Commentary on The old familiar Faces by Charles Lamb

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                Marielle Welander

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Commentary on “The old familiar Faces” by Charles Lamb

This poem sounds as if an old man wrote it, however the poet was merely 23 years old when this poem was published. The entire poem is very poignant and tragic in tone and the main reason why I get the impression of an old man as the narrator is because the poet seems to feel as if his life is already over. What could ever have caused such immense sorrow?

The first stanza is dedicated to reflection on a better time: the poet’s childhood. He emphasizes the dear companionship he shared with “bosom cronies”, as he calls them in the second stanza. In the first and second stanzas we see how the poet tries to reconstruct the happy memories from his past, but to no avail since this only intensifies his pain. We see this through the way he mentions joyous activities, like “laughing”, “carousing”, “drinking late”, “sitting late….”, which suggests that the man lived a normal childhood, which makes us wonder why he is still so dejectedly exclaims that “all, all are gone”.

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The first three stanzas (as well as the last stanza) all end with the same repeated refrain: “All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.” This may sound true since the narrator speaks in the past tense for the first three stanzas, making it clear that the both happy and painful recollections he is having are gone and cannot be recreated. It also indicates that the wound is still fresh, so the horrible event that set off this depressed state of mind must have happened recently.

In the third stanza he speaks of a woman he once loved, and it ...

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