charles lamb (read that bio, it’s some intense stuff) has come up quite a bit recently. in one of my ulysses posts – and then a conversation i had this weekend with my mother about him. she was reading anne fadiman’s recent collection of essays – i gave it to dad for christmas – and fadiman wrote a big essay on charles lamb – and how he was a master of the essay. anyway, you know how suddenly something (like charles lamb) is on your radar – and you start seeing him everywhere? or you learn a new word, and it suddenly shows up in every commercial, radio broadcast, billboard that you see? here’s a post about charles lamb. mum, i post this for you.
an excerpt from lamb about poets writing at the time of shakespeare:
âA puritanical obtuseness of sentiment, a stupid infantile goodness, is creeping among us, instead of the vigorous passions, and virtues clad in flesh and blood, with which the old dramatists present us. Those noble and liberal casuists could discern in the differences, the quarrels, the animosities of man, a beauty and truth of moral feeling, no less than in the iterately inculcated duties of forgiveness and atonement. With us all is hypocritical meekness, A reconciliation scene (let the occasion be never so absurd or unnatural) is always sure of applause. Our audiences come to the theatre to be complimented on their goodness. They compare notes with the amiable characters in the play, and find a wonderful similarity of disposition between them. We have a common stock of dramatic morality out of which a writer may be supplied without the trouble of copying it from originals within his own breast.â
Fine writing.
thanks, ken, for the following link to charles lamb’s tales from shakespeare. isn’t it beautiful?
