The Personal Essay: Hazlitt and Lamb by P.B. for specially second semester

Discuss Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt as an essayist of 19^th century.

Ans:-      A writer called Priestle says that personal essay or familiar is a genuine expression of an original personality, an artful and enduring kind of talk. The Frenchman Montaigne was an informal essayist of the 16^th century who had greater impact on the later personal essayists. In England the journer of the essay antic essayists Like Lamb and Hazlitt were influential by the informal style of Montaigne, rather than the formal and aphoristic style of Bacon. The characters of the Romantic poetry are found in the personal essays of the Romantic period. Romantic poem shows the personal feelings, emotions and they are always subjectivity. Like Romantic poem, the personal essays are always subjective in character. The personal essayists of the romantic period penned personal feelings and thoughts in their essays. The contribution Hazlitt and Lamb towards development of English Essays is very immense.

Charles Lamb was one of the greatest essayists of the 19^th century. He has rightly been called the “Prince of English Essayist”. Lamb was essential an artist in the field of an essay writing. He was neither a moralist nor a psychologists but an artist pure and simple. Lamb stands at the head of personal essayists and the study of his essays reveals not only the delightful essayists but also his relatives and friends. Like Montaigne the essays of Lamb are personal and autobiographical. They are egoistical. They are subjective in character.

Fact and fiction were cleverly blended in the essays of Lamb. Lamb was an imaginative artist and not a factual recorder of events. Lamb made his essays mostly out of his reminiscence. Lamb was a humorist. It is as a humorist that Elia must be ranked. Lamb’s writings show all the three qualities- the first is based on intellect, the second on insight and sympathy, the third on vigor and freshness of mind and body. Allied with humour is Lambs pathos. From a man whose life was largely affected by melancholy and despair pathos was inevitable.

                Lambs prose style in the essays is old fashioned, bearning echoes adour from older writers like Thomas Browne and Fuller. His sentences are cast in the moud of the old authors. A striking feature of Lamb style is its allusiveness and use of quotations. He quotes from his favourite authors perfectible old but at times quotes from his own poems.

As personal essayists, Lamb is known for the “Essays of Elia”. The essay of Elia was published in the London magazine in 1820-1823. The last essays of Elia published in 1833.

                William Hazlitt was one of the greatest essayists of the 19^th century. He was a notable essay writer and his place in the history of English essay is very high. The essays of Hazlitt do not enjoy the same popularity as the essays of Lamb. Though, his place in the history of English essay is undoubtly lower than that of Lamb. In 1805 Hazlitt published his first book of essay namely “Essay on the Principles of Human Action”: Another important essay written by Hazlitt is “Round Table”.

                In his essays Hazlitt is everywhere autobiographical. He is his eternal subject and the self revelation is the main charm of his essays. Hazlitt was given to philosophical speculation. He was a thinker as Lamb was not. Hazlitt thought hard like a philosopher. His essays are more serious than Lamb. Hazlitts essays have striking and even starling opening paragraph. He opens essays with a stratling statement and apparent paradox.

                As an essayist Hazlitt is not the school of Addison, or Dr. Johnson but of such writers as Montaigne and Lamb. Hazlitt was lover of books and was deeply interested in books and was deeply interested books like confessions, New Eloise, Paul and Virgina, and flower and leaf. Hazlitt was also of lover of Nature and his love of nature bubbled forth in his immortal essay “On Going a Journey”.

                As a stylist Hazlitt’s place is high in English literature. His style is concrete, vivid, personal and vigorous. Hazlitt has enriched his style by quoting phrases, an expression from other writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Gray, and Wordsworth. He may quote only a world or two, a phrase or a whole sentence.

In many ways Hazlitt recalls his contemporary and friend Charles Lamb. Like Lamb, he loved paradox. But, the differences are very noticeable. Lamb is over sweet; Hazlitt is at times very bitter. There is less bookishness in Hazlitt than in Lamb though, he is copies in his quotations.

Finally, we can say that “Lamb is the worst of model which Hazlitt is an admirable model.”

Best of luck & God blessing you all, by Podmeswar