Charles Lamb was a Romantic essayist who began his literary career as an unsuccessful poet and dramatist but he established himself as the Prince of Essayists (said by Hugh Walker). He wrote his essays in a subjective manner in which he talks more about his eccentricities, idiosyncrasies, dreams, visions and follies. He creates humour even during a deep sense of pathos, sufferings and pains. His style in most of his essays is a mixture of reflective, descriptive and narrative ones and the model of subjective essays in which almost all of his essays are written is much similar to that of the French essayist Montaigne (the father of essays).In the essay ‘The New Year’s Eve’, Charles lamb relates his story with a blend of descriptive and reflective styles. He thinks about and recalls his past days when he was a youth and reflects about his ageing future that brings a pessimistic note to him. When he recollects his past memories he seems to be more descriptive and reflective while the projection of his imaginary world that is his would-be future, in the world of dreams of having a wife and children is more reflective in nature. The tone of his writing is generally sad and pathetic and his mood seems quite pessimistic in this essay. His fear from becoming old and reluctance to switch from the previous year to the new one make Charles Lamb a more serious writer which has a keen observation of the grey-moment that connects the old and the new years. He uses a very apt metaphor to give this moment a pictorial view: “I saw the skirts of the departing Year.”The essay seems to be Charles Lamb’s reflections on the idea of death and mortality that is an inevitable part of the human existence, though he does not become ready to accept the realities of life that people grow old and pass away at a certain point of time. Merely the slightest consciousness of death frightens Charles Lamb in this essay and makes him more dejected, pale and gloomy, and the sense of futility and stagnation in his life has crept in into his life in such away that he feels that a year seems to end in June instead of December as the end of spring and summer season denote the end of all hopes and possibilities.Charles Lamb always shows cleverness in the depiction of his characters in his essays and at the same time he becomes mysterious and vogue when he talks about other characters. He is famous for exchanging the personhood of his characters in essays and he keeps certain names of his characters elliptic and abbreviated. Sometimes, he omits the inner spellings of their names and writes only the beginning and the ending letters, for example, “Alice W—-n”. His prose is more poetic in nature and his language is loaded or pregnant with his deep feelings and emotions. He is more subjective in the treatment of his subject matters and his language chooses very suitable metaphors to express his subtle ideas and unique experiences. Almost all of his essays were published in the collection of his essays Essays of Elia which appeared in several editions. He published his essays in the name of Elia (a pen name) which he adopted directly from a personElia whom he met when he was working in the South Sea House, a representative office of theEast India Company in England.
Literary Latitude 