Charles Lamb was an essayist in the Romantic period of English literature. Lamb was famous for his “Essays of Elia” and “Tales from Shakespeare,” the latter written in collaboration with his sister Mary Lamb. During this period, there were greats like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, William Hazlitt, and others. All were Romantics. What is the meaning of the word “romantic”? F.L. Lucas, a French critic, said that there are 11,396 meanings of the word “romantic.” One fundamental meaning of “romantic” is freedom of expression, and this is common with all the Romantics, including Charles Lamb. He expressed his personal agony and unhappiness freely. Prof. David Daiches said, “Charles Lamb’s life was harsh, even tragic. His essays are the ways of his survival and contrived testimony of a laughing philosopher.” In one of his essays, he said, “I have almost ceased to hope.” Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumari were tragedians in reel life, but Charles Lamb was a tragedian in real life. He had seen life. His self-revelation is manifest in his essays, but never bizarre. It is with controlled emotion. F.L. Lucas, his main biographer, said, “Lamb was the most lovable figure in English literature.”
Lamb wrote to Coleridge: “My dearest friend, while some of my friends or the public papers by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines. My poor dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. She is at present in a madhouse. God has preserved to me my senses – I eat, drink, and sleep. I have something more to do right than to feel. God Almighty have us all in his keeping.” (27 September 1796)
Charles Lamb was a lifelong bachelor, so he had no children. He expressed this agony in his essay “Dream Children.” In this essay, he dreamt that he had seven children and was playing with them. But this was only an illusion—a dream, not a reality. So, he said after the dream:
“They are not children. They are what might have been. They are Alice in Wonderland.”
It is said that “style is the man.” Lamb’s style reflects his persona. His style is highly personal and mannered. The essays tell with humour and sometimes with pathos, old friends, scenes from childhood, and from later life. Love for the past is a romantic trait, and Lamb’s nostalgia shows his romantic sensibility. He is called the prince of the English essayists because his essays are the finest in English prose. He brought to prose the finest qualities of romanticism. He himself says that his own style is “self-pleasing quaintness.” Lamb employed a personal narrative technique.
In the genre of the English essay, Charles Lamb was an outstanding achiever. He was such stuff as essays are made on.
(The views expressed are the writer’s own.)
Radhakanta Seth is an Income tax officer in Sambalpur. He is a Freelance writer and his articles have been published in some Oriya dailies like Sambad, Samaj, Dharitri and English dailies like The Telegraph and in a sociological journal ‘Folklore’ published from Kolkata.