PRESENTING PATHOS THROUGH HUMOUR: A CRITICAL STUDY OF SOME SELECTED ESSAYS OF CHARLES LAMB (original) (raw)
Charles Lamb is entitled to a place as an essayist beside Montaigne, Sir Thomas Browne, Steele and Addison. He unites many of the characteristics of each of these writers-refined and exquisite humour, a genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry and heart-touching pathos. His fancy is distinguished by great delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits are imbued with human feeling and passion. Pathos and humour frequently jostle each other in his essays. There is a curious mingling of these two ingredients in his work. Laughter is quickly followed by tears of sympathy in many of his essays. Sometimes there are alternations of humour and pathos, and sometimes the two elements exist simultaneously in the same passage which has both a comic and a pathetic side. Charles Lamb is widely known as the master of personal essays of which Montaigne is the greatest exponent. His essays are composed in Essays of Elia and Last essays of Elia. His essays are marked by self-revelation, humour and pathos and a conversational manner. Lamb delights the reader with his personal details, genial humour, gracious personality and pleasant inclination. His scale of subject matter is astonishingly different. The inventive insights of Lamb's personal essays obtain its critical and innovative impulse uniformly from these traditions which superimpose in the comprehensive diversities of English essays. Lamb's essays are actually social criticisms which oppose; and even subvert the social and cultural configurations that restrain the preferences of individuals. As the narrator he puts in formidable management to oppose the hierarchical structures that interfere with individual freedom. The essay as a literary context resists the inquiry of times and the critical sensibilities of generations. In the romantic epoch, the principle of individualism and creative consideration acquire strengthened in the class of personal essay like Essays of Elia by Lamb. In these essays the centre platform is held by the various shades of the essayist's self-reflective subjectivities which establish a thorough record of memories, emotions, embarrassment and imaginations. Lamb assumes the role of a commentator and narrator in his essays. His narratives blend pictures of self and others in realistic condition. His essays portray a projection of his own self which is amiable and friendly. He attracts his readers by creating a confidential manner in his essays which as a matter of fact functions like a discourse between the essayist and his readers. The experience is theatrical in which Lamb's personality is dramatized through various means and revealed to the readers. His essays are the
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