Professional Documents
Culture Documents
New Year's Eve Pointwise Summary
New Year's Eve Pointwise Summary
Subject-English
Class : M.A.
Year/Semester : I
Name of the Paper - English Literature from Wordsworth to Hardy
Topic : Charles Lamb's New Year's Eve
Sub Topic: A Critical Appreciation
Keywords : Pen-name, Idiosyncrasies, veracity persuasion, Immortality,
cheerful, braving death, extravagant fancies.
Disclaimer
Introduction
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 - 27 December 1834) was an English
essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the
children's book Tales from Shakespeare, co-authored with his sister, Mary
Lamb (1764-1847).
Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and William Hazlitt, Lamb was at the
literature".
Charles Lamb found his real literary ability when he began to write
essays. He earned the name of "the English Montaigne" with the series of
of Elia. His two volumes of Essays of Elia appeared in 1823 and 1833. He led
Lamb as an essayist:
Lamb is the greatest exponent of the personal essay in English
Literature. His dependence upon facts or theories or arguments is far less than
that of any great writer. There is no other writer who may be said to have
did was to make himself and all the events of his simple and single life, the
letters, he said that "the more my character comes to be known, the less my
men and things, they seem like the creations of fancy or imagination. But the
diligent research of scholars has revealed a fidelity to fact and truth which is
very nearly complete. His mystifications are so thorough that for a long time no
aggressive about him, nothing to offend the man of taste or the scholar or the
philosopher. He holds hard to the fundamental verities of life, and even when
undated but perennial. By becoming merged in the past, he does not lose his
individuality but becomes more than ever original. The extraordinary and
universal appeal of the personal essay owes almost everything of its vitality and
and Macaulay. But while he has something of the manner of them, not one of
Critics Opinion:
Walter Peter calls Elia "essentially an essayist, and of the true family of
signature of Elia form the most delightful section among Lamb's works. They
they are composed in a spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch the ear of
the noisy crowds, clamouring for strong sensations." George Saintsbury has
remarked: "Not only is he... unique among English writers, but he is equally
unique among the smaller and especially national body of English humorists.
Nobody has ever succeeded in imitating him even in his most obvious
essence, prepared from flowers and herbs gathered in fields where the ordinary
reader does not range. And the nature of the writer, the alembic in which these
various samples were distilled, was as rare for sweetness and purity as the best
Universal Birthday:
The New Year is like a common birthday to all mankind. One's personal
birthday is not celebrated as one grows older; it is celebrated only when one is
a child. Children do not think upon the true significance of a birthday: they are
only concerned with the eatables. The birth of the New Year is the birthday of
our common Adam. Lamb finds the occasion of the departing of the old year
solemn, though others around him enjoy it. The sound of the bells ringing out
the year makes him melancholy and he thinks of all that passed in last year.
not like even the unhappy events of his past changed, for they gave him
5
though his love was hopeless. He is glad that their family lost the money that
they did through a fraudulent lawyer called Dorell; otherwise, he would not
Memories of childhood:
Lamb loves the child Elia and this kind of self-love, he feels, is
excusable, because he was so different as a child. He does not like his present
self, which is full of faults. He recalls with sympathy, the various misfortunes
that befell him as a child. The incidence of smallpox at the age of five, and how
The reason for his tendency of looking too much into the past could be a
sign of morbidity. Another reason could be that having no child of his own, he
has no one to play with and to pay attention. As a result, he looks to his own
image as a child for comfort, and adopts him for heir and successor. If the
readers are too impatient with Lamb for such musings, he will hide himself
Thoughts of Death:
When young, one knows of death as an inescapable entity but can still
ignore it. But as time passes on, death becomes more and more relevant to one,
personally. New Year's Eve brings the thoughts of death and makes Lamb sad.
He thinks more of the year that has passed than of the year that is going to
come. He does not want to leave this earth which, for him, holds great joys. He
would like to stop time's movement, for the charms of maturity do not appeal to
him. He is horrified to think that with death he would lose all the joys of life
like the solitary walks, the sun, the breeze, the sky and the good food and drink.
6
He feels worse when he thinks that death will deprive him of his favourite
books. In summer, the thoughts of death are thrust away and one even
entertains ideas of immortality, but winter's cold winds bring back the thoughts
of death. Lamb does not consider death to be a refuge from the storms and
mankind and banished like a criminal. No antidote can be effective against his
fear of death.
terms with kings and emperors. But he takes joy in the fact that he is alive and
thus superior to the dead men. In this sprit Lamb bids farewell to the departing
year and welcomes the New Year. He quotes Charles Cotton's cheerful song on
the subject of the New Year and says that the poem should have the effect of a
tonic on the reader. These lines drive away all thoughts of death from the mind.
New year's Eve is a personal essay, revealing the innermost feelings and
mood of melancholy in the mind of Lamb. He broods over the past year. The
author's personal likes are revealed he loves the sun and the sky, pleasant
solitary walks in the countryside, good food and drink and his books.
Lamb's love of the past, can be called a Romantic trait. He looks back
no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon memory, and adopt my
7
own early idea as my heir and favourite." Lamb also thinks of his golden youth
and his unrequited love for Ann Simmons, whom he calls Alice W-n.
dying and nothing can mitigate his fear of death and its horrors. Indeed, New
Year's Eve makes him count the days of his duration on earth. He loves the
earth and would not like to leave it. It is a candid and touching admission by
Lamb. He does not make himself out to be a hero braving death, or a mystic
welcoming it. He is an ordinary man and confesses his horror of death, which is
New Year Eve is certainly one of Lamb's more serious writings. It is not
playfully witty or boisterously funny. Indeed, his typical humour is not too
much in evidence in this essay. A solemn tone governs the writing. However,
humour is not entirely absent. There is a touch of it even while Lamb is talking
so intensely of his fear of death. "Know thy betters", he says to the dead men,
establishes itself at the end of the essay. There is also a touch of whimsical
humour in Lamb's invitation to the reader to lay any amount of vices at the
door of the grown up Elia, who is such a contrast to the noble child Elia.
Style. The style of the essay is fairly simple, and it contains less of
allusions than is usual in a Lambian essay. Felicity of expression marks some
of the effective phrases. Some of the sentences have an epigrammatic touch, for
instance:
i. I am armour-proof against old discouragements.
8
Books Consulted :
Charles Lamb Wikipedia dated 23.08.2019
Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia by S. Sen, Unique publishers New Delhi
2004.
Alfred Ainger : Charls Lamb
N.L. Hallward and SC Hill (Ed.) : The Essay of Elia, 2013
Important Questions:
1. Write an essay on Charles Lamb as an Essayist.
2. Critically analysis Lamb's essay the ' New Year Eve'.
3. Write a critical appreciation of the essay New Year's Eve.