Give your estimate of Charles Lamb as an essayist.

Discuss Lamb as a prince among essayists.

Ans.

Charles Lamb was as one of the greatest essayists of the nineteenth century. As an essayist he occupies a place among the great masters of this genre like Montaigne; Browne, Steele and Addison. He has been rightly called the ‘prince among English essayists. His essays are marked with self revelation, refined humour, heart-touching pathos, and mingling of fact and fiction. To English essay Lamb is what Shakespeare is to English drama, Spenser and Milton are to English poetry, and Fielding and George Eliot are to English fiction. He is the most charming of English essayist. He is poetic in the expression of his feelings.

During his life time Lamb had become so popular that the editor of the London Magazine invited him to write in his periodical regularly. His first essay published in this magazine under the name of Elia was Recollections of the South Sea House. Elia was actually the name of an Italian clerk who worked with Lamb at the South Sea House. Lamb contributed to this magazine till 1825. Later on, he published his essays in book forms- The Essays of Elia and the last Essays of Elia. The Essays of Elia were written in intervals of service and were primarily intended to provide some relief and out let for the expression of the poignant feelings locked up in the heart of the essayist. Lamb’s personal life was one of despair and unhappiness. He wrote the essays to es cape tears and turmoil of life, to gratify himself and to delight his readers.

As a Poetic Artist

Lamb was essentially an artist in the sphere of essay writing. His object was not to preach morality but to give artistic delight to his readers. Most of Lamb’s essays are lyrics in prose. In he concise Cambridge history of English Literature, George Sampson says, “Larab’s finest essays are the nearest of all to poetry not only because they often touch the height where prose eloquence passes into poetry, but because whether grave or gay, reminiscent of personal, they have in some degree the creative imagination which it is the privilege of poetry to possess in full.”

Self-revelation and Personal Note

We can not gather any information about Shakespeare from his works, he was so impersonal. On the contrary, nearly all the essays of Elia reveal the personality and personal life of Charles Lamb. The study of his essays reveals not only the delightful essayist. but also his relatives and friends. If any one wishes to know about the life and circumstances of Lamb, he needs not read any other thing except his essays They are subjective in nature. We know about the boyish Charles in Night Tears and in Christ’s Hospital/ We find the introduction of his family in The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple and Poor Relations. We have glimpses of his official life in the service of East India Company in the south Sea House, The sentimental memories of his early days are presented in Dream Children. Mackrey End in Hertfordshire and Mrs. Battles Opinions give an account of bis youthful experiences. His prejudices and temptations are expressed in imperfect sympathies and The Confessions of a Drunkard. Cazamian has rightly observed, “Lamb’s personality is unique. The essay, a form which pro vides him with his favourite mode of expression becomes in his hand the artificial but precious instrument of a constant self revelation.”

A Confidential Note

A confidential note pervades through the es says of Elia. Lamb takes his readers into his confidence and frankly show them his personal memories, his secret desires, his likes and dislikes, his habits and hobbies, and even his idiosyncrasies. He maintains no distancious from his reader.

Blend of Fact and Fiction

In the essays of Lamb fact and fictions have been very skillfully blended. In fact, Lamb was an imaginative artist and not a factual recorder of events. Though his essays are full of autobiographical references, yet it is not an easy tasks to reconstruct his biography on those bases, as he mingles fiction with facts. For example instead of writing under his own name, he assumed the name of Elia an wrote his essays under that name. Secondly, the students of literature know that the name of his beloved was Ann Simmons but in ‘Dream Children’, he called his beloved by the name of ‘Alice W-n (Winterton). Thirdly, his sister Mary was referred to as ‘Bridget’ in many of his essays. These and many more examples can be cited. Lamb has used these fictitious names to give colour of imagination to the facts of life. To him fact and fiction were equally important and he nicely blended them into one.

Wandering in the Past

The essays of Lamb have the charm of reminiscences. They are retrospective and cast back their glace to the past memories of life. He escapes the present. His thoughts always settle on the past. His essays are excursions into the past and flies away from the realities of life into some dim grove of his imagination fired by the vision of the past.

Blend of Humour and Pathos

Blending of humour and pathos is an important characteristic of Lamb’s essays Nearly all his essays abound in humour and pathos. In the clouds of pathos, humour is just like a silver lining. Lamb’s humour was relief that saved him from the insanity of which his sister was a victim. Allied with his humour is Lamb’s Pathos was inevitable for a man like Lamb whose life was largely affected by melancholy and despair.

Lamb’s Prose Style

Lamb’s prose style is rather old-fashioned, bearing echoes and odour from older writers. A striking feature of Lamb’s style is its allusiveness and use of quotations. He quotes from his favourite authors preferably old, but at times quotes from his own poems. A Compton Rickett remarks, “As a stylist does he walk in the past, gathering to himself the pleasant tricks and mannerisms of bygone writers, just as a girl plucks flowers instinctively that blend with her looks and carriage. The blossoms are culled from other men’s gardens, but their blending is all Lamb’s own. Passing through Lamb’s imagination, they become something fresh and individual. His style is a mixture certainly of many styles. but a chemical, not a mechanical mixture.”

To sum up, Lamb remains within certain bounds the most artistic exponent of the essay. E. V. Lucas says, “when compared with Bacon, Addison, Steele. Goldsmith, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt or Macaulay, his greatest companions in the essay, it is Lamb’s richness that surprises us, his abundance, and above all, his interest. Each of the writers named could do this or that better than Lamb, but Lamb as a whole is better company than all.”