charles lamb essay on roast pig

A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig

The English author Charles Lamb wrote many essays under the pseudonym Elia and first published his collected Essays of Elia in 1823. One essay describes the discovery of pork roast in China, with a somewhat politically incorrect text. Over the years, Lamb’s essay has been reprinted and illustrated by many celebrated artists, including Frederick Stuart Church and Will Bradley. This 1932 edition is illustrated by Wilfred Jones (born 1888), with pochoir color. Note the red-haired figure at the top left with the monogram G.B.S., representing George Bernard Shaw.

The piece begins:

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks’ holiday.

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Charles Lamb

A dissertation upon roast pig

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks’ holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?—not from the burnt cottage—he had smelt that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crums of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world’s life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted— crackling ! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue’s shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued.

“You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog’s tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know not what—what have you got there, I say?”

“O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats.”

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since moming, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out “Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste—O Lord,”—with such like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.

Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son’s, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all that remained of the litter.

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that Ho-ti’s cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,—to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present—without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision: and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his Lordship’s town house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked ( burnt , as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind.—

Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in ROAST PIG.

Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis , I will maintain it to be the most delicate— princeps obsoniorum .

I speak not of your grown porkers—things between pig and pork—those hobbydehoys—but a young and tender suckling—under a moon old—guiltless as yet of the sty—with no original speck of the amor immunditiæ , the hereditary failing of the first parent, yet manifest—his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble, and a grumble—the mild forerunner, or præludium , of a grunt.

He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled—but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument!

There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling , as it is well called—the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle resistance—with the adhesive oleaginous—O call it not fat—but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it—the tender blossoming of fat—fat cropped in the bud—taken in the shoot—in the first innocence—the cream and quintessence of the child-pig’s yet pure food—the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna—or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance.

Behold him, while he is doing—it seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string!—Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyes—radiant jellies—shooting stars—

See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth!—wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal—wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation—from these sins he is happily snatched away—

Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care—

his memory is odoriferous—no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon—no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking sausages—he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure—and for such a tomb might be content to die.

He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is indeed almost too transcendent—a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause—too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her—like lovers’ kisses, she biteth—she is a pleasure bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish—but she stoppeth at the palate—she meddleth not with the appetite—and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton chop.

Pig—let me speak his praise—is no less provocative of the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices.

Unlike to mankind’s mixed characters, a bundle of virtues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he is—good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours’ fare.

I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend’s pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. “Presents,” I often say, “endear Absents.” Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chicken (those “tame villatic fowl”), capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, “give every thing.” I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly, (under pretext of friendship, or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate—It argues an insensibility.

I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweet-meat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to school (it was over London bridge) a grey-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, I made him a present of—the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in thinking that I—I myself, and not another—would eat her nice cake—and what should I say to her the next time I saw her—how naughty I was to part with her pretty present—and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last—and I blamed my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor.

Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effect this process might have towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young, pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might impart a gusto—

I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer’s, and maintained with much learning and pleasantry on both sides, “Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death by whipping ( per flagellationem extremam ) superadded a pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death?” I forget the decision.

His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crums, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are—but consider, he is a weakling—a flower.

MLA Citation

Lamb, Charles. “A dissertation upon roast pig.” 1823. Quotidiana. Ed. Patrick Madden. 2 Dec 2007. 24 May 2024 <http://essays.quotidiana.org/lamb/dissertation_upon_roast_pig/>.

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Quotidiana is an online anthology of "classical" essays, from antiquity to the early twentieth century. All essays and images are in the public domain. Commentaries are copyrighted, but may be used with proper attribution. Special thanks to the BYU College of Humanities and English Department for funding, and to Joey Franklin and Lara Burton , for tireless research assisting.

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Charles Lamb: Essays

By charles lamb, charles lamb: essays themes, the imagination.

Many of Lamb's essays revolve around imaginative conceits, and the world that Lamb describes is most easily understood through his wild imagination. This plays out in novel fantasies such as the days of the month partying together and a boy eating a pig burnt by a house fire, as well as in the fabrications of something similar to Lamb's own life, such as the made up workers in the South Sea House or his fictive children in "Dream-Children; A Reverie." The innovation that Lamb brought to the essay was this very sense of the imagination, helping expand the form from its philosophical roots.

