Sarah Weaver: A critical response to 'In Search of Beein’: Nom/Non du Père in David Copperfield’ (Virginia Carmichael).
'In Search of Beein’: Nom/Non du Père in David Copperfield' furthers a traditional psychoanalytical reading of David Copperfield by considering ’David’s development in terms of his desire to experience and express the Imaginary in a Symbolic Order of differential value.’
Carmichael’s essay argues that David’s marital relationships seek firstly the image of his Mother, and later the comfort of a Mother. As well as this, many of David’s other relationships are created with those who represent a father-figure in some way. Indeed, she begins by addressing David’s ‘old unhappy loss’ of mother which leads to ‘partial identification with surrogate father and mother figures and alter egos.’ We immediately identify the image of Dora’s bouncing curls with that of his Mother, Clara. Dora becomes an escape for David, she is a way of returning to the past and from resisting self-development. This is evident in David‘s confession that ‘the more I pitied myself, or pitied others, the more I sought for consolation in the image of Dora.’
Dora then is just that, an image of what used to be, and what never was; an indulgence in the imagination. Dickens’s protagonist reflects on ‘what an idle time it was! what an unsubstantial, idle time.’ On the other hand, Carmichael identifies Agnes as the comforting image of the mother. Indeed, Agnes is David’s calming influence, she is, as Dickens so often reiterates, David’s ‘good angel.’ However, although David seeks comfort in ‘the remembrance of her clear clean eyes and gentle face came stealing over me, it shed a peaceful influence on me…,’ his relationship suffers a different loss in that it is desexualised.
Virginia Carmichael points to the many broken relationships in the novel, and the triangulations which complicate straightforward relationships. She draws on the likes of Steerforth and Heep who, in their dark doubling of David, complicate his sense of self. Another example that Carmichael draws upon is that of Miss Murdstone, yet another warped motherly interference who recurs in the novel- initially as a third party between David and Clara, and later between David and Dora. Here too Dickens draws together, and morphs the wife with the image of the mother An alter ego that the article does not make much of is that of Uriah Heep who embodies the sexual desire for Agnes which David lacks. Dianne F Sadoff notes the way in which ‘Uriah Heep also appears as a dark figure for David’s desire for success and self creation.’ Indeed, David cannot escape Uriah’s presence, he exclaims the the way in which ‘he knew me better than I knew myself.’ In a way, it necessary for David to quash any sexual feeling for Agnes in order to free himself from the grasp of Uriah Heep. In a similar way, Carmichael notes how David has to reject Steerforth in order to progress towards becoming a writer. Whilst Steerforth’s name appears to offer guidance, it becomes clear that David must take a different route in order to become both socially productive and happy. David’s drunken slurring to his friend, declaring ‘Steerforth-you’retheguidingstarofmyexist ence,’ is reminiscent of another warped guiding star: Estella in Great Expectations. In this novel, the protagonist never frees himself from the influence of his misguided star whereas David must reject this route of the alter-self and instead seek a motherly guidance in Agnes, ‘pointing upwards.’
Carmichael concludes that ‘the imaginary and the triangulated structures of the narrative, as well as the transcendental language, betray this ending tone of resolution, showing David still firmly imprisoned in the realm of the imaginary.’ I would suggest that, whilst with Agnes , David is able to become a productive being in the eyes of society, he has not free of his psychological loss. Indeed, the novel portrays the need to be both willing and able. Whilst Berkis is willin’, he is not able to continue in the novel, as is the case with Dora. This leads the reader to the somewhat melancholy conclusion that David does not replace the loss of his childhood, but that he follows his Aunt Betsey’s advice to ‘act the play out.’
Thursday 10 December 2009
Tuesday 8 December 2009
Lauren Broderick on Alex Zwerdling’s Esther Summerson Rehabilitated.
Alex Zwerdling begins his text Esther Summerson Rehabilitated by describing the common misconceptions surrounding Esther before he commences his defence of her. He believes that these criticisms are misunderstandings and so the reader must rid their comprehension of Esther of any clichés before they can be aware of her role in Dickens’ Bleak House.
The abuse Esther experiences as a child indicates a progression in how Dickens’ represents this from a physically abused Oliver Twist to an emotionally abused Esther Summerson. She is denied of any love which she consequently hungers for, so whenever she receives compliments she writes them all down and cherishes them as love even if she doesn’t believe them. In this way her constant denials of her own worth may not be false modesty but instead proof that any sense of self worth has been bullied out of Esther. This is a wound which will never heal in her and which spurs Esther on in her adult life. Her desire for love is so strong that she never clearly specifies what kind it is she strives for. Hence, her engagement to Jarndyce suggests her confusion between parental and romantic love. Furthermore, she is constantly a spectator in other people’s romances, such as Richard and Ada. This cements the idea that she is unsuitable for romantic love, something which her illegitimacy later seems confirms to her as she accepts she will never be loved in a romantic way but instead in a communal way by society. At the beginning of the novel she is treated like an old woman and so is clearly not looking for romantic love. Therefore, Jarndyce becomes the idyllic match in this situation. In addition, in her meeting with Woodcourt Esther’s style becomes flustered which depicts her anxiety at feeling a romantic attraction as opposed to a paternal or friendly love as she is used to. Esther’s love of Ada is a displaced form of romantic love. This may be a result of Esther’s view of Ada as girl she may have been if she’d not been born different. This theory is complemented in the text when Esther refuses to see Ada when she is ill as she believes: “I will die”. Her concern for Ada is so strong that if she became ill it would destroy Esther; this also validates the connection between them as the death of Ada would be the death of a possible Esther. Likewise, it is only after Richard has died and Ada is free to love her guardian again that Esther is able to marry Woodcourt. As both girls are two sides of a single nature it is impossible for them to both be engaged in romantic love at the same time and so this switch is necessary for the novels progression. In addition, Lady Dedlock is also a part of Esther. Her haughtiness and isolated opposes Esther’s immersion into the community as well as he cheerfulness. They are both also searching for something, Esther as a child and Lady Dedlock as a mother. Moreover, Lady Dedlock has given up her lover and married a man who she respects but does not love, a fate which Esther narrowly escapes. Indeed, her learning of the disgrace of her birth corresponds to her falling ill and so leads to her resolution that she too must give up the idea of romantic love and accept that she will have to live with communal love and be happy with it. Thus, she retreats into her safe world in Bleak House. Her marriage to Jarndyce would mean she would remain in this haven forever and the idea of this panics Esther meaning that her marriage to Woodcourt at the novels conclusion had rescued her from her resolve to be happy with communal love and to lock herself in Jarndyce’s Bleak House forever.
The abuse Esther experiences as a child indicates a progression in how Dickens’ represents this from a physically abused Oliver Twist to an emotionally abused Esther Summerson. She is denied of any love which she consequently hungers for, so whenever she receives compliments she writes them all down and cherishes them as love even if she doesn’t believe them. In this way her constant denials of her own worth may not be false modesty but instead proof that any sense of self worth has been bullied out of Esther. This is a wound which will never heal in her and which spurs Esther on in her adult life. Her desire for love is so strong that she never clearly specifies what kind it is she strives for. Hence, her engagement to Jarndyce suggests her confusion between parental and romantic love. Furthermore, she is constantly a spectator in other people’s romances, such as Richard and Ada. This cements the idea that she is unsuitable for romantic love, something which her illegitimacy later seems confirms to her as she accepts she will never be loved in a romantic way but instead in a communal way by society. At the beginning of the novel she is treated like an old woman and so is clearly not looking for romantic love. Therefore, Jarndyce becomes the idyllic match in this situation. In addition, in her meeting with Woodcourt Esther’s style becomes flustered which depicts her anxiety at feeling a romantic attraction as opposed to a paternal or friendly love as she is used to. Esther’s love of Ada is a displaced form of romantic love. This may be a result of Esther’s view of Ada as girl she may have been if she’d not been born different. This theory is complemented in the text when Esther refuses to see Ada when she is ill as she believes: “I will die”. Her concern for Ada is so strong that if she became ill it would destroy Esther; this also validates the connection between them as the death of Ada would be the death of a possible Esther. Likewise, it is only after Richard has died and Ada is free to love her guardian again that Esther is able to marry Woodcourt. As both girls are two sides of a single nature it is impossible for them to both be engaged in romantic love at the same time and so this switch is necessary for the novels progression. In addition, Lady Dedlock is also a part of Esther. Her haughtiness and isolated opposes Esther’s immersion into the community as well as he cheerfulness. They are both also searching for something, Esther as a child and Lady Dedlock as a mother. Moreover, Lady Dedlock has given up her lover and married a man who she respects but does not love, a fate which Esther narrowly escapes. Indeed, her learning of the disgrace of her birth corresponds to her falling ill and so leads to her resolution that she too must give up the idea of romantic love and accept that she will have to live with communal love and be happy with it. Thus, she retreats into her safe world in Bleak House. Her marriage to Jarndyce would mean she would remain in this haven forever and the idea of this panics Esther meaning that her marriage to Woodcourt at the novels conclusion had rescued her from her resolve to be happy with communal love and to lock herself in Jarndyce’s Bleak House forever.
