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com

Charles Lamb: Prince of English Essayists

Dr. Shalini Pandey

Assistant Professor
Department of English
Govt. T. C. L. P.G. College Janjgir (C.G.)
Email- [email protected]

Abstract-
This paper covers how the renowned English writer Charles Lamb became an essayist and why
he is regarded as the prince among English essayists. The position of Charles Lamb as the
unique one among other essay authors of his day has been admired throughout the history of
English essay writing. His essays include a wide range of topics, including autobiography,
humanitarianism, profound sadness, lyrical quality, and mystification. His essays are an
intimate reflection of his ideas, life, and temperament. In his essays, he described Lamb himself.
Keywords: autobiographical, familiarity, variety of theme, poetic style, humour

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Introduction:
Charles Lamb wore many hats as a writer, devoting his early career to poetry and
writing Tales from Shakespeare, a well-known version of Shakespeare's plays for children.
However, as a writer, Lamb is perhaps most renowned for his contributions to the essay form.
Lamb published his essays a little more than 200 years after Michel de Montaigne's Essays,
which established the blueprint for the essay as we know it today. As a Romantic, Lamb made
a significant addition to the relatively new form, injecting his own personal experiences to give
the essays a conversational tone.
Lamb's writings reveal his passions and fears, giving nonfiction a personal and literary
dimension. In fact, many of his writings blur the border between fiction and nonfiction,
employing methods such as dream or gradually exposed deception to make readers question
the validity of what they are reading. This move serves a dual purpose in Lamb's writings,
reminding the reader of the author's humanity while also injecting some energy into a sort of
writing that can sound stuffy and blandly philosophical.
The Elia persona appears to have given Lamb permission to fictionalise his life just
enough for him to feel comfortable writing about it. While we have little reason to believe
many of the facts in these essays are mystified, Lamb's choice of a pseudonym for himself
meant that he could assign pseudonyms to others in his life and shift their relationship to
himself ever so slightly to better fit the purpose of an essay. As a result, when he talks about
this brother John in "Dream-Children; A Reverie," he may simply claim that John died rather
than mentioning their real-life estrangement. The imaginative licence used there, benefits the
essay about Lamb's fantasy life better, allowing him to explore the maze of dream life without
being too engrossed in sad reality. His essays demonstrate Montaigne and Cowly's eloquent
style. He was called “the Prince of English Essayists”. His essays express human nature,
sweetness of heart, humour, profound pathos, and the entirety of man's life experiences. Hugh
Walker liked Lamb's essay writing prowess. –
“There are essayists like Bacon, of more massive greatness, and others like Sir Thomas
Browne, who can attain loftier heights of eloquence, but there is no other who has in an equal
degree the power to charm. If an attempt to be made to discover the secret of this power, it will
be found that first and chief among the factors contributory to it is the incomparable sweetness
of disposition which Lamb not only possessed but had a unique gift of communicating to his
writing.”

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Such a tribute from critics proves the greatness of the genius of Charles Lamb. Lamb's
works were intensely personal and autobiographical. He was always a reflection of his dignity,
simplicity, good humour, and humanity. Thomson observed “Lamb wrote in his essay, a record
of episodes which can be connected with the addition of a few links and the elimination of a
considerable amount of delightful fiction into a substantial account of a large part of his life.”
Lamb discussed the various periods of his life, including his childhood, boyhood, and
adulthood. Throughout his essays, his personal life was always quite obvious. His essays
describe his individuality, his likes and dislikes, his nature, his character, his relatives, his
workplaces, and so on. Anyone who reads his essays can learn something about his life. In his
pieces, he frequently shared prior recollections and persons from his past life. throughout truth,
Lamb's own life is told throughout his articles. His essays can truly give anyone with enough
material to create a substantial section of his biography.
Since Bacon, the essay has been utilised as a means for conveying a writer's inner views
on any general subject. In his time, Lamb contributed a great deal of variety to essay writing.
Throughout his life, he expressed his experiences and what he witnessed. He preferred to
convey unexpected notions of imagination rather than present thoughts in a logical manner. In
a real sense, his essays are his own revelations. In his pieces, he consistently divulged
everything about his life to the reader. While reading his essays, one can discover his thoughts,
feelings, emotions, prejudices, likes, and dislikes. His essay writing is characterised by a wide
range of tastes. Edmund Blunden correctly stated, “In treatment of almost every essay moves
through a series of moods, wild and sweet, grave and subdued, clear and practical, sumptuous
and sonorous, Elia is all there. They are promiscuous, meagre and fragmentary, the essays are
differenced many blossomed and handsome.”
Touching Pathos and Humour - Lamb's essays display profound compassion and humour,
distinguishing him from other essayists of his day and after. He is regarded as the most original
comedian of all time. His pieces, written in a variety of styles, present the humour of life. In
some ways, the humour and melancholy reflected in his essays allow him to remove himself
from the unpleasant realities of his existence. He never harboured any bitter feelings in his
heart, but rather regarded his life through the lens of humour, in a steady and overall manner.
He pulled humour from the most heinous aspects of human nature. He believed in art that plays
with life's regrets and creates its own fascinating universe. His articles are filled with bizarre
details, amusing scenarios, puns, and raucous laughter. Hallward and Hill noted in the
introduction to their version of Elia's Essays:– “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

