Lamb, Shakespeare, and the Stage

Abstract

L AMB'S ESSAY ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKESPEARE, Considered with reference to their Fitness for Representation is perhaps the most widely read and generally known of all his critical writings. All too often it is, with the notorious essay on Restoration Comedy, the only Lamb criticism that is known. Both essays are widely taken to indicate an armchair aesthete unwilling to allow the intrusion of flesh and blood into his reading of literature. In the former Lamb is said to argue that the tragedies of Shakespeare cannot be represented adequately on the stage; in the latter, that comedy is a fantasy world with no connection to life. Both interpretations have seriously damaged Lamb's reputation as a critic, and have led to the view that he did not like the theatre and entertained a bias against actors. But far from disliking the theatre, Lamb with his sister Mary was a constant theatregoer, and the stage played a more important part in his life generally than is the case with Hazlitt or Coleridge. He was a personal friend of many of the great actors of the time; he proposed to the actress Fanny Kelly; his many sketches of eighteenthand nineteenth-century actors are unsurpassed. He wrote four plays, as well as a number of prologues and epilogues to the plays of others. Two-thirds of his criticism is devoted to the drama, and his account of the relationship between actor and audience in Stage Illusion is the best in the language. Biographical evidence suggests a prima facie case for reassessing current interpretations of Lamb's dramatic criticism. His general view of life and literature is at odds with the usual view of his writings about the drama.