Class Vs. Class

Lamb is very interested in the distinction between social class and the type of class one exhibits (i.e. how a man comports himself). A trope in these essays is the idea that the rich don't really have any class, that they simply indulge their whims but live life rather insincerely. On the other hand, Lamb often depicts the poor and marginalized as noble people who struggle to enjoy themselves within their modest existence. Look no further than "The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers" to find the type of person Lamb considers noble. A debate on the merits of privilege is central to the essay "Old China."

Lamb himself is a bit of a mischievous writer. For example, he draws his reader into a heart-wrenching story that ends up being little more than a dream, or crafts an elaborate ruse like the one in "The South-Sea House." But we also see him valuing the mischievous, whether that's April Fool's Day in "Rejoicings Upon the New Year's Coming of Age," or Bo-bo in "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig." Lamb's playful sense shines through all of these essays, as his objective is to keep his reader entertained, just as he himself liked to be (if "Ellistoniana" is any clue).

Skepticism in Religion

A complicated relationship with religion is developed throughout the course of these essays. Lamb clearly has a spiritual side and his own understandings of living life in accord with God, but he frequently takes organized religion and people hypocritically wielding religion to task. A prime example of his ambivalent attitude toward religion comes with "Grace Before Meat," when he laments both the rich people who recite a rote, meaningless grace before yet another sumptuous banquet as well as people who flippantly make a joke about saying grace. What's clear about Lamb is that he has a clear sense of ethics and a strong moral compass, yet disagrees with the way that religion guides other people's ethics and morality.

We know from Lamb's biography that he was particularly close to his sister Mary, and we can glean from these essays that he gave primacy to his family relationships. Whether it's the conversation with Cousin Bridget in "Old China" or the tales told in "Dream-Children; A Reverie," Lamb likes to demonstrate the influence of the people close to him. Yet that sense of kinship is not limited to his family. Rather, it's an attitude that extends to many of the subjects of his essays, be it friends like Elliston and James White , his beloved hero John Milton, or the chimney sweeper who laughs at him for slipping on ice. While Lamb is a proponent of solitary reading, he is constantly advocating for a life lived with others.

Storytelling

While essays are non-fiction, Lamb uses the theme of storytelling to push the boundaries of the form, often dabbling in fiction. For instance, his stories of the tea ceremony depicted on a piece of China and the various pork-related stories in "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" serve to conjure fictional histories. There are also the stories he tells of the people he loves, or the stories he relays from friends. In all of these, Lamb expands the typical boundaries of the essay form, creating rich, human, and consummately living prose.

Memory and Nostalgia

Lamb is nothing if not a nostalgist, and so many of his essays are rooted in recalling something from the past. Sometimes this is painful stuff, such as his rejection by his unrequited love Alice . But in the chimney sweepers, Lamb sees something of himself as a boy, and in the story about James White throwing them a banquet, he's fondly remembering both a person and and event that are history. He loves old china specifically because it bears some marks of a past, showing that Lamb's nostalgia is not for a specific time or state of affairs, but more broadly a yearning and affection for past times.

Charles Lamb: Essays Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Charles Lamb: Essays is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Which quality Charles Lamb a romantic writer?

As a Romantic, Lamb brought a key innovation to the somewhat new form, inserting his own personally to give the essays a conversational tone. His essays showcase his passions and anxieties, imbuing the non-fiction form with a personal and literary...

What is the major theme of "Poor Relation" by Charles Lamb?

The major theme is that of the "poor relation"... their irrelevance and unpleasant place in one's life.

Explain the theme of the essay ''A Dissertation upon Roast Pig''.

The essay describes the discovery of the exquisite flavour of roast pig in China in a time when all food was eaten raw. This is really a light hearted theme speaking to how odd it is that humans eat cooked animals at all.

Study Guide for Charles Lamb: Essays

Charles Lamb: Essays study guide contains a biography of Charles Lamb, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Charles Lamb: Essays
• Charles Lamb: Essays Summary
• Character List

Essays for Charles Lamb: Essays

Charles Lamb: Essays essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Charles Lamb: Essays by Charles Lamb.

