LAMB AS AN ESSAYIST

LAMB AS AN ESSAYIST 

Charles Lamb is entitled to a place as an essayist just after Montaigne, Steel and Addison. He unites many of the characteristics of each of these writers – refined and exquisite humor, a genuine and heart-touching pathos and his own self in it. His thoughts and meanings are often covered in simple language. Each of his sentences is full of a number of meanings. The color of his essays is taken from his personal life. It is inseparable from the circumstances in which it came into being. His essays are inspired by a influence of the lively remembrance of the past. In the essays, these events are narrated in form of a story with a running comment on them. He adds the element of sorrow to them, which gives him a special place in literary history.

In his own world, the connection with Hertford and Grandmother Mrs. Field is seen. She was the house-keeper at Blakesware, country-house. In “Dream Children”, this house is described with its empty rooms, gardens, fish-pond, etc. Here we find the description of the scenery around him. It is the account of his dream of the children he never had. This marks the presence of pathetic feelings in the essays of Lamb.

In the delightful “Essays of Elia”, Lamb is an egoist like Montaigne. What he writes here, is drawn from himself, his experiences, reminiscences, likes, dislikes and prejudices. In the essay “Poor Relations”, he depicts his bias of hating the poor relative, especially the female poor relative. This view he had made from his personal life. Even the essay “Convalescent”, shows his dislike of the busy, routine and mechanical life in the city. He prefers to remain sick as compared to an ordinary man.

Lamb was a master of humor and pathos, both of which are blended together in his essays, as they did in his life. This is his unique style, which we rarely find in any other literary work of English literature. Lamb himself says, “I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with, treating half-seriously, I should have fallen upon a racital so eminently painful”. His sympathy is ever strong and active. In “Poor Relations”, the opening is full of wit but we are more inclined to cry than to laugh when we read the story. The stories of Mr. Billet, of Lamb’s school mate W-, etc. all portray the mixing of humor with pathos. The statement of Mr. Billet to Lamb’s aunt “Woman, you are superannuated” and his death is the shining example of it.

Lamb’s habit of introducing reminiscences and anecdotes in his essays is clearly seen here. Poor W- we learn, was Lamb’s school fellow at Christ’s Church. As for Mr. Billet, he was a relative of his father. Recollections of his brother John also appear in the essay. Lamb had a genius for reminiscences. Thus, this essay has an autobiographical character. Lamb is truly a ‘visualizer of memories’.