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Charles Lamb's Contribution to the Theory of Dramatic Illusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Sylvan Barnet
Sylvan Barnet*
Affiliation:
Tufts College, Medford, Mass.
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Extract

The concept of “Dramatic Illusion” is never thought of today in conjunction with Charles Lamb. Rather it is chiefly associated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for two good reasons. Coleridge's position on this difficult topic is, in the final analysis, a middle of the road one, between the extremes, say, of Castelvetro on the one hand and Dr. Johnson on the other. Second, his formula, “the willing suspension of disbelief,” whether adequate or not, is so effectively put that it has been granted a degree of acceptance which a less vivid phrase might never have received.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 69 , Issue 5 , December 1954 , pp. 1150 - 1159
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1954

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References

1 The neo-classic view can be conveniently (but not, of course, completely) seen in Castelvetro's statement (quoted in H. B. Charlton, Caslelvetro's Theory of Poetry, Manchester, 1913, p. 86) that “the time of the representation and that of the action presented must be exactly coincident. There is no possibility of making the spectators believe that many days and nights have passed, when they themselves obviously know that only a few hours have actually elapsed; they refuse to be so deceived.” George Farquhar (“A Discourse on Comedy,” in Critical Essays of the Eighteenth Century, ed. W. H. Durham, New Haven, 1915, p. 285) gives the reply: “Why should a Poet fetter the Business of his Plot, and starve his Action, for the nicety of an Hour, or the Change of a Scene; since the Thought of Man can fly over a Thousand Years with the same Ease, and in the same Instant of Time, that your Eye glances from the Figure of Six, to Seven, on the Dial-Plate; and can glide from the Cape of Good-Hope to the Bay of St. Nicholas, which is quite cross the World, with the same Quickness and Activity, as between Covent-Garden Church, and Will's Coffee-House.”

2 Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas (London, 1903-05), ii, 163. Hereafter cited as Works.

3 Aesthetics (New York, 1949), pp. 77-78.

4 The Cutting of an Agate (New York, 1912), p. 200.

5 The Plays of William Shakespeare (London, 1765), i, xxvii.