• Charles Lamb and Spaces Separate from Rationality

Wikipedia Entries for Charles Lamb: Essays

• Introduction
• Youth and schooling
• Family tragedy
• Religious views

Satiric models for Charles Lamb's "a dissertation upon roast pig"

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Though hitherto overlooked in social histories of cookery, Charles Lamb's essay approaches its subject through the new literary-culinary writing that appeared with European romanticism. Although Lamb's persona, Elia, never hesitates to express everywhere his idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, in "Roast Pig" he passes beyond eccentricity to become a morally transgressive figure. Lamb's implicit swipe at the vegetarians and his borrowings from modern and classical sources, such as Swift's "Modest Proposal" and the recipes or scenes in Apicius and Petronius, suggest that he undoubtedly expected his readers to recognize the false notes of excess, vanity, and even infant cannibalism revealed by Elia's appetite. The Latin satura-ae denotes a mélange, either literally a dish of various ingredients or, etymologically, the Roman invention of the satiric genre itself, that loose mixing of a variety of literary types. Fittingly, the pig-platters of Trimalchio and Elia thus turn back upon both the festival of the Saturnalia and, under the aegis of Saturn's misrule, upon the zeugmatic nature of satire itself. Elia's final reference to his schooldays at St. Omer's actually ties his gluttony to Guy Fawkes' scheme of exploding king, lords, and commons. By bursting pretensions and snobbery, Lamb's essay thus self-reflexively presents itself as a figurative equivalent to the "superhuman plot" of Fawkes.

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Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb was an English poet, essayist, antiquarian. He is famous for his essays Elia and books tales of children from Shakespeare. He co-authored Tales of Shakespeare with his sister, Mary Lamb.

Lamb was a prominent figure of major literary circles in England. He was a friend with notable literary celebrities such as Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and William Wordsworth. His principal biographer E. V. Lucas referred to him as “the most lovable figure in English literature.”

Charles Lamb Biography

Charles Lamb was born on 10 th February 1775, in London. In 1782, he attended Christ’s Hospital at the age of seven. It was a free boarding school to educate poor children. He befriended his school mate Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1789, he left school. He was appointed as a clerk in the East India Company, and he worked there for the next thirty-three years of his life.  

Lamb’s sister Mary Lamb stabbed their mother who died in a moment of fretful anger on 22nd September 1796. Mary was temporarily insane and put her in the custody of Charles. In 1799, their father died, and Mary Lamb started living with Charles Lamb for the rest of her life. The only time when Mary was not living with Charles was when she was put in the asylum for the treatment whenever her illness recurred. Lamb was a lifelong guardian of Mary and did not marry because of her. In 1795, he also spent six weeks in an asylum during the winter. His life was badly shattered, and he became an alcoholic. It was his guardianship and responsibility to his sister that he could get a hold on his own sanity.

In 1796, Lamb started his literary career with the publication of his four sonnets by Coleridge in his first volume, Poem on Various Subjects . Lamb published A Tale of Rosamund Gray, a sentimental romance, in 1798 with Charles Lloyd in a volume Blank Verse . Lamb started contributing short articles to newspapers in London by 1901. He had also started writing plays in an attempt to overcome his poverty. He published a blank verse play John Woodville   in 1802, which was not successful. In December 1806, Lamb’s two-act circus play, Mr. H. , met great admiration at the Drury Lane Theatre.

Charles and Mary together published a collection Tale from Shakespeare in 1807. The collection was a prose adaptation of the plays of Shakespeare for children. The collection was admired by both young and old readers. With the success of this collection, Charles published a children’s version of Homer’s Odyssey and The Adventures of Ulysses in 1808. Another collection in collaboration with Mary was published in 1809 titled Mrs. Leicester’s School, and Poetry for Children .

In 1808, Charles Lamb started a new career by editing the collection Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets Who Lived About the Time of Shakespeare. His comments on this work established his reputation as a critic, and revival in the study of Shakespeare’s contemporaries was started. In 1881, he published other critical books such as “The Tragedies of Shakespeare,” and “On the Genius and Character of Hogarth” in the journal of Leigh Hunt. He published a two-volume collection, The Works of Charles Lamb, in 1818. It is ironic that his literary career has not begun yet.