Monday 7 December 2009
Rebecca on the Scrooge Problem
Rebecca Lilly on: Elliot L. Gilbert: 'The Ceremony of Innocence: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol'
Gilbert’s essay 'The Ceremony of Innocence: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol' addresses ‘the Scrooge problem’, that is, the critical tradition of questioning the sincerity of Scrooge’s sudden transformation from being mean-spirited to kind-hearted. Gilbert begins by listing the critics who have contributed to the debate. Edmund Wilson for example, first doubted the authenticity of Scrooge’s character change in his essay ‘The Two Scrooges’, in which, he argues that if we were to follow Scrooge beyond the frame of the story, he would: ‘unquestionably relapse into moroseness… [and]… vindictiveness. He would, that is to say, reveal himself as the victim of a manic-depressive cycle, and a very uncomfortable person’. Wilson’s attack on Scrooge is supported by Humphry House, in Dickens’s World, and by Edgar Johnston writing in Charles Dickens His Tragedy and Triumph, who both declare that Scrooge’s new identity is adopted too quickly to be psychologically convincing. However, Joseph Gold, author of Charles Dickens: Radical Moralist, contradicts all three when he suggests that by penning a fairy or ghost story, Dickens ‘deliberately avoids dealing with the question of spiritual growth’; thus removing the need to find Scrooge’s personality change believable.
Gilbert’s own view of the ‘Scrooge problem’ is mixed. He is quick to refute Gold’s theory when he argues that simply associating Scrooge with the world of fairy stories is too simplistic, as it does not account for the realism Dickens shows when representing his other characters. But examples to illustrate this are notably absent, and reflect Gilbert’s inability to fully disassociate A Christmas Carol from the world of make believe. He is however decisive in his rejection of Wilson’s view, that Scrooge’s reformation is wholly unbelievable and only temporary, when he proposes that there is sufficient emotional intensity generated by the three Christmas spirits to make Scrooge’s transformation genuine. But, he also admits that his support for Scrooge’s change of heart is not free from doubt, as similarly to House and Johnston, he feels that the ease of Scrooge’s alteration is questionable. Furthermore, to accept the overnight metamorphosis of a man who has spent a lifetime bullying clerks, revelling in misanthropy and grinding the faces of the poor, is ‘to deny all that life teaches in favour of sentimental wishful thinking.’
But, despite confessing to having his own reservations over the haste of Scrooge’s reform, Gilbert suggests that such uncertainty can be diluted when placed in the context of the author’s writing style. For he believes that as an author, Dickens is much more interested in what characters ‘are’ than in what they are ‘in the process of becoming’, and much more devoted to the vivid presentation of characters already accomplished selves, than analysing their developing nature. He also argues that Dickens should not be judged by the traditional standards of plausibility as he is primarily a metaphysical novelist. However, yet again he fails to give detailed examples of where such a broad statement can be applied to other novels by Dickens. He does however explain why he views A Christmas Carol to be metaphysical; it is because it portrays the journey of a human being trying to rediscover his own childhood innocence. Such innocence Gilbert claims is evident in Scrooge’s encounter with the ghost of Christmas past, when Dickens’s has Scrooge’s fiancé break off their engagement, because the man she sees before her is not the man she first knew. Here, he reveals that Scrooge was not always bitter and mercenary, and therefore not so different from the man we are shown at the end of the novel. Thus, Scrooge’s new self is believable as it is in part his old self.
To summarise, Gilbert’s essay provides a new hypotheses to explain the reader’s misgivings regarding the plausibility of Scrooge’s radical conversion; he is merely returning to his childhood innocence. While this is convincing, the fact that Gilbert fails to clarify at the end of his essay whether his reading has silenced his own doubts about Scrooge is significant. Clearly, the ‘Scrooge problem’ is not fully resolved. Moreover, Gilbert’s attempt to bypass the issue with his suggestion that Dickens is exempt from having to adhere to the normal rules of character realism, because he is a metaphysical novelist, is a weak defence. Protesting that the novel does not have to conform to conventional realism is exactly the same argument proposed by Joseph Gold, and criticised by Gilbert. The only difference is that while Gold argues for immunity on the ground of supernatural content, Gilbert argues for exemption of the grounds of the author’s style. Rather than looking for reasons to excuse the question of credibility in Dickens’s depiction of Scrooge, Gilbert’s essay would have gained more weight if he had examined why as a society we struggle to accept that that selflessness can triumph over self interest, or that a sick child can win the compassion of a villain.
Gilbert’s essay 'The Ceremony of Innocence: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol' addresses ‘the Scrooge problem’, that is, the critical tradition of questioning the sincerity of Scrooge’s sudden transformation from being mean-spirited to kind-hearted. Gilbert begins by listing the critics who have contributed to the debate. Edmund Wilson for example, first doubted the authenticity of Scrooge’s character change in his essay ‘The Two Scrooges’, in which, he argues that if we were to follow Scrooge beyond the frame of the story, he would: ‘unquestionably relapse into moroseness… [and]… vindictiveness. He would, that is to say, reveal himself as the victim of a manic-depressive cycle, and a very uncomfortable person’. Wilson’s attack on Scrooge is supported by Humphry House, in Dickens’s World, and by Edgar Johnston writing in Charles Dickens His Tragedy and Triumph, who both declare that Scrooge’s new identity is adopted too quickly to be psychologically convincing. However, Joseph Gold, author of Charles Dickens: Radical Moralist, contradicts all three when he suggests that by penning a fairy or ghost story, Dickens ‘deliberately avoids dealing with the question of spiritual growth’; thus removing the need to find Scrooge’s personality change believable.
Gilbert’s own view of the ‘Scrooge problem’ is mixed. He is quick to refute Gold’s theory when he argues that simply associating Scrooge with the world of fairy stories is too simplistic, as it does not account for the realism Dickens shows when representing his other characters. But examples to illustrate this are notably absent, and reflect Gilbert’s inability to fully disassociate A Christmas Carol from the world of make believe. He is however decisive in his rejection of Wilson’s view, that Scrooge’s reformation is wholly unbelievable and only temporary, when he proposes that there is sufficient emotional intensity generated by the three Christmas spirits to make Scrooge’s transformation genuine. But, he also admits that his support for Scrooge’s change of heart is not free from doubt, as similarly to House and Johnston, he feels that the ease of Scrooge’s alteration is questionable. Furthermore, to accept the overnight metamorphosis of a man who has spent a lifetime bullying clerks, revelling in misanthropy and grinding the faces of the poor, is ‘to deny all that life teaches in favour of sentimental wishful thinking.’
But, despite confessing to having his own reservations over the haste of Scrooge’s reform, Gilbert suggests that such uncertainty can be diluted when placed in the context of the author’s writing style. For he believes that as an author, Dickens is much more interested in what characters ‘are’ than in what they are ‘in the process of becoming’, and much more devoted to the vivid presentation of characters already accomplished selves, than analysing their developing nature. He also argues that Dickens should not be judged by the traditional standards of plausibility as he is primarily a metaphysical novelist. However, yet again he fails to give detailed examples of where such a broad statement can be applied to other novels by Dickens. He does however explain why he views A Christmas Carol to be metaphysical; it is because it portrays the journey of a human being trying to rediscover his own childhood innocence. Such innocence Gilbert claims is evident in Scrooge’s encounter with the ghost of Christmas past, when Dickens’s has Scrooge’s fiancé break off their engagement, because the man she sees before her is not the man she first knew. Here, he reveals that Scrooge was not always bitter and mercenary, and therefore not so different from the man we are shown at the end of the novel. Thus, Scrooge’s new self is believable as it is in part his old self.
