It has also been referred to as, “the following-dinner monologue of an exciting and nicely-informed man”. superb academics has been known as by Saintsbury as, “a work of prose art”. These definitions do not apply to such philosophical essay as Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding or to Pope’s Essay on Criticism and Essay on Man. Hugh Walker has divided essay into two kinds-Essays per excellence and compositions to which custom has assigned the name. the true essay is basically individual. English essay writing belongs to the literature of self-expression.
Alexander Smith in his paper on English essay writing has characterized the essay par excellence as a literary kind which resembles a lyric in so far as it is molded by some central mood-severe, whimsical or satirical. “Given the mood, and the essay from the initial sentence to the last grows around it as the cocoon grows around the silkworm”. Essays are “attempts”, and the guiding principle is determined by the mood of the essay writer. Just as in a lyric, the poet pours out his entire heart delighting in the passing mood of the moment, so the literary English essay writing has a pre-eminently subjective character.
Charles Lamb is the perfector of the Literary kind of essay– subjective, literary and private. Leigh Hunt in his Indicator revived the manner, quiet narrative and the style of Steele. Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Overview and Hazlitt in his Table Talk took to literary criticism and raised the normal of literary taste. But Hazlitt has to significantly bitterness to be affable De Quincey is usually also imaginative in his conceptions and florid in his style. But Lamb is vital, imaginative and romantic. The central subject matter of the Essays of Elia is Lamb himself-Lamb’s thoughts re-acting to his studies and environments-to life itself. This a different intriguing attribute to English essay writing.
Walter Pater would say, “With him as with Montaigne, the wish of self-portraiture is, under all the additional superficial tendencies the genuine motive in writing at all-a want connected with that intimacy, the contemporary subjectivity, which might be known as the Montaignesque element in literature”. The egotism of Lamb is blended with a sweetness all its personal. There is the unmistakable stamp of his lovable character in his essays and his essays are enlivened by genial humour and impish wit. The English essay writings of Lamb may perhaps be referred to as confidential chatters as they are wealthy in autobiographical pathos and wide sympathy for humanity.
In the contemporary century the mantle of Lamb has fallen on many writers. Stevenson in the later Victorian age inherited the tradition of Lamb. He might not have the similar humour and whimsicality of Lamb, hut he has the similar urbanity in his style, the very same informal and fresh strategy to commonplace subjects. Chesterton writes on trifles but makes the trifles tremendous by his inimitable style though the writings of Hilaire Belloc are on absolutely nothing, on anything, on almost everything. He has a clear incisive style in which humour plays an vital portion in his English essay writings.