Lamb has not yet achieved his literary fame; he and Mary were much happy with life. They would invite their friends at their place at Inner Temple Lane to late Wednesday night gatherings. The gatherings would include the Romantic authors William Wordsworth, Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Robert Southey, and Hunt. Lamb also wrote the best letters to these friends in the same year that later got published. These letters were filled with critical comments and revealed the humoristic personality of Lamb.

It was these letters that prepare him for the forthcoming fame as an essayist. He wrote a series of immensely popular essays from 1820 to 1825 in London Magazine. The essays were written under a pseudonym Elia. These essays, like his letters, reveal his humorist personality, emotions, thoughts, and his experiences of life and literature. He also writes on disturbing subjects. His writing deals with past memories to create a sense of stability, calmness, and changelessness in his personality. His essays are implicitly nostalgic and melancholic, along with explicit humor, wit, and humanity. He has a bittersweet tone and remains the hallmark of his literary style. The famous essays he wrote in this time were “Witches and Other Night-Fears,” “A Dissertation upon Roast Pig,” and “Dream Children.”

Mary and Lamb adopted an orphan girl Emma Isola in 1823. Lamb shifted to London for the first time in August 1823. His health was continuously deteriorating, and his prolonged illness during 1824 caused him to retire from the East India Company. He spent his time with Emma Isola on walking trips around Hertfordshire. 

In 1833, Lamb shifted to Edmonton to take care of his sister Mary who had been receiving frequent mental attacks. In the same year, Lamb also ended his literary career by writing the last Essay of Elia. Emma Isola married Edward Moxon, a friend of Charles, in the same year, leaving him lonely and depressed. The depression and loneliness got intense with the death of his friend Coleridge in 1834. After five weeks of Coleridge’s death, Lamb also died on 27 th December 1834. 

Charles Lamb’s Writing style:

The French writer, Montaigne, was the father of the essay, and in the English language, essay writing was introduced by Francis Bacon. The essays of Bacon are very different from that of his model Montaigne. The essays of Montaigne are self-revelatory, tolerant, and humoristic. Whereas, Bacon’s essays are didactic with serious and objective style.  

With Bacon, the essay writing in England took the wrong direction, and for almost two centuries, it was slowly moving towards the original pattern set by Montaigne. However, with the essays of Romantic essayists, the essay writing became highly personal, lyrical in nature, and humoristic. And there has been no significant change in essay writing from then onwards.

Charles Lamb is one of the eminent romantic essayists . He has been referred to as the “ prince of all essayists ” of England. He is called essayist par excellence by Hugh Walker, whose essays must be taken as a model for writing essays. The existing definition of an essay is derived from the essays of Lamb, and his essay is put into criteria for judging the excellence and merit of any essayist . Though he is not as genius as Bacon, brilliant as Thomas Browne, clear as Addison, and energetic as Dr. Johnson, he is most charming of the essayists and excelled from all the essayist’s inability to catch the attention of readers.

A well-known literary figure of the 19 th century Romanticism, Charles Lamb is primarily known for his essays of “Elia.” His essays are well-known for irony and wit of common subjects . His works were noticeably known throughout the 19 th century and the 20 th century for his humorous peculiarities and nostalgia. With his essays, he brought unique warmth in prose of the English Language, which was previously considered to be dull and boring. He uses intense, screaming, and sneering sentences with rounded glow, which makes it melancholic and welcoming at the same time. Lamb uses the genre of prose for his “ personal essays .” He wrote about those things which tormented him most and extracted literary delightfulness from it. He talked about his drunkenness and resentment in beautiful sentences.

Charles’s land has a “quaint” or old fashioned style because of its strangeness. He imitated the style of 16th and 17 th writers like Milton, Fuller, Burton, Sir Thomas, and Isaac Walton. He also uses the diction and rhythm of these writing according to the subject he is dealing with, due to which, the style of every essay of Lamb is changed. He makes his style charming and prevents it from becoming tiresome and boring. Due to the continuously varying mood, his style is surprising. The following are the distinctive characteristics of Charles Lamb.

Self-revelation in Charles Lamb’s Essays

Charles persistently reveals everything about him to his readers in his essays. This is the striking feature of Bacon’s essays. The shift, from Bacon to Lamb, in the style of essays lies primarily in the shift from formality to informality and objectivity to subjectivity.

