Lamb's essay 'Dream

Attempt the critical appreciation of Charles Lamb’s essay ‘Dream Children: A Reverie’.

Ans.

‘Dream Children’ is undoubtedly the most penetrating of Lamb’s essays. Though it is written in prone, it can be regarded as one of the best lyrics that were the product of the Romantic Revival in England. It possesses the intense subjectivity, the striking emotion, simplicity and the genuine feeling of a good lyric. Its anguished ending – “We are not of Alice nor of thee, nor are we children at all. “has the piercing quality of what in the lyric is called the lyric cry.”

‘Dream Children is one of the most autobiographical essays of Lamb. Here we are given some actual facts about Lamb’s boyhood, about his elder brother John Lamb, as well as about his grand mother Mrs. Field. There is also mystification in the name of his beloved. It is carefully concealed as Alice W. n, it can be expanded in to Winterton. Yet we know that the name of Lamb’s beloved was actually Ann Simmons.

Lamb’s memory takes us back to those good old days of great grand mother Field, and we are charmed by the wonderful story of that huge mansion with the dream children – Alice and John. As we read the essay further, we can almost see little Lamb roaming about the large lonely rooms gazing at the marble statues of twelve Roman Emperors. This remarkable story telling power of Lamb has fully revealed itself in this essay. The description of his childhood is, of course, true and faithful to Lamb’s usual autobiographical manner of writing essays.

The essay also has a slight tinge of soft melancholy. This givers us the real clue to Lamb’s feelings about marriage and children. This is one of the very few essays of Lamb which are totally devoid of humour.

In fact, even a touch of humour would destroy the spell that Lamb has woven in this reverie or day dream. One can only think how many such reverie Lamb might have really indulged in all his life. Hunter aptly calls this essay as “the wait of a deeply sympathetic keenly loving soul, for whom fate has apportioned solitariness.”

Lamb has achieved great and heart rending pathos in this prose poem. In the end after a long story telling surrounded by happy dream children, Lamb suddenly finds himself seated in his bachelor armchair. Nothing can be more pathetic.

His frustration in love finds expression in his essay ‘Dream Children very beautifully. It is a vision of Lamb’s frustrated life transmuted in the beauty through his creative imagination, a vision of the might have been which leaves the reader hesitating between two conflicting emotions admiration and pity.

Lamb courted the fair Alice for seven long years, in hope some times, some times in despair, yet persisting ever. The most pathetic point of the essay comes when Lamb describes the dream children born to him of Alice. The children gradually recede into the atmospheres saying. “We are not Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call bartrum father. We are nothing, less than nothing; and dreams. We are only what might have been.

“The essay closes with a burst of unutterable anguish! “and immediately awaking; I found myself quietly stated in my bachelor armchair where I had fallen asleep.”