To summarise, Gilbert’s essay provides a new hypotheses to explain the reader’s misgivings regarding the plausibility of Scrooge’s radical conversion; he is merely returning to his childhood innocence. While this is convincing, the fact that Gilbert fails to clarify at the end of his essay whether his reading has silenced his own doubts about Scrooge is significant. Clearly, the ‘Scrooge problem’ is not fully resolved. Moreover, Gilbert’s attempt to bypass the issue with his suggestion that Dickens is exempt from having to adhere to the normal rules of character realism, because he is a metaphysical novelist, is a weak defence. Protesting that the novel does not have to conform to conventional realism is exactly the same argument proposed by Joseph Gold, and criticised by Gilbert. The only difference is that while Gold argues for immunity on the ground of supernatural content, Gilbert argues for exemption of the grounds of the author’s style. Rather than looking for reasons to excuse the question of credibility in Dickens’s depiction of Scrooge, Gilbert’s essay would have gained more weight if he had examined why as a society we struggle to accept that that selflessness can triumph over self interest, or that a sick child can win the compassion of a villain.
Tuesday 1 December 2009
Christmas Carol
Gearing up for the last class of term: here are some perspectives on Dickens' Christmas Carol for you. We've already mentioned in class what Elliot L. Gilbert (in his essay 'The Ceremony of Innocence: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol', PMLA, 90:1 (Jan., 1975), 22-31) calls 'the Scrooge problem':
Edmund Wilson stated that problem succinctly and dramatically in his well-known essay “The Two Scrooges”: ‘Shall we ask what Scrooge would actually be like if we were to follow him beyond the frame of the story? Unquestionably he would relapse, when the merriment was over—if not while it was still going on—into moroseness, vindictiveness, suspicion. He would, that is to say, reveal himself as the victim of a manic-depressive cycle, and a very uncomfortable person’ [Wilson] … there is a discontent in even the most positive emotional response of the serious reader to this book. It is a discontent arising from the obvious disparity between the way in which moral and psychological mechanisms operate in the story and the way in which they seem to the reader to work in the ‘real world’.Gilbert says some interesting things about this 'disparity'. Also worth your time is Audrey Jaffe's 'Spectacular Sympathy: Visuality and Ideology in Dickens's A Christmas Carol' [PMLA, 109:2 (Mar, 1994), 254-265], which has interesting things to say about the visual dimension of the text; and Ruth Glancy's slightly wider-ranging 'Dickens and Christmas: His Framed-Tale Themes' [Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 35:1 (Jun, 1980), 53-72].
I also asked you to go see the Zemeckis film version, in part because I want to talk about the cultural currency of the text. I went to see it myself (and blogged my reaction); namely, that although I was a little put-off by the advanced publicity, in the end I was pleasantly surprised by the film itself.
Monday 30 November 2009
Dickens and Illustration
Today's session is on Dickens and his illustrators, and more broadly on the place of illustration in the book culture of the nineteenth-century. The artist with whom Dickens is most closely associated, of course, is Hablot Browne, or Phiz: Victorian Web host the whole of Michael Steig's excellent 1971 monograph Dickens and Phiz. Check that out.
John Ruskin's thoughts on Wood Engraving are interested (there are several online editions of the Ariadne Florentina; here's one). J Hillis Miller's book on Illustration is interesting, too.
John Ruskin's thoughts on Wood Engraving are interested (there are several online editions of the Ariadne Florentina; here's one). J Hillis Miller's book on Illustration is interesting, too.
Monday 23 November 2009
Carly Jones on Household Words
A response to Shu-Fang Lai’s article, ‘Fact or Fancy: What Can We Learn about Dickens from his Periodicals "Household Words" and "All the Year Round"?’
The foundation of Shu-Fang Lai’s article derives from a comment that one of Dickens’ friends made about the periodicals, claiming that Dickens put “himself, his thoughts, feelings and inspirations into each column.” In his article, Shu-Fang Lai questions the accuracy of this comment and after claiming that Dickens’ complete supervision over the periodical “defies common sense,” he underlines Dickens’ reliance in his sub-editor, William Henry Wills. Lai looks at primary sources in the form of letters to highlight the communication occurring between the sub-editor and Dickens whilst he was away with his family or busy with amateur theatricals. These letter confirm that Dickens wasn’t always able to oversee his periodicals before they were published as Will asserts that when the periodical, “has had the benefit of your revision, the touches you have given to it have improved it to a degree that seems to me marvellous.”
Shu Fag Lai continues to assert that Wills had a huge input in the content of Household Words and uses Lehmann’s (a member of staff from the satirical periodical Punch,) declaration that Wills was Dickens’ “alter ego” and Dickens himself even referred to Will as his “other self.” After discussing Wills’ input concerning content, Lai turns to describe the importance of style in Household Words along with the importance that the periodical’s demographic included the working class. Lai interestingly underlines that Dickens couldn’t get all his contributors to write in the way that he wished them to, that is without pretention, Latin and complicated language. An anonymous article, “Dr. Browns ‘Fallen Leaves’” is given as an example of someone who only makes one contribution to Household Words, presumably as his contribution fallen did not fit what Dickens’ wanted.
On a positive note, Lai’s article provides premises for an individual’s more in depth research on the editors input to the periodicals. It would also be interesting to research how closely the topics and style used in the articles, written by Dickens and other contributors, influence the serialised stories. One prime example is Dickens’s article ‘On Strike’ (published 11 February 1854) which seemingly influenced the content of Elizabeth Gaskell’s serialized novel, North and South. It seems in this article that her fictional strike at Milton is based on the real strike at Preston that Dickens discusses in his ‘On Strike’ article. Lai’s title asks, ‘what can we learn from Dickens?’ It however, seems to me that Lai should assert in his title that his article is concerned with Dickens’ position as editor of Household Words and not Dickens as a person.
The foundation of Shu-Fang Lai’s article derives from a comment that one of Dickens’ friends made about the periodicals, claiming that Dickens put “himself, his thoughts, feelings and inspirations into each column.” In his article, Shu-Fang Lai questions the accuracy of this comment and after claiming that Dickens’ complete supervision over the periodical “defies common sense,” he underlines Dickens’ reliance in his sub-editor, William Henry Wills. Lai looks at primary sources in the form of letters to highlight the communication occurring between the sub-editor and Dickens whilst he was away with his family or busy with amateur theatricals. These letter confirm that Dickens wasn’t always able to oversee his periodicals before they were published as Will asserts that when the periodical, “has had the benefit of your revision, the touches you have given to it have improved it to a degree that seems to me marvellous.”
Shu Fag Lai continues to assert that Wills had a huge input in the content of Household Words and uses Lehmann’s (a member of staff from the satirical periodical Punch,) declaration that Wills was Dickens’ “alter ego” and Dickens himself even referred to Will as his “other self.” After discussing Wills’ input concerning content, Lai turns to describe the importance of style in Household Words along with the importance that the periodical’s demographic included the working class. Lai interestingly underlines that Dickens couldn’t get all his contributors to write in the way that he wished them to, that is without pretention, Latin and complicated language. An anonymous article, “Dr. Browns ‘Fallen Leaves’” is given as an example of someone who only makes one contribution to Household Words, presumably as his contribution fallen did not fit what Dickens’ wanted.
On a positive note, Lai’s article provides premises for an individual’s more in depth research on the editors input to the periodicals. It would also be interesting to research how closely the topics and style used in the articles, written by Dickens and other contributors, influence the serialised stories. One prime example is Dickens’s article ‘On Strike’ (published 11 February 1854) which seemingly influenced the content of Elizabeth Gaskell’s serialized novel, North and South. It seems in this article that her fictional strike at Milton is based on the real strike at Preston that Dickens discusses in his ‘On Strike’ article. Lai’s title asks, ‘what can we learn from Dickens?’ It however, seems to me that Lai should assert in his title that his article is concerned with Dickens’ position as editor of Household Words and not Dickens as a person.