Among all of the essays, Charles Lamb is the most autobiographical. For him, his life is full of content to write the essays on. He would repeatedly say the Montaigne words about himself: -“I myself am the subject of my book”. Though, the evolution from objectivity to subjectivity in the essays was initiated by Abraham Cowley by writing the essay “Of Myself,” Charles Lamb completed the evolution. 

His essays contain the bits of his life and mending together these bits, an authentic picture of his life can be obtained. There is no essayist born yet who is more personal than Charles Lamb. His essays fully revealed the experiences, whims, past associates and prejudices that he discussed. In the essay “Night Fear,” Lamb portrayed himself as a superstitious and timid boy. Likewise in his essay, “Christ’s hospital,” he revealed his disgusting experiences of school.  

He introduced his various family members in his essay “My Relation,” Poor Relations,” and the Old Benchers in the Inner Temple. He discusses his time of adolescence in the essay “Mockery End in Hertfordshire”; professional life in “The, Superannuated Man” and “The South-Sea House.” His essay “Dream Children” is full of his sentimental memories of pathos.

 He talks about his predispositions in the essay “The Confessions of a Drunkard” and “Imperfect Sympathies.” His essays “Grace before Meat,” and “A Dissertation upon Roast Pig” are his humoristic essays on gourmandize. In the essay “Dream Children,” Lamb is having a reverie about his imagined children that would have been born if he married his beloved Alice, referring to his attachments with Ann Simmons. When the reverie ends, he says that he found himself sitting quietly in his bachelor arm-chair. He had fallen asleep in the chair with a devoted Briget sitting unchanged from his side but his brother John L was gone forever. 

In his essays, Lamb is excessively obsessed with himself that made readers assume that he is egocentric, selfish, and his writing is inartistic and vulgar. Apart from this, Lamb is also egotist, which makes him write offensive accounts. However, his egotism does not have any vulgarity.

Indeed, Lamb is egotist; however, he is not aggressive. He only talks about himself in his essay because it is the only subject he knows closely, not because it assumes himself to be more important than any other subject. Therefore, the egotism of Charles Lamb is not because of arrogance, but because of humility.

The familiarity of Tone in Charles Lamb’s Writings

Charles Lamb started a trend of using Familiar tone in English essays than a formal tone. This trend was then followed by almost all of the essayists. Campton-Rickett says that there was not any other man famous in print media that Lamb and he turned the ordinary conversation into fine art. 

The button holding familiarity with Charles Lamb greatly charms the readers. He writes as if he is playing with his readers in a naughty manner, always takes his readers into confidence, and shares his feelings with them. Before Charles Lamb, there is an obvious distance between the writer and readers in the essays. Addison and Francis Bacon wrote his essays as if they were delivering the sermon to the readers standing below them. In the essays of Cowley, the distance between the readers and writer was significantly reduced; Charles Lamb completely eliminated the distance. Charles Lamb addresses his readers as “dear readers.” It appears as if he is addressing his friends.  It mocks the familiar English narrow-mindedness and talks to his readers, treating them as men and his friends. His tone of familiarity makes his essay pleasant and Lamb best of associates.

No Didacticism in Essays of Charles Lamb

Charles Lamb does not use his essays for teaching didactic purposes. Essayist before Lamb would use prose mainly for didactic purposes; however, Lamb completely shed this approach in his essays. Because of the didactic nature, Bacon calls his essays counsel civil and moral. The didacticism of Bacon is intense and needs explanations. However, Lamb does not offer nor pretend to offer moral and civil counsels. Lamb’s essays do not carry any “philosophy of life.” He gives personal opinions and views, but they are not on purpose to be examined but just to give an insight into his mind.

Camnian, in his views about Charles Lamb, says that Lamb is neither a psychologist nor a moralist; his purpose of writing not analysse, research or confess. He is nothing but an artist. By his writing, he does not aim to save the pleasure of his readers but himself. 

Lamb is not an absolute educator or didactic. However, he does have sound wisdom that he concealed under the good tolerant nature. He appears to be a fool in the play King Lear and Twelfth Night , whose apparently funny and weird words are saturated with surprising sanity. A critic states that though Lamb often put the cap and bells, he was more than a joker or jester; his jokes were full of wisdom. 

