Charles Lamb complete Analysis

Charles Lamb as an Essayist

Charles Lamb a well known literary figure in the nineteenth century is chiefly remembered for his “Elia” essays, work famous for his wit and ironic treatment of everyday subjects. Because of his nostalgia and humorous idiosyncrasies, his works were conspicuously known throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. He brought a new kind of warmth to English prose. His sentences can be intense, they can sneer, they can scream, but they always have a kind of rounded glow, like a welcoming, slightly melancholy fireplace. Writing in that genre which has been called “the personal essay,” again and again Lamb made literary delightfulness of the things that tormented him most—including his resentments and drunkenness—and his sentences are usually beautiful.

Lamb’s contribution to the English essay also lies in his changing the general tone from formality to familiarity. This change was to be accepted by all the essayists to follow. Alone or with his sister Mary (when she wasn’t violently insane), he wrote such works as Tales from Shakespeare, The Adventures of Ulysses, Poetry for Children, The Works of Charles Lamb, The Essays of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia.There is no didacticism in his essays. As we observe in the works of former essayists, we are aware of a well-marked distance between the writer and ourselves. Bacon and Addison perch themselves, as it were, on a pedestal, and cast pearls before the readers standing below. In Cowley, the distance between the reader and writer narrows down-but it is there still. It was left for Lamb to abolish this distance altogether. He often addresses the reader (“dear reader”) as if he were addressing a bosom friend. He makes nonsense of the proverbial English insularity and “talks” to the readers as “a friend and man” (as Thackeray said he did in his novels). This note of intimacy is quite pleasing, for Lamb is the best of friends.He is a friend, and not a teacher. Lamb shed once and for all the didactic approach which characterises the work of most essayists before him. Bacon called his essays “counsels civil and moral.” His didacticism is too palpable to need a comment. Cowley was somewhat less didactic, but early in the eighteenth century Steele and Addison-the founders of the periodical essay-set in their papers the moralistic, mentor-like tone for all the periodical essayists to come. Even such “a rake among scholars and a scholar among rakes” as Steele arrogated to himself the air of a teacher and reformer. This didactic tendency reached almost its culmination in Dr. Johnson who in theIdler and Rambler papers gave ponderous sermons rather than what may be called essays. Lamb is too modest to pretend to proffer moral counsels. He never argues, dictates, or coerces. We do not find any “philosophy of life” in his essays, though there are some personal views and opinions flung about here and there not for examination and adoption, but just to serve as so many ventilators to let us have a peep into his mind. “Lamb”, says Cazamian, “is not a moralist nor a psychologist, his object is not research, analysis, or confession; he is, above all, an artist. He has no aim save the reader’s pleasure, and his own.” But though Lamb is not a downright pedagogue, he is yet full of sound wisdom which he hides under a cloak of frivolity and tolerant good nature. He sometimes looks like the Fool in King Lear whose weird and funny words are impregnated with a hard core of surprising sanity. As a critic avers,

“though Lamb frequently donned the cap and bells, he was more than ajester; even his jokes had kernels of wisdom.”

In his “Character of the Late Elia” in which he himself gives a character-sketch of the supposedly dead Elia, he truly observes: “He would interrupt the gravest discussion with some light jest; and yet, perhaps not quite irrelevant in ears that could understand it.”

The Rambling Nature of His Essays and His Lightness of Touch:

The rambling nature of his essays and his lightness of touch are some other distinguishing features of Lamb as an essayist. He never bothers about keeping to the point. Too often do we find him flying off at a tangent and ending at a point which we could never have foreseen. Every road with him seems to lead to the world’s end. We often reproach Bacon for the “dispersed” nature of his “meditations”, but Lamb beats everybody in his monstrous discursiveness. To consider some examples, first take up his essay “The Old and the New School-master.” In this essay which apparently is written for comparing the old and new schoolmaster, the first two pages or thereabouts contain a very humorous and exaggerated description of the author’s own ignorance. Now, we may ask, what has Lamb’s ignorance to do with the subject in hand? Then, the greater part of the essay “Oxford in the Vacation” is devoted to the description of his friend Dyer. Lamb’s essays are seldom artistic, well-patterned wholes. They have no beginning, middle and end. Lamb himself described his essays as “a sort of unlicked incondite things.” However, what these essays lose in artistic design they gain in the touch of spontaneity. This is what lends them what is called “the lyrical quality.”