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Ellena's response to Judith Wilt
Ellena Johnstone, A response to: ‘Confusion and Consciousness in Dickens’s Esther’ by Judith Wilt
In her article Judith Wilt explores Esther’s narrative alongside its first-person counterparts in David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Given the usual negativity towards Dickens’s representations of women, Wilt is refreshingly positive about his attempt. She feels that ‘Dickens’ Esther Summerson shows him a new kind of horizon’ which ensured he was ‘committed to the wider anxieties of the Self-Other relationship, which are the female’s lot in the world.’ It might have been interesting to hear a little more about these ‘wider anxieties’ and how this new perspective influenced his depiction of women in the novel, but Wilt moves on a little too swiftly and, if a criticism can be brought against her, it is that she makes a great quantity of intriguing points but does not afford enough time to explore each fully. She does, however, make some interesting and original points. Particularly noteworthy is her observation that Esther’s narrative task is very different to that of David and Pip. She even controversially suggests Dickens’ rendering of Esther surpasses his male first person narratives in terms of credibility, writing that:
It was also fascinating to hear her take on of the idea that Esther’s marriage to Woodcourt is a reward for her loyalty to her Guardian, which some members of the seminar found troubling. She claims that it is ‘confused loyalty’ that moves Esther to accept her Guardian’s proposal in the first place, and that Esther realises, even cherishes the fact that, she will be entering into a sexless marriage. The latter point is, however much it rings true of the novel, mere speculation as nowhere in the text does Dickens’ actually suggest that the marriage will be confined to a platonic level, but it is interesting to think about none-the-less.
Essentially, Wilt makes some engaging points in her article but the reader would perhaps get more out of the essay if she selected a few key ideas and developed them more thoroughly. It is a minor point though; the article is on the whole accessible, well-written, original and definitely worth reading.
In her article Judith Wilt explores Esther’s narrative alongside its first-person counterparts in David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Given the usual negativity towards Dickens’s representations of women, Wilt is refreshingly positive about his attempt. She feels that ‘Dickens’ Esther Summerson shows him a new kind of horizon’ which ensured he was ‘committed to the wider anxieties of the Self-Other relationship, which are the female’s lot in the world.’ It might have been interesting to hear a little more about these ‘wider anxieties’ and how this new perspective influenced his depiction of women in the novel, but Wilt moves on a little too swiftly and, if a criticism can be brought against her, it is that she makes a great quantity of intriguing points but does not afford enough time to explore each fully. She does, however, make some interesting and original points. Particularly noteworthy is her observation that Esther’s narrative task is very different to that of David and Pip. She even controversially suggests Dickens’ rendering of Esther surpasses his male first person narratives in terms of credibility, writing that:
‘Since her purpose is the full telling of a story larger than herself and her own past, to an audience wider than herself and her own present or future, her feats of memory, her insights into to other minds, her happy presence at the crucial scenes of so many other lives are more credible than David’s or Pip’s.’Another key point in her essay concerned Esther’s modesty and how criticism has found it tiresome and pretentious; she quotes John Forster calling her narrative technique a ‘too conscious unconsciousness.’ Wilt believes Esther is uncomfortable about crediting her own virtues as a result of her upbringing and the insistence of her Aunt that she is nothing and worthless. This theme of nothingness and blankness pervades the novel, and Wilt cites Lady Deadlock’s constant boredom as a consequence of ‘a catastrophic personal blankness’ in her life brought about by the absence of her lover and child.
It was also fascinating to hear her take on of the idea that Esther’s marriage to Woodcourt is a reward for her loyalty to her Guardian, which some members of the seminar found troubling. She claims that it is ‘confused loyalty’ that moves Esther to accept her Guardian’s proposal in the first place, and that Esther realises, even cherishes the fact that, she will be entering into a sexless marriage. The latter point is, however much it rings true of the novel, mere speculation as nowhere in the text does Dickens’ actually suggest that the marriage will be confined to a platonic level, but it is interesting to think about none-the-less.
Essentially, Wilt makes some engaging points in her article but the reader would perhaps get more out of the essay if she selected a few key ideas and developed them more thoroughly. It is a minor point though; the article is on the whole accessible, well-written, original and definitely worth reading.
Monday 16 November 2009
Household Words: reading for 23rd Nov class
As you'll see from the course booklet, next monday's session is on Household Words. What I'd like you to do is start with the very first issue of Dickens's magazine, available in its entirety on Google Books, here. (Indeed, Google Books have the entire run of HW; so if you start and want to carry on ... for instance, if you want to discover what happens in Lizzie Leigh, the serialised story with which Dickens kicked off, you can just carry on reading).
So, to reiterate: please read the first issue of Household Words in its entirety by next week's class.
Dickens's personal contributions to Household Words have been collected and annotated by Michael Slater ("Gone Astray" and Other Papers from "Household Words," 1851-59; reviewed here by Lillian Naylor. And, here's Shu-Fang Lai’s 'Fact or Fancy: What Can We Learn about Dickens from His Periodicals "Household Words" and "All the Year Round"?'
Here's a review article by K. J. Fielding on a reprint of the complete run of Household Words' (1850-1859), that says a couple of interesting things.
There are some book-length studes, too. Sabine Clemm's Dickens, Journalism, and Nationhood: Mapping the World in Household Words (Taylor & Francis, 2008) is partly available through Google Books; as is John Drew's Dickens the Journalist (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
Women and Dickens
A few links for Monday's session: we are talking about the representation of women in Bleak House, and the representation of Esther in particular, as a way of trying to articulate a more cogent approach to the question of women in Dickens' fiction ... more cogent than just saying 'he doesn't do women very well, does he.'
The key text, even after all this time, is Michael Slater's Dickens and Women (Stanford Univ. Press 1983): chunks of which are available on Google Books. Definitely worth checking out.
There are many good articles on Esther herself. Here are a few:
Alex Zwerdling 'Esther Summerson Rehabilitated', PMLA (88:3/May, 1973), pp. 429-439. The splendidly named Zwerdling was one of the first to challenge the reading of Esther as a 'sentimental, insipid character' arguing instead for the psychological acuity of Dickens's comprehension of the effects of repression and isolation of the development of her consciousness: 'she is ... the unconscious spokesman of the many characters in Bleak House who have never known parental love [which] makes her tale the most important illustration of one of the novel's major concerns-the breakdown of the parent-child relationship.'
Judith Wilt, 'Confusion and Consciousness in Dickens's Esther', Nineteenth-Century Fiction (32:3/Dec 1977), 285-309. One of the best readings of the Esther's charactarisation and voice I have read; particularly good on Self/Other representations.
Timothy Peltason, 'Esther's Will', ELH (59:3 Autumn, 1992), 671-691. Interesting, although a little dense: reading of the novel via discourses of 'will'.
Eleanor Salotto, 'Esther Summerson's Secrets: Dickens's Bleak House of Representation' Victorian Literature and Culture, (25: 2/1997), 333-349. Salotto reads Esther's narrative voice not, as many critics do, as a straightforward articulation of 'angel-in-the-house' Victorian feminine ideology, but rather as a 'duplicitous' reappropriation of masculine idioms. Not sure how convinced I am, but it's an interesting read.
The key text, even after all this time, is Michael Slater's Dickens and Women (Stanford Univ. Press 1983): chunks of which are available on Google Books. Definitely worth checking out.
There are many good articles on Esther herself. Here are a few:
Alex Zwerdling 'Esther Summerson Rehabilitated', PMLA (88:3/May, 1973), pp. 429-439. The splendidly named Zwerdling was one of the first to challenge the reading of Esther as a 'sentimental, insipid character' arguing instead for the psychological acuity of Dickens's comprehension of the effects of repression and isolation of the development of her consciousness: 'she is ... the unconscious spokesman of the many characters in Bleak House who have never known parental love [which] makes her tale the most important illustration of one of the novel's major concerns-the breakdown of the parent-child relationship.'