In his essay “Character of Late Elia,” Charles Lamb gives a character sketch of apparently dead Elia saying that he would include a light humor or joke in the serious decision, however, the jokes would not be irrelevant or hard to understand. 

The confused Nature of Charles Lamb’s Essays

Charles lamb essays are of confusing nature and light in touch. This marks his essay distinguished from the rest of the essayist. Charles Lamb does not adhere to the point. He is continuously moving from one point to another. He sometimes ends his essay at a point, which is totally surprising for the readers. He could easily end his essay at any point. Critics and readers criticize Francis Bacon for his distributed thought in essays. However, Lamb knocks down everyone in his outrageous freeness.

His essay “The Old and the New School-master” is the best example of his outrageous freeness in essays. The essay is apparently written to compare the new and the old schoolmaster; the first two pages of the essay are an exaggerated and outrageous description of Lamb’s own ignorance. The point to ponder is what is the connection between Lamb’s ignorance and the subject of the essay? 

Similarly, in the essay “Oxford in the Vacation,” a great portion is dedicated to the account of Dyer, his friend. The essay of Charles Lamb is hardly well-patterned and artistic wholes. His essays do not have a proper beginning, middle, and end. Lamb describes his essays as “ a sort of unlocked inundated thing.”

Though the essays do not have artistic designs, they have a touch of spontaneity. This makes his essays lyrical and appealing to the readers.

Humor, Pathos, and Humanity

The humor, pathos, and his sense of humanity in Charles Lamb’s essays are the distinctive features that make him different from his contemporary writers. Lamb’s essays are rich in humor, fun, and wit. In the edition of the Introduction to Essays of Elia , the critics, Hill and Hallward, write that the terms humour, wit, and fun are confused most of the time, however, they are completely different in meaning. Wit is based in intellect, humous on sympathy, and fun is based on activeness and freshness of both mind and body. The writing of lamb has all these three qualities, however, what distinguishes him most is his humor. His sympathy is always strong and vigorous. 

A charming atmosphere is created in the Lamb’s essays with humor and associated sweetness drawn along with. The fluctuating style of essays ranges from Rabelaisian verboseness, mischievous attempts at mystification, playful pun, and ridiculous frivolity to the subtle irony which penetrates the heart of readers. The best example of his wit and humor is his essay “Poor Relation.” In the book English Humor, J. B. Priestly says that he has embodied the English humor deeply and tenderously. He does not master humor easily, but it is as if he has plucked the white flower from a dangerous nettle.

Humor is also part of the writings of other writers, however, Lamb’s humor is closely aligned with the pathos that mark it distinguishes from others. He is making fun of things, but he is also aware of the tragic nature of life (life in general, not particularly his own). That is why he has a “tearful smile.” He has witnessed the hard and struggling lives of chimney sweepers and the boys at Christ’s Hospital, which made him deeply humanistic. His descriptions of these events are really touching. However, it is also accompanied by humor, and therefore, it has prismatic effects. His treatment of events in such a way momentarily washes away the tragedy of real life. The overall effect of his essays is confusing as the readers do not know what id tragedy and what comedy is.

 Charles Lamb as a Remarkable Borrower

Another peculiarity of Lamb’s style, which belongs to him but is not his own. He remarkably borrowed his style from his predecessors. Lambs were greatly influenced by the writers of the “old world.” These writers include Sir Thomas Browne and Fuller. Though his style is archaic, it is natural. He used elongated and rambling sentences like the writers of the 17 th century. He, most of the time, uses old words if not out-dated. Charles has borrowed style, but his borrowed style belongs to him. A critic comments about his style as: “The blossoms are culled from other men’s gardens, but their blending is all Lamb’s own.”

The Chemistry of Lamb’s Literary Style

Ideas that passed through the imaginations of Lamb turned out to be fresh and unique. The style of Lamb is a mixture of many styles, and this mixture is not a mechanical mixture but a chemical mixture. His writing style extracts romantic colors from the inspiration of old writers, which is then intensified by strong imagination.

Like Wordsworth, he chooses his ordinary subject and with fanciful imagination makes it interesting and romantic. It is the process of “romanticizing” his subject that makes his essays interesting. Otherwise, the subject of everyday life would make his essays boring. He is not only a romantic essayist but also a romantic poet.

Works Of Charles Lamb

• Dream Children
• Poor Relations