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insight and sympathy, the third on vigour and freshness of mind and body.” The laughter he
offered in his essays was well balanced with sadness, which is an important part of humour. He
was aware of his life's sadness, which was mirrored in the shape of humour in his articles. His
novel The Dream Children is noteworthy for its humour and melancholy. He had a genius for
comedy that allowed him to disassociate himself from reality and create a new universe of
people in which a faint reflection of reality can be found. Lamb's Poetic Quality and Style
Lamb's writing style, as expressed in his writings, is amusing, unique, and a reflection of his
personality. Saintsbury put it this way “The style of Lamb is as indefinable as it is inimitable
and his manner and method defy selection and specification as much as the fluttering of a
butterfly.” In all of his pieces, especially pieces of Elia, we may detect emotional fervour,
conversational ease, affecting pathos, epigrammatic depth, nostalgic allusiveness, shy satire,
and other stylistic traits. He had the most natural and original style, yet it is difficult to analyse
it. Hugh Walker recognises the particular nature of Lamb's style. “Neither the brilliancy of
Hazlitt, nor the harmony of De Quincey, not the vigour of Macaulay, nor the eloquence of
Ruskin, nor the purity of Goldsmith could for a moment be thought capable of expressing the
meaning of Lamb.” Brown, Burton, and Fuller of the 17th century impacted Lamb's style.
Many times, his emotions were portrayed through quotes from classic writers.
“His style is highly personal and mannered, its function being to “create” and delineate the
persona of Elia, and the writing, though sometimes simple, is never plain. The essays conjure
up, with humour and sometimes with pathos, old acquaintances; they also recall scenes from
childhood and from later life, and they indulge the author’s sense of playfulness and fancy.
Beneath their whimsical surface, Lamb‟s essays are as much an expression of the Romantic
movement as the verse of Coleridge and William Wordsworth.”
Thus, his style possessed the poetry's appeal, emotional fervour, and a distinct allusiveness
with frequent use of irony and pun. Lamb's essays are poetic in nature. The main traits seen in
his essays are poetic beauty and appeal. Lamb‟s finest essays are nearest of all to poetry.”
Sampson observed. His Dream Children, A Quaker's Meeting, and Essays of Elia are filled with
poetry as well as spontaneity and grace.

Conclusion:
Thus, Charles Lamb was an essayist with a remarkable poetic style, an
autobiographical outlook, a wide range of themes, and a comic and tragic touch rarely found
in other English essay writers. According to Deighton, "no amount of study will stale their

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infinite variety, and that even if they have been read a hundred times, they will be all the better
loved the hundred and first time." Lamb is ranked among Montaigne, Sir Thomas Browne,
Steele, and Addison as an essayist. He possessed all of the essential qualities of essay writing,
as well as the finest creative brilliance and brilliancy. His nobility of life and delicacy of heart
elevated him to the ranks of English literature's greatest essayists.

References
Benson, A. C., (1977). The Art of the Essayist Several Essays, ed., G.F.J. Cansbertich,
Calcutta: Oxford University Press
Blunden, E. (1929). The Last Essays of Elia, Oxford.
Roy, Hareshwar, (2016). Lamb as an Essayist, retrieved from
https://royhareshwarroy.blogspot.com/2016/11/lamb-as-essayist.html
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, (2019). Charles Lamb, retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Lamb
The Study of English Essays retrieved from https://neoenglish.wordpress. com/2010/12/27/the-
study-of-english-essays
Walker, Huge, The English Essay and Essayist, retrieved from
https://www.questia.com/library/344323/the-english-essay-and-essayists
Walker, Hugh (1959). The English Essay and Essayists : Delhi, S. Chand and Co.

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