Judith Wilt, 'Confusion and Consciousness in Dickens's Esther', Nineteenth-Century Fiction (32:3/Dec 1977), 285-309. One of the best readings of the Esther's charactarisation and voice I have read; particularly good on Self/Other representations.
Timothy Peltason, 'Esther's Will', ELH (59:3 Autumn, 1992), 671-691. Interesting, although a little dense: reading of the novel via discourses of 'will'.
Eleanor Salotto, 'Esther Summerson's Secrets: Dickens's Bleak House of Representation' Victorian Literature and Culture, (25: 2/1997), 333-349. Salotto reads Esther's narrative voice not, as many critics do, as a straightforward articulation of 'angel-in-the-house' Victorian feminine ideology, but rather as a 'duplicitous' reappropriation of masculine idioms. Not sure how convinced I am, but it's an interesting read.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Paul May on Copperfield and Happiness
Paul May, ‘A response to Annette R. Federico 'David Copperfield and the Pursuit of Happiness' [Victorian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 69-95].
The premise for Federico’s essay stems from Dickens’ angst at his inability to feel contented, certainly whilst writing David Copperfield, and possibly for the duration of his life, as evidenced in John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens. ‘Where is happiness to be found then’, Dickens writes, ‘Is this my experience?’ Federico accordingly views the text as symptomatic of Dickens’ obsession with ‘his own frenetic pursuit of happiness’, as a result of being unable to reconcile his personal experiences of delight with both his prolific success as an author, and his eminent fame. This leads her to see the text as an indictment to follow David’s experiences in the world as Dickens’ own ‘intimate study’ of ‘the conscious desire for happiness in one’s life, and the right to pursue it’. In this manner, Federico seeks to assess one of the core principles which define David Copperfield as a Bildungsroman; as the hero, it is David’s burden to achieve happiness, ‘a task that is neither confirmed by David’s apparent success, nor denied by his repression and self-negation’, and is ineffably intertwined with Dickens’ own existential state.
To Federico, an assessment of David’s desire for ‘perfect happiness’ is worthless without a consideration of the cultural perception of happiness in the nineteenth century, and its apparent influence on David’s ideals. She therefore decides to devote much of the essay to exploring Victorian cultural and philosophical texts which ‘point to the seriousness with which [they] addressed the moral implications of the pursuit of happiness’, with reference to the notion that any prospect of ‘happiness’ is convoluted by utilitarian and utopian theory, in addition to Victorian consumerism and individualism. Her choice of theorists (most frequently Carlyle, Mill and Sidgwick) is careful in that it their contentions are often in direct response to one another, and allows her to assemble them into a dialectic argument. This attempt to synthesise does not, however, prevent Federico’s critical tone implicitly conveying her preference towards the progressive, considered views of Mill (as well as simply devoting more of the text to him), despite her accrediting Carlyle as having ‘the prophetic voice of the Victorian sage’. Concisely, she surmises that the utilitarian ‘doctrine’ for acquiring happiness was doomed to be flawed by its preoccupation with happiness itself, which vanquishes any prospect of its fruition, as demonstrated by Carlyle’s suggestion that ‘we should cease babbling about “happiness,” and leave it resting on its own basis, as it used to do!’. She proceeds to remonstrate Carlyle’s stoic declarations with Mill, who sought to ‘claim happiness for philosophy and rational analysis’ in a manifestly Socratic way, but criticises him for ‘[seeming] not to have considered what happiness might actually feel like until his own personal crisis compelled him to ask himself what would make him happy’. She surmises from this comparison, that the clear divide between utilitarian thinking, ie. ‘the greatest happiness principle’, and Carlyle’s condemning position on ‘a philosophy that guarantees an individual the right to pursue his or her own happiness implicitly endorses the abdication of duty, labor, and the pursuit of justice’ were both fundamentally inconducive to both equitable and selfish happiness. She finds Mill and Carlyle to be especially unable to reconcile this conflict, as utilitarian morality is fundamentally at odds with industrial capitalism, with it being implausible to ‘be realised in anything other than a utopia’, and concludes solely with the purpose of proving that the question ‘Am I happy?’ is certainly ‘one of the clearest imperatives of the age’.
Armed with this understanding, Federico asserts that David ‘must both ask and answer’ these essential questions of individualist happiness in David Copperfield. The novel certainly asks these questions, as she is unquestionably correct in finding this to be key in the novel’s premise, and the Autobiographical Fragment certainly confirms this. But it certainly does not seek to truly answer them to any ascertainable degree; David certainly cannot be assumed to be ‘perfectly happy’ at the end of the novel. After marrying Agnes, he discloses: ‘And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger longer, these faces fade away’, and Federico doesn’t fail to notice this tone of ‘regret and self-suppression’. After all, were Dickens’ himself endowed with the answers while writing David Copperfield, he surely wouldn’t have written to John Forster with such musings as ‘I seem to be sending some part of myself into the Shadowy World’.
The essay is perhaps at its most incisive when questioning whether Dickens suggests that happiness can be attained by the Carlyean assumption that ‘there is no such this as such fulfilment on this earth’ outside of ‘steady, plain, hard-working qualities’ (David Copperfield, p. 512). Federico assesses whether any of the characters truly find fulfilment with this notion: whether Mrs. Gummidge appears to be truly satisfied when she is useful, and if Steerforth’s inability to be ‘contented’ stems from his lack of productivity. This prospective ‘answer’ to individual fulfilment is clearly left unresolved by Dickens; despite David’s growing success as a writer, Federico finds this inconclusive, as he so seldom details ‘the rewards he receives from it’. The fine line between unhappiness and happiness seems to ‘have a deeper source for Dickens than in productive labor’, she surmises. While acknowledging the possibility that Dickens is suggesting that the joy of work cannot compete with ‘the desire for lasting passion and transcendent, enduring love’, is this assumption not futile when considering David’s relationship with Dora? David claims to have been initially vested in a ‘headlong passion’, but it is not long before he suffers ‘unhappiness and remorse’ (p. 689), and is forced, as Federico rightly admits, to take a lesson in ‘prudence and good sense’.
Annette Federico’s essay provides a fantastically expansive and multifaceted analysis of the various streams of philosophical doctrines devoted to the ‘pursuit of happiness’ abundant in the nineteenth century, and closely assesses their influential value on David Copperfield, despite becoming increasingly unable to surmise that Dickens’ rendering of this struggle truly colludes with any of them. She clearly wishes to avoid a biographical study (erstwhile briefly hinting at the ‘valuable’ work done by other critics), yet what it is that she ascertains that Dickens is conveying, regarding the most equitable approach to pursuing happiness, seems to depend mostly on her own intuitive (and mostly biographical) analysis of David’s meditations on happiness in the text. Oddly, she is forced to conclude rather banally by merely praising Dickens’ selection of ‘happiness’ as a moral theme, and praising the manner in which in the novel enforces ‘the liberal reader’s involvement in the hero’s quest for happiness’ – a seemingly unsatisfying conclusion to an essay so impeccably precise in its theoretical assessment of nineteenth century philosophical criticism.
The premise for Federico’s essay stems from Dickens’ angst at his inability to feel contented, certainly whilst writing David Copperfield, and possibly for the duration of his life, as evidenced in John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens. ‘Where is happiness to be found then’, Dickens writes, ‘Is this my experience?’ Federico accordingly views the text as symptomatic of Dickens’ obsession with ‘his own frenetic pursuit of happiness’, as a result of being unable to reconcile his personal experiences of delight with both his prolific success as an author, and his eminent fame. This leads her to see the text as an indictment to follow David’s experiences in the world as Dickens’ own ‘intimate study’ of ‘the conscious desire for happiness in one’s life, and the right to pursue it’. In this manner, Federico seeks to assess one of the core principles which define David Copperfield as a Bildungsroman; as the hero, it is David’s burden to achieve happiness, ‘a task that is neither confirmed by David’s apparent success, nor denied by his repression and self-negation’, and is ineffably intertwined with Dickens’ own existential state.