Lamb’s Humour, Pathos, and Humanity:

Lamb’s humour, humanity, and the sense of pathos are all his own; and it is mainly these qualities which differentiate his essays from those of his contemporaries. His essays are rich alike in wit, humour, and fun. Hallward and Hill observe in the Introduction to their edition of the Essavs of Elia :

“The terms Wit. Humour and Fun are often confused but they are really different in meaning. The first is based on intellect, the second on insight and sympathy, the third on vigour and freshness of mind and body. Lamb’s writings show all the three qualities, but what most distinguishes him is Humour, for his sympathy is ever strong and active.”

Humour in Lamb’s essays constitutes very like an atmosphere “with linked sweetness long drawn out.” Its Protean shapes range from frivolous puns, impish attempts at mystification, grotesque buffoonery, and Rabelaisian verbosity (see, for example, the description of a “poor relation”) to the subtlest ironical stroke which pierces down to the very heart of life. J. B. Priestley observes in English Humour: “English humour at its deepest and tenderest seems in him [Lamb] incarnate. He did not merely create it, he lived in it. His humour is not an idle thing, but the white flower, plucked from a most dangerous nettle.” What particularly distinguishes Lamb’s humour is its close alliance with pathos. While laughing he is always aware of the tragedy of life-not only his life, but life in general. That is why he often laughs through his tears. Witness his treatment of the hard life of chimney sweepers and Christ’s Hospital boys. The descriptions are touching enough, but Lamb’s treatment provides us with a humorous medium of perception rich in prismatic effects, which bathes the tragedy of actual life in the iridescence of mellow comedy. The total effect is very complex, and strikes our sensibility in a bizarre way, puzzling us as to what is comic and what is tragic.

Style:

A word, lastly, about Lamb’s peculiar style which is all his own and yet not his, as he is a tremendous borrower. He was extremely influenced by some “old-world” writers like Fuller and Sir Thomas Browne. It is natural, then, that his style is archaic. His sentences are long and rambling, after the seventeenth-century fashion. He uses words many of which are obsolescent, if not obsolete. But though he “struts in borrowed plumes”, these “borrowed plumes” seem to be all his own. Well does a critic say:

“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.” His inspiration from old writers gives his style a romantic colouring which is certainly intensified by his vigorous imagination. Very like Wordsworth he throws a fanciful veil on the common objects of life and converts them into interesting and “romantic” shapes. His peculiar style is thus an asset in the process of “romanticising” everyday affairs and objects which otherwise would strike one with a strong feeling of ennui. He is certainly a romantic essayist. What is more, he is a poet.

What strikes one particularly about Lamb as an essayist is his persistent readiness to reveal his everything to the reader. The evolution of the essay from Bacon to Lamb lies primarily in its shift from

(i) Objectivity to subjectivity, and

(ii) From formality to familiarity.

Of all the essayists it is perhaps Lamb who is the most autobiographic. His own life is for him “such stuff as essays are made on.” He could easily say what Montaigne had said before him-

”I myself am the subject of my book.”

