ABSTRACT
Lamb, Elia (1823); Monthly Review, 2nd Series, CI (June 1823), 202–210. Charles Lloyd, whose early poems appeared in a volume with those of Coleridge and Lamb, published a translation of the dramas of Vittorio Alfieri in 1815. It is my personal theory that Lamb took the name Elia from an important person in Alfieri’s Autobiography, a book read by all the literary people of this period. The real Elia was Alfieri’s loyal servant and good angel, whose kindness and good sense, according to Alfieri’s testimony, saved the great poet-dramatist from many foolish and/or immoral actions, but whose worth he failed to appreciate until long afterwards.