To Federico, an assessment of David’s desire for ‘perfect happiness’ is worthless without a consideration of the cultural perception of happiness in the nineteenth century, and its apparent influence on David’s ideals. She therefore decides to devote much of the essay to exploring Victorian cultural and philosophical texts which ‘point to the seriousness with which [they] addressed the moral implications of the pursuit of happiness’, with reference to the notion that any prospect of ‘happiness’ is convoluted by utilitarian and utopian theory, in addition to Victorian consumerism and individualism. Her choice of theorists (most frequently Carlyle, Mill and Sidgwick) is careful in that it their contentions are often in direct response to one another, and allows her to assemble them into a dialectic argument. This attempt to synthesise does not, however, prevent Federico’s critical tone implicitly conveying her preference towards the progressive, considered views of Mill (as well as simply devoting more of the text to him), despite her accrediting Carlyle as having ‘the prophetic voice of the Victorian sage’. Concisely, she surmises that the utilitarian ‘doctrine’ for acquiring happiness was doomed to be flawed by its preoccupation with happiness itself, which vanquishes any prospect of its fruition, as demonstrated by Carlyle’s suggestion that ‘we should cease babbling about “happiness,” and leave it resting on its own basis, as it used to do!’. She proceeds to remonstrate Carlyle’s stoic declarations with Mill, who sought to ‘claim happiness for philosophy and rational analysis’ in a manifestly Socratic way, but criticises him for ‘[seeming] not to have considered what happiness might actually feel like until his own personal crisis compelled him to ask himself what would make him happy’. She surmises from this comparison, that the clear divide between utilitarian thinking, ie. ‘the greatest happiness principle’, and Carlyle’s condemning position on ‘a philosophy that guarantees an individual the right to pursue his or her own happiness implicitly endorses the abdication of duty, labor, and the pursuit of justice’ were both fundamentally inconducive to both equitable and selfish happiness. She finds Mill and Carlyle to be especially unable to reconcile this conflict, as utilitarian morality is fundamentally at odds with industrial capitalism, with it being implausible to ‘be realised in anything other than a utopia’, and concludes solely with the purpose of proving that the question ‘Am I happy?’ is certainly ‘one of the clearest imperatives of the age’.
Armed with this understanding, Federico asserts that David ‘must both ask and answer’ these essential questions of individualist happiness in David Copperfield. The novel certainly asks these questions, as she is unquestionably correct in finding this to be key in the novel’s premise, and the Autobiographical Fragment certainly confirms this. But it certainly does not seek to truly answer them to any ascertainable degree; David certainly cannot be assumed to be ‘perfectly happy’ at the end of the novel. After marrying Agnes, he discloses: ‘And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger longer, these faces fade away’, and Federico doesn’t fail to notice this tone of ‘regret and self-suppression’. After all, were Dickens’ himself endowed with the answers while writing David Copperfield, he surely wouldn’t have written to John Forster with such musings as ‘I seem to be sending some part of myself into the Shadowy World’.
The essay is perhaps at its most incisive when questioning whether Dickens suggests that happiness can be attained by the Carlyean assumption that ‘there is no such this as such fulfilment on this earth’ outside of ‘steady, plain, hard-working qualities’ (David Copperfield, p. 512). Federico assesses whether any of the characters truly find fulfilment with this notion: whether Mrs. Gummidge appears to be truly satisfied when she is useful, and if Steerforth’s inability to be ‘contented’ stems from his lack of productivity. This prospective ‘answer’ to individual fulfilment is clearly left unresolved by Dickens; despite David’s growing success as a writer, Federico finds this inconclusive, as he so seldom details ‘the rewards he receives from it’. The fine line between unhappiness and happiness seems to ‘have a deeper source for Dickens than in productive labor’, she surmises. While acknowledging the possibility that Dickens is suggesting that the joy of work cannot compete with ‘the desire for lasting passion and transcendent, enduring love’, is this assumption not futile when considering David’s relationship with Dora? David claims to have been initially vested in a ‘headlong passion’, but it is not long before he suffers ‘unhappiness and remorse’ (p. 689), and is forced, as Federico rightly admits, to take a lesson in ‘prudence and good sense’.
Annette Federico’s essay provides a fantastically expansive and multifaceted analysis of the various streams of philosophical doctrines devoted to the ‘pursuit of happiness’ abundant in the nineteenth century, and closely assesses their influential value on David Copperfield, despite becoming increasingly unable to surmise that Dickens’ rendering of this struggle truly colludes with any of them. She clearly wishes to avoid a biographical study (erstwhile briefly hinting at the ‘valuable’ work done by other critics), yet what it is that she ascertains that Dickens is conveying, regarding the most equitable approach to pursuing happiness, seems to depend mostly on her own intuitive (and mostly biographical) analysis of David’s meditations on happiness in the text. Oddly, she is forced to conclude rather banally by merely praising Dickens’ selection of ‘happiness’ as a moral theme, and praising the manner in which in the novel enforces ‘the liberal reader’s involvement in the hero’s quest for happiness’ – a seemingly unsatisfying conclusion to an essay so impeccably precise in its theoretical assessment of nineteenth century philosophical criticism.
Monday 9 November 2009
Bleak House 1
Today's session is on mud and fog. Some of it will be riffing off Steven Connor's reading of the novel, 'Deconstructing Dickens: Bleak House', in his excellent Blackwell's 'Rereading Literature' volume Charles Dickens (Blackwell 1985). You might want to check that out.
Lottie Niemiec's response to Schaumberger
Lottie Niemiec, 'Partners in Pathology: David, Dora and Steerforth' - Nancy E Schaumberger
Schaumberger writes an intriguing psychoanalytic analysis of these three characters, the main points of which are, to paraphrase, that Steerforth is the way he is because he was loved by his mother only for his achievements and that she, essentially, lives through him. She claims that Dora grows up as a pseudo-wife to her father, while yet remaining a child, she therefore cannot overcome her ideas of being a child-wife, thus in her adult life she remains very immature. David is only able to become an adult and the ‘hero of [his] own life’ because both Dora and Steerforth die, leaving him with more mature companions such as Agnes and Traddles. She claims further that Dora and Steerforth are ‘prisoners of childhood’ - unable to move successfully into adult life. While her argument at its most basic is appealing - her analysis of Steerforth is primarily a sympathetic one - one can take her claims much further to suggest that David can connect (albeit inadequately) with Dora and Steerforth because they act as extensions of himself. If one is to take this view, then Mr Murdstone becomes almost a nurturing influence, rather than a tyrannical usurper. If Mr Murdstone had not married his mother, David could have remained a child, like Dora, under the loving protection of his immature mother, or he could have become as roguish as Steerforth, resulting from a childish hero-worship, if Mr Murdstone had not removed him from school and sent him to work. Only once this heroic figure from childhood is dead can David become his own hero. David’s marriage to Dora at such a young age is a way of entering adult life too soon, when neither party was ready for it, and they are punished for this by Dora’s inadequacy and early death. Yet by the time she dies, David has realised his mistakes, grown, and become a working, responsible adult. At the moment that Betsey Trotwood comes to London penniess and must rely on her nephew to take care of her, the roles are reversed. David has become the protector, she the protected, and David embraces this role whole-heartedly by writing to earn a living.
Schaumberger claims that Dora and Steerforth were David’s two mistaken friendships, yet I would have to disagree. David learns from Steerforth that one cannot always have what one wants, and if take what you want selfishly, the consequences are painful for others. From Dora he learns the importance of adult responsibility and the pain, yet almost welcome release, of death. Dora’s death allows him to finally realise his love for Agnes; it allows Dickens to use his great theme of rebirth - for David at least - as he is released from a disastrous marriage and allowed to love again. Here Schaumberger agrees, stating that only when Dora and Steerforth die is David free to ‘embark on the final growth spurt of self-realization that leads to his happy second marriage and increasingly successful writing career.’
Although not clearly stipulated, Schaumberger hints that Steerforth is David’s alter-ego, his doppelganger. If this is so, then Steerforth’s elopement with Emily can be seen as David’s repressed desire to do the same. Furthermore, both David and Steerforth grew up with females that love them: Agnes and Rosa Dartle. Rosa’s scar is significant: not only is there an underlying sexual suggestion (Steerforth throwing a hammer at her and splitting her lip, rendering her unattractive to other men for the rest of her life), it suggests the danger of turning your back on freely given love; that anger is destructive and leaves emotional - and physical - scars. When Steerforth dies, the events are set in motion for David to have the opportunity of seizing the love that was denied Steerforth. David does not turn his back on Agnes a second time.