The change from objectivity to subjectivity in the English essay was, by and large, initiated by Abraham Cowley who wrote such essays as the one entitled. “Of Myself.” Lamb with other romantic essayists completed this change.His essays are, as it were, so many bits of autobiography by piecing which together we can arrive at a pretty authentic picture of his life, both external and internal. It is really impossible to think of an essayist who is more personal than Lamb. His essays reveal him fully-in all his whims, prejudices, past associations, and experiences. “Night Fears” shows us Lamb as a timid, superstitious boy. “Christ’s Hospital” reveals his unpalatable experiences as a schoolboy. We are introduced to the various members of his family in numerous essays like “My Relations’ “The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,” and “Poor Relations.” We read of the days of his adolescence in “Mackery End in Hertfordshire.” His tenderness towards his sister Mary is revealed by “Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist.” His professional life is recalled in “The South-Sea House” and “The, Superannuated Man.” His sentimental memories full of pathos find expression in “Dream Children.” His prejudices come to the fore in “Imperfect Sympathies” and “The Confessions of a Drunkard.” His gourmandise finds a humours utterence in “A Dissertation upon Roast Pig,” “Grace before Meat,” and elsewhere. What else is left then?

David Daiches maintains:

“The writer’s own character is always there, flaunted before the reader, but it is carefully prepared and controlled before it is exhibited.”

Very little, except an indulgence in self-pity at the stark tragedy of his life. Nowhere does he seem to be shedding tears at the fits of madness to which his siter Mary Bridget of the essays) was often subject and in one of which she knifed his mother to death. The frustration of his erotic career (Lamb remained in a state of lifelong bachelorhood imposed by himself.to enable him to nurse his demented sister), however, is touched upon here and there. In “Dream Children,” for instance, his unfruitful attachment with Ann Simmons is referred to. She got married and her children had to “call Bartrum father.” Lamb is engaged in a reverie about “his children” who would have possibly been born had he been married to Alice W-n (Ann Simmons). When the reverie is gone this is what he finds: “…and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget [his sister Mary] unchanged by my side…but John L (his brother John Lamb) was gone for ever.” How touching!

Thus his egotism is born of a sense of humility rather than hauteur. Samuel C. Chew observes:

“Like all the romantics he is self-revelatory, but there is nothing in him of the ‘egotistical-sublime.’ Experience had made him too clear-sighted to take any individual, least of all himself, too seriously. The admissions of his own weaknesses, follies, and prejudices are so many humorous warnings to his readers.”

Poor Relations by Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb occupies a unique place among English essayists. It is his essays that have secured the permanence of his name. Through all his essays, there runs a vain of warm sympathies, genial humour, tenderness and pathos. He attracts the readers by his humanity and tenderness. He usually writes under the pen name of "Elia".Poor Relations is one of the most interesting essays of Lamb. Lamb begins the essays- with an element of humour and ends it with an element of pathos. He gives many metaphorical phrases to describe the poor relation. The poor relation is an unwanted and unwelcomed visitor. His presence is embracing to other in the house. Lamb calls the poor relations;

"The most irrelevant thing in nature, a haunting conscience, an unwelcome remembrance, a drain on your purse, a stain in your blood,…" and so on.

The whole description of the manners and habits of the poor relation is full of humours. The poor relation enters the house with a smiling face but at once he feels embraced. He holds out his hand to shake but draws it back again. He is having some kind of complex. He is a puzzle to the servants. He reminds his unwelcoming past.

Lamb says,

"His memory is unseasonable, his compliments perverse; his talk a trouble…"

Lamb then talks about a female gender poor relation.

"There is a worse evil under the Sun and that is a female poor relation."

A female poor relation is revealed by her ragged clothes. She is all the time conscious of her poverty. She exposes her inferiority at the dinner table.Richard Amlet is a character in the comedy, the confederacy, produced by sir John Vanburugh. He is a son of Mrs.Amlet, a rich but vulgar trade woman. She stands as an obstacle to her son in marrying a rich lady.Lamb then gives an account of poor. W__, that is, Favell, who had studied with him at the Christ hospital school. Later Favell went to the Oxford. He loved the place very much but disliked the society. Favell has pride and self respect. When his father, a house painter settled near Oxford. He could not endure his poverty. He ran away from the university and joined the army. Soon he was killed in St.Sebastin.

