Texte remanié de: Diss.--Bochum--Ruhr-Universität, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 213-227.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine the nature of Charles Lamb as revealed in his Elia essays. To this end, these essays form the major portion of the text. The general procedure for ascertaining what these excerpts indicate is as follows: first, the characteristics of Charles Lamb are determined from a study of the Elia essays; second, these characteristics are considered in relation to information derived from biographies. Careful attention is given to significant discrepancies between the essays and other sources.

La présente étude se propose de donner une traduction abondamment annotée de la seconde série des essais d’Élia qui paraissent dans les revues périodiques anglaises, entre 1820 et 1833. Dans un souci d’exactitude, cette traduction restitue les passages supprimés par l’auteur avant leur parution sous forme de recueil. Une attention toute particulière a été portée sur les traductions en français de certains essais d’Élia publiés séparément dans les revues du milieu du dix-neuvième siècle et sur les traductions plus modernes des Essais d’Elia, réunis en recueil, jusqu’à l’époque présente. Les Last Essays of Elia sont la dernière œuvre publiée par Lamb. La tentation était grande de chercher une continuité depuis les premiers écrits jusqu’aux LEE. Dans l’introduction critique, nous nous sommes efforcé de voir les différents aspects de l’oeuvre de Lamb qui est à la fois poète, journaliste, dramaturge, critique de théâtre et épistolier et qui connaît la notoriété dans le genre de l’essai, genre auquel il donne un souffle nouveau, grâce à la persona d’Élia. Le fait que Lamb ait été l’ami des premiers poètes romantiques anglais de l’époque, le fait que sa vie ait été marquée et bouleversée par le meurtre de sa propre mère de la main de sa sœur bien-aimée, confèrent à son œuvre un vif intérêt. Personnalité inclassable du Romantisme anglais, dont il est une figure mineure, humoriste amoureux des livres et de la langue du passé, Lamb n’en reste pas moins un chaînon indispensable pour comprendre la scène littéraire anglaise du début du XIXe siècle. / The present study aims to provide a carefully annotated translation of the second series of the Essays of Elia which appeared in English periodical magazines between 1820 and 1833. In order to be as complete as possible, this translation includes the passages removed by the author when they were published in book form in 1833. Particular attention has been paid to French translations of individual Elia essays scattered in mid-nineteenth century French magazines as well as to more modern translations of the collected Essays, up to the present day. The Last Essays of Elia was Lamb’s final published work. It was very tempting to look for threads running through his work from the early writings to the LEE. In the critical introduction, we have sought to consider the various aspects of the work of Lamb, who was at the same time a poet, a journalist, a playwright, a theatre critic and a letter-writer before making his name as an essay-writer, breathing new life into the genre, thanks to the Elia persona. The fact that Lamb was a friend of the first English Romantic poets and that his life was blighted by his mother’s murder at the hands of his beloved sister, brings a vivid interest to his work. An isolated figure of Romanticism, a "very reasonable Romantic" himself, a humourist in love with the books and language of the past, Lamb, though a relatively minor author, remains a key link to understanding the early nineteenth-century English literary scene.

This study challenges Charles Lamb's 1811 essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare, Considered with Reference to their Fitness for Stage Representation," which argues that Shakespeare's plays are better suited for reading than stage production. Each of the four chapters considers a specific argument Lamb raises against the theatre and the particular Shakespearean tragedy used to illustrate his point. The Hamlet chapter examines the supposed concessions involved in the actor/audience relationship. The Macbeth chapter challenges Lamb's Platonic view of Shakespearean characterization. The Othello chapter considers whether some characters and images, while acceptable to the reader's imagination, are improper on stage. Finally, the King Lear chapter considers the portrayal of the mind in the theatre, employing semiotic principles to examine the actor's expressive resources.