Dora herself receives redemption through recognition that she should not have been the woman David married, that Agnes would be infinitely better for him. Therefore she can be seen also to be a part of David’s subconscious, as she understands what David cannot until he has reflected for many months abroad.
Dora and Steerforth are violently opposed in character. Dora is essentially warm-hearted, honest but weak, Steerforth cold-hearted, false, yet physically strong. Dora lost a mother, Steerforth a father; David both. Dora does not have a feminine influence in her life, a woman to encourage her to be self-sufficient and strong. Steerforth does not have a masculine influence, one to dissuade him from his roguish tendencies - indeed, he is violently overshadowed by females - his mother and Rosa Dartle. David himself has no mother or father, but he seems to acquire these figures during the course of his life. In Mr Murdstone he finds a violent, hard-hearted father; in Peggotty a gentle, caring mother. Later Mr Micawber stands as a father incapable of making the right financial choices, but a father nonetheless that stands by his family and teaches David how to sell and make deals.
Betsey Trotwood is the most nurturing of his pseudo-parents, she is quick, morally upright, extremely caring and guides David always in the right direction. But it is in the sister figure of Agnes (his ‘Angel’) that he finds enduring love.
Schaumberger’s analysis is therefore thought-provoking, but it does not touch deeply on her rather weak suggestions. Her theories may be correct, but her writing style suggests she is reticent about stating her conclusions too forcefully.
Schaumberger writes an intriguing psychoanalytic analysis of these three characters, the main points of which are, to paraphrase, that Steerforth is the way he is because he was loved by his mother only for his achievements and that she, essentially, lives through him. She claims that Dora grows up as a pseudo-wife to her father, while yet remaining a child, she therefore cannot overcome her ideas of being a child-wife, thus in her adult life she remains very immature. David is only able to become an adult and the ‘hero of [his] own life’ because both Dora and Steerforth die, leaving him with more mature companions such as Agnes and Traddles. She claims further that Dora and Steerforth are ‘prisoners of childhood’ - unable to move successfully into adult life. While her argument at its most basic is appealing - her analysis of Steerforth is primarily a sympathetic one - one can take her claims much further to suggest that David can connect (albeit inadequately) with Dora and Steerforth because they act as extensions of himself. If one is to take this view, then Mr Murdstone becomes almost a nurturing influence, rather than a tyrannical usurper. If Mr Murdstone had not married his mother, David could have remained a child, like Dora, under the loving protection of his immature mother, or he could have become as roguish as Steerforth, resulting from a childish hero-worship, if Mr Murdstone had not removed him from school and sent him to work. Only once this heroic figure from childhood is dead can David become his own hero. David’s marriage to Dora at such a young age is a way of entering adult life too soon, when neither party was ready for it, and they are punished for this by Dora’s inadequacy and early death. Yet by the time she dies, David has realised his mistakes, grown, and become a working, responsible adult. At the moment that Betsey Trotwood comes to London penniess and must rely on her nephew to take care of her, the roles are reversed. David has become the protector, she the protected, and David embraces this role whole-heartedly by writing to earn a living.
Schaumberger claims that Dora and Steerforth were David’s two mistaken friendships, yet I would have to disagree. David learns from Steerforth that one cannot always have what one wants, and if take what you want selfishly, the consequences are painful for others. From Dora he learns the importance of adult responsibility and the pain, yet almost welcome release, of death. Dora’s death allows him to finally realise his love for Agnes; it allows Dickens to use his great theme of rebirth - for David at least - as he is released from a disastrous marriage and allowed to love again. Here Schaumberger agrees, stating that only when Dora and Steerforth die is David free to ‘embark on the final growth spurt of self-realization that leads to his happy second marriage and increasingly successful writing career.’
Although not clearly stipulated, Schaumberger hints that Steerforth is David’s alter-ego, his doppelganger. If this is so, then Steerforth’s elopement with Emily can be seen as David’s repressed desire to do the same. Furthermore, both David and Steerforth grew up with females that love them: Agnes and Rosa Dartle. Rosa’s scar is significant: not only is there an underlying sexual suggestion (Steerforth throwing a hammer at her and splitting her lip, rendering her unattractive to other men for the rest of her life), it suggests the danger of turning your back on freely given love; that anger is destructive and leaves emotional - and physical - scars. When Steerforth dies, the events are set in motion for David to have the opportunity of seizing the love that was denied Steerforth. David does not turn his back on Agnes a second time.
Dora herself receives redemption through recognition that she should not have been the woman David married, that Agnes would be infinitely better for him. Therefore she can be seen also to be a part of David’s subconscious, as she understands what David cannot until he has reflected for many months abroad.
Dora and Steerforth are violently opposed in character. Dora is essentially warm-hearted, honest but weak, Steerforth cold-hearted, false, yet physically strong. Dora lost a mother, Steerforth a father; David both. Dora does not have a feminine influence in her life, a woman to encourage her to be self-sufficient and strong. Steerforth does not have a masculine influence, one to dissuade him from his roguish tendencies - indeed, he is violently overshadowed by females - his mother and Rosa Dartle. David himself has no mother or father, but he seems to acquire these figures during the course of his life. In Mr Murdstone he finds a violent, hard-hearted father; in Peggotty a gentle, caring mother. Later Mr Micawber stands as a father incapable of making the right financial choices, but a father nonetheless that stands by his family and teaches David how to sell and make deals.
Betsey Trotwood is the most nurturing of his pseudo-parents, she is quick, morally upright, extremely caring and guides David always in the right direction. But it is in the sister figure of Agnes (his ‘Angel’) that he finds enduring love.
Schaumberger’s analysis is therefore thought-provoking, but it does not touch deeply on her rather weak suggestions. Her theories may be correct, but her writing style suggests she is reticent about stating her conclusions too forcefully.
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Dickens and Fairy Tales
Some interesting things, I thought, came out of yesterday's seminar; and I've blogged a few of them at The Valve. Check it out. [AR]
Diane Kutten, Response to Nussbaum
In her article ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’, Martha Nussbaum asks the question of how it is possible that, just like David, we cannot help but love the character of James Steerforth. She leads us into her argument by suggesting that she herself was at the beginning rather critical towards the young man: ‘I felt that I had know long ago […] that he was simply not worthy of a good person’s love.’ Outraged that her daughter is infatuated with him, she resolves to re-read the book and thus prove that she is not prone to the same ‘immature reading’ of the book that her daughter committed. Despite this resolution, she has to admit that, at the end of the book, she has fallen for him as well: ‘I felt my heart […] rushing happily from the firmness of judgement into the eager volatility of desire.’ This first part of her argument is very important, as the reader cannot help but identify himself with her, and thus becomes interested in the question of the ‘why?’. Why is it that we do in fact sympathize with a character that is so clearly, as Nussbaum suggested, ‘not worthy of a good person’s love’?
Martha argues that there is not only the realm of the ‘daylight world’ but also a ‘darker’ one, ‘a world of shadows and spirits’. The distinction between these two worlds becomes central to her argument. This is indeed a very powerful point. As we have already seen last week in ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’, Dickens is fascinated with this ‘shadowy world’. Just like he hovers on the edge of both worlds when he uses parts of his own life in David Copperfield, we feel that he is entering it every time he engages with Steerforth. At this point, we might want to ask ourselves whether ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’ can be applied Dickens himself. David is obsessed with books; not only does he read them, but he actually imagines that he sees the protagonists of these novels in real life. Like Dickens, he dives into this other world, and thus, to him, the characters become, in a way, real. Steerforth is the ultimate example for this, everything about him belongs to this world of fancy. As opposed to that, Nussbaum gives us the example of Agnes, who is clearly part of the other, the ‘daylight’ world. Interesting here is the comparison of these two ‘angels’, good and bad, by means of their arm gestures. Martha’s point here is, that as long as we’re in the ‘daylight world’, the terms of morality apply, but as soon as we enter the ‘other’ world, they become suspended, which is the reason why we, as readers, cannot help but love Steerforth.