Elia narrates another incident. This is about Mr.John Billet, he is a relative of Lamb's father.he used to meet Lamb's father on Saturdays. One fine day he met an insult from the hands of Lamb's aunt. He could not endure that and died soon at the mint in 1771. After his death, they found five pounds, fourteen shillings and a penny in his desk, which was enough for his funeral. He left the world without any debt.

Thus Lamb has given a psychological insight in his descriptions of the habits and manners of poor relations.

The richness of his language and his wealth of ideas are well illustrated in the following paragraph from Poor Relations:

"A Poor Relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondency, an odious approximation,a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification, a drain on your purse,a more intolerable dun upon your pride, a drawback upon success, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in your blood, a blot on your 'scutcheon, a rent in your garment, a death' s head at your banquet, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai in your gate, a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path, a frog in your chamber, a fly in your ointment, a mote in your eye,a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, the hail in harvest, the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet.Is that not an astounding procession of metaphors !"

The rather famous opening sentence of his essay “Poor Relations” is 140 words long. And it makes clear that a richer member of the family has contempt for a poorer.

As he often does, Lamb is expressing a way of mind as a means of criticizing it. He wants people to think, There's something wrong with this.

The question, How should we see a person different from ourselves? is in the work of Lamb in many ways. It's the most important question in the world. Lamb did not say plainly that an economic system which has some people be poor while others make profit from them, is bad and wrong in itself. But he did see that the situation of some persons' being richer than others, brought out hurtful contempt. The passage I just quoted mingles terrific scorn for the “poor relation” with a feeling of shame (as in the phrase “a haunting conscience”).

Later there's this, about one's relief when the poor relation leaves:

When he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances.

(The “nuisances” are the extra chair and the person.) The rhythm of that passage is very fine. But the question is: Can we see other people in the way expressed there, and yet respect ourselves, feel inwardly at ease? Or will we punish ourselves in some fashion? The answer is always the latter. Our contempt for people has us feel (for example) nervous, anxious, dull, empty, self-disgusted, deeply unsure of ourselves. Charles Lamb did not know this.

In Praise of Chimney Sweepers

In Praise of Chimney-Sweepers is a gentle little book, a romantic look at the children who cleaned chimneys for a living, spending their days in the duct-work removing creosote buildup in order to prevent chimney fires, one of the great dangers of fuel-burning heating systems. Lamb talks of their humour, their love for sassafras tea (the original root beer), their joyful smiles. He eulogizes a friend, James White, who organized an annual banquet for young chimney-sweepers in Smithfield. He touches only briefly on the popular rumour that adult chimney-sweepers often kidnapped young boys, toddlers, even, to use as apprentices, since they could go where adults could not. He does not mention at all the ghastly, dangerous, often fatal working conditions. Lamb’s chimney-sweepers are rather younger than Mary Poppins’, but no less unrealistic.

Scrutinization of Lamb’s essays:Charles Lamb is essentially an essayist, but in his Essays of Elia are several sketches that bear marks of the short-story structure. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig is a combination of essay and story. The introduction gravely announces that the art of roasting was inadvertently discovered; it then gives the story as it is supposed to be found in an old manuscript. This story is the portion to be used in class. It begins about the third sentence and runs half-way through the essay. In reading it we find the series of events, suspense, and the changing-around of situation that mark the true short story. There is much humor. In Dream-Children: a Revery, are shown great richness of feeling and delicacy of imagination. Hardly more than a fragile sketch, this bears in it the single impression, movement, and climax of the true short story. Lamb uses beautiful art in his side remarks relative to the acts of the children; he constructs a world of boys and girls and family background and all out of fancy. These little boys and girls of Lamb's imagination are worth meeting.

Briefly, his Essays of Elia and Last Essays of Elia, artfully artless in their personal and conversational tone. His critical principles were neither consistent nor were they applied with any great subtlety. He could confuse antiquarian with literary value, or identify oddness with greatness. He believed in strength, colour, individuality and outspokenness in literature. Thus Charles Lamb introduced the new literary norm in the history of the English Essays.