Commentary on The Old Familiar Faces by Charles Lamb

Analysis of “The Old Familiar Faces” by Charles Lamb By Diana Charo
Charles Lamb wrote this poem when he was 23 years old.It is an Elegy.The rhythm is wonderful regardless of what it says, it is a pleasure to listen to it.It is made up of stanzas of three lines and each one contains an idea
There is repetition of the refrain. It relies on this repetition of structure to make the poem so sad.There is also repetition of long vowels and dipthongs .You just can´t read it quickly. It sounds like a bell tolling at the end of each stanza.We find the use of “cisura” an internal pause in the middle of the line to slow down the reading even more.
As we read through it we notice that the pull of the past is so strong that it does not allow him to enjoy the friends in the present.It seems involuntary, as if he can´t avoid the bitterness. We have the euphemism “taken from me” for death or separation .The person does not seem to have died but gone from life. What may embitter someone this way? A tragedy.in his life that he cannot overcome.He is in a fit of depression.We hear from him that childhood was a period of happiness, he was happy for a moment. We also have a lot of problems in our childhoods but then we tend to forget them and idealize this period. He had “cronies” which were not true friends just to go out together and have fun. We see that the different stages of life are over : childhood, adolescence.There is “Ghost-like… “ an inversion to forground the importance that he gave to this kind of the lifestyle. Must shows an obligation. It is closed Notice the use of hyperbaton. I left my friend .Does he feel guilty because he is alive and his friend is dead? Was there a love triangle in which the friend tried to steal his loved one from him? Was he senile? We must become co-authors according to how our imagination fills the holes. Again we have the pull of the past which has become a world of fantasy not the real world. Ask ourselves what kind of pull does your old house/school have on you .
“Earth seemed a desert…” It is a pathetic fallacy. He is sad, so sad that the world seems a desert. The moments when you touch rock bottom, you feel alien to the environment
“Why wert not thou…” There is an address. He is speaking to someone
At the time of writing, Lamb had written an extra stanza which he later chose to miss out.When we read it , we see that if he had included the missing stanza, the poem would have lost its universality.
“Where are the old familiar faces
I had a mother , but she died and left me
Died prematurely in a day of horrors
All, all are gone…”
Of course it was Mary Lamb who, when insane, killed their mother in 1796.
This poem touches two very old familiar Motifs or recurrent themes: The Tempus Fugit , or time flies and the Ubi sunt from Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerent? Where are those who were before us ? A phrase that begins several medieval poems in latin. The phrase evokes the transcience of life, youth, and human endeavour.One other famous motif is not included that is Carpe Diem
Listen to The Beatles : IN my life. This song includes the three recurrent themes or Motifs :
Tempus fugit
Ubi sunt
Carpe diem

The story behind the poem
Mary Lamb :Many know her name and her famous Tales from Shakespeare, but few know that ten years before that classic was written, when Mary Lamb was 31, she killed her mother with a kitchen knife. Her brother, then 21, whisked her into a private madhouse and promised authorities he would take care of her for the rest of his life. Thus began a lifetime of, as Charles called it, “double singleness,” during which time the brother and sister lived together, Mary caring for Charles as much as he cared for her. Some writers say she was her brother’s burden , without whom he would have been a much greater literary success. I challenge that view, believing that she is a noteworthy author in her own right and that the relationship of support between Mary and Charles was mutual. Although no one really knew how things happened, here is an extract of a fictional text that imagines what the evfents might have benn like:
The landlord dashed out of his front door, around to the stairway at the side. Taking the steps two at a time, he met the family’s apprentice girl flying down the stairs, her body akilter, face pinched in horror. She flung herself at him, pulled at him, called out, her eyes wide with fear, then with an inchoate shriek flew past him down the stairs, escaping the scene.
The door to the Lambs’ quarters stood wide open. The landlord hurried down the hallway to their front room. The smells of dinner -- roast mutton and turnips -- sweetened the air. The odor grew more pungent as the landlord looked in. The smell of warm blood stopped him short.
Elizabeth Lamb slumped unnaturally in her favorite chair at the window. A stain of red spread out from a ragged tear in her white muslin bodice. Above her stood her daughter, Mary Anne, eyes gleaming, mouth a taut rictus, suspended in a moment of thoughtless inaction. She held a bloodied carving knife on high.
Beside the body knelt the dead woman’s husband, John Lamb. He pulled desperately on her full skirts, helpless to undo the deed. Two trickles of blood ran down his face from a superficial wound above his left eyebrow. He glanced up at his daughter and cowered under the threat of the knife.
Gasps and wheezes came from the room’s far corner as a fourth family member, John Lamb’s elder sister, backed away in terror. She drew one long, rasping breath and collapsed with a muffled thump, breaking the paralyzed silence. The murderess glanced around as if coming out of a trance. Her muscles relaxed. Her face fell. Her hand dropped, still gripping the knife. She stepped back and drew a long, slow breath. Her eyes softened. She blinked and looked around her.
At that moment, a young man burst in through the door. Pushing past the landlord, he cried out, “Good God! Mary! What has happened here? Why?” Then, quickly, Charles Lamb reached around from behind his sister, taking hold of the knife in her right hand. She succumbed to his grasp and gave up the weapon willingly. In that moment, she rested in his strength. Gently, he seated her in one of the dining chairs she had just arranged. The joint of meat meant for dinner sat untouched in the middle of the table. The gravy had started to coagulate. Gray turnip globes sat trapped in a thin white sheet of fat.
Charles Lamb placed the knife on the table, beyond Mary Lamb’s reach, beside the leather case in which it was ordinarily stored. Slowly he moved around the room, assessing the chaos. All that could be heard were the meek sobs of his father, now crumpled on the floor and clutching his wife’s left ankle, and tense chatter from the hallway, where the apprentice girl had returned and was heatedly describing to the landlord what she had seen. The air was electric with the smell of blood and held breath.
Charles Lamb gathered the utensils scattered all over the wooden floor. Blood stains marked the carving fork’s tines. From its position in the room, Charles determined it to be the object that had struck his father in the forehead. He did not have to look at his sister to feel her spirit in retreat. She sat silently, sidelong to the table, just as Charles had placed her, motionless, staring downward. Only her hands moved, folding and unfolding, one then the other hand on top, fingers madly flying. Seizing one quiet moment, Charles sat in a chair facing Mary and took those wild hands in his. He looked intensely into her eyes. She dared to look back at him, face flickering with guilt and trepidation. Their eyes met, and for that one moment, she felt saved.