Even though her argument is very powerful, I’d like to think that there is more to it than that. Steerforth’s death is clearly central to the book. After the storm, David starts writing his autobiography. The fact that he is telling the story himself makes it possible for us to see into his head, his trail of thoughts becomes clear to us. Thus, we find that there are some hints to a homoerotic relationship between them. The fact that David is so attracted to the charm of this young man makes it impossible for us to argue with David’s feelings, as soon as we get to know him better and start feeling for him. Here, we come back to the more theoretical part of Martha Nussbaum’s argument about the ‘literary spectator’. Even though he cannot grasp love as a concept, the spectator can feel and hope for David, which makes him sympathize with him. It is the way David speaks about Steerforth, for instance, to the Pegotty family, that attract their attention to him, in the same way as it attracts ours. When they finally meet Steerforth, he indeed manages to live up to their expectations, just like he did with ours. Steerforth is a great character, but it is David who makes sure that he is valued as such not only by himself, but also by the reader.
Martha argues that there is not only the realm of the ‘daylight world’ but also a ‘darker’ one, ‘a world of shadows and spirits’. The distinction between these two worlds becomes central to her argument. This is indeed a very powerful point. As we have already seen last week in ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’, Dickens is fascinated with this ‘shadowy world’. Just like he hovers on the edge of both worlds when he uses parts of his own life in David Copperfield, we feel that he is entering it every time he engages with Steerforth. At this point, we might want to ask ourselves whether ‘The Autobiographical Fragment’ can be applied Dickens himself. David is obsessed with books; not only does he read them, but he actually imagines that he sees the protagonists of these novels in real life. Like Dickens, he dives into this other world, and thus, to him, the characters become, in a way, real. Steerforth is the ultimate example for this, everything about him belongs to this world of fancy. As opposed to that, Nussbaum gives us the example of Agnes, who is clearly part of the other, the ‘daylight’ world. Interesting here is the comparison of these two ‘angels’, good and bad, by means of their arm gestures. Martha’s point here is, that as long as we’re in the ‘daylight world’, the terms of morality apply, but as soon as we enter the ‘other’ world, they become suspended, which is the reason why we, as readers, cannot help but love Steerforth.
Even though her argument is very powerful, I’d like to think that there is more to it than that. Steerforth’s death is clearly central to the book. After the storm, David starts writing his autobiography. The fact that he is telling the story himself makes it possible for us to see into his head, his trail of thoughts becomes clear to us. Thus, we find that there are some hints to a homoerotic relationship between them. The fact that David is so attracted to the charm of this young man makes it impossible for us to argue with David’s feelings, as soon as we get to know him better and start feeling for him. Here, we come back to the more theoretical part of Martha Nussbaum’s argument about the ‘literary spectator’. Even though he cannot grasp love as a concept, the spectator can feel and hope for David, which makes him sympathize with him. It is the way David speaks about Steerforth, for instance, to the Pegotty family, that attract their attention to him, in the same way as it attracts ours. When they finally meet Steerforth, he indeed manages to live up to their expectations, just like he did with ours. Steerforth is a great character, but it is David who makes sure that he is valued as such not only by himself, but also by the reader.
Monday 26 October 2009
Megan Haddow, Response to Nussbaum's ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’
Response to ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’ by Martha Nussbaum
It seems to me that the premise of Nussbaum’s article is a defence of Steerforth’s character and conduct. Nussbaum claims that the reader, like Copperfield, falls deeply in love with Steerforth despite Dickens’ attempts to portray him as a villain or a ‘bad Angel’(p.313). Instead she sees Steerforth as inhabiting an alternate world, a shadow land or dream world, in which he can exist with ‘Daisy’. This world is conjured by Steerforth and David in the secrecy and mystery which surrounds their friendship, and David has access to it through his ‘shadowy sister’ (Nussbaum, p.348) Betsey Trotwood, the female he should have been born as who exists in the dream world permanently. In contrast to Copperfield’s ‘other angel’ Steerforth, Nussbaum attacks Agnes as the ‘Angel of Death’ (Nussbaum, p.359), claiming that she is linked closely to death in the novel and that she is unlovable and unattractive as a character.
I am not convinced by Nussbaum’s interpretation of Steerforth’s character and his friendship with David. I feel she is glossing over the homoerotic undertones in her conviction that Steerforth and Daisy inhabit a shadow land. The relationship between the two boys clearly contains elements of a sexual nature, and these are evident even from their first meeting. One of the first things Copperfield notes about Steerforth is that he is ‘very good-looking’ (p.76) and he is anxious to please him from this moment on. The attraction appears to be mutual and Steerforth immediately lays claim on Copperfield: ‘You belong to my bedroom, I find’ (p.76). From this moment we are led through the progression and development of this close and often touching relationship between the two boys, but there are undertones of sexual desire throughout.
The secrecy and mystery that surrounds the boys’ friendship, as noted by Nussbaum, does not signify a secret world, but a secret shared between them of homosexual desire. These first stages of the relationship affected David so acutely that he is transported back to these first moments of excitement simply by the memory of them:
Of course Copperfield purports to “fall in love” many a time throughout the novel, but these infatuations appear to attach themselves to any available and half-attractive woman that is present in David’s life. He claims to have feelings for Littl Em’ly, Miss Dartle, the eldest Miss Larkins, Dora, Agnes and several more besides. These feelings, therefore, cannot be considered to be true love as they appear to be inspired in David far too readily to earn that status. Instead they are mere entertainments, distractions even, to employ his public affection through a channel that is morally and socially acceptable to those around him. His fantasies with other women are merely a decoy, which is why he feels the need to attach himself to at least one at any point in his life, even from when he is a small boy.
Even in describing his love for these women, Copperfield appears to be trying to convince himself of his feelings. This is evident in his proclamation of love for Emily:
His love for Steerforth, however, is prevalent throughout, and no one ever replaces him in David’s affections. Even Steerforth’s own actions and elopement with Emily cannot shake Copperfield’s strong and determined love for him: ‘You have no best to me Steerforth …and no worst. You are always equally loved and cherished in my heart’ (p.373). Nussbaum suggests that the reader rejoices in this claim and sympathises with Copperfield’s feelings here. It seems, however, that we are led to believe that Steerforth is a bad influence on Copperfield, and perhaps that his influence on Copperfield is the reason for his homosexual persuasion and that this is an amoral path to have chosen.
Copperfield’s susceptibility is highlighted throughout the novel; he is always very small and vulnerable, he always has decisions made for him, he is almost a puppet in his own life. This is displayed most clearly in the scene in which his waiter manages to manipulate him easily into giving him most of his food and drink. Steerforth seems particularly aware of this trait of David’s, and he can be seen to act upon his vulnerability right from the start, when he takes all of Copperfield’s money. He also states later that he ‘feel[s] as if [David] were [his] property’ (p.250) and possessively nicknames him ‘my dear Daisy’ (p.250). The feminine nickname given to David also hints at an erotic relationship between the two of them, but one in which Steerforth is dominant and Copperfield is submissive.
Agnes represents the other side of the spectrum to that of Steerforth; she is presented as Copperfield’s ‘good Angel’ (p.313) and as a morally upright influence upon his character. Agnes warns David away from Steerforth:
Nussbaum claims that Agnes’ ‘gesture’ (Nussbaum, p.358) is upward-pointing, and she claims it is a symbol of her link with death and heaven. It can also be viewed, however, as a symbol of her moral righteousness, of her social acceptability and her desire to help Copperfield remain upright in his morals and society. If Agnes represents all that is moral and upright, Steerforth represents all that is sordid and low, suggesting public attitudes to homosexual activity at the time. The fact that Copperfield marries Agnes at the end, whereas Steerforth is sent away like the ‘fallen woman’ and then found dead, endorses this idea of homosexuality as unacceptable both in the novel and in society at the time.
Perhaps one of the most telling points in the novel on this topic is the meeting between Copperfield and Steerforth’s mother and Miss Dartle. Here, despite her high esteem of Steerforth, his mother worries that ‘her son led but a wild life at college’ (p.251). This could be taken to imply a number of forms of misbehaviour or mischief until Miss Dartle takes up the conversation:
Nussbaum’s claims then that the reader falls in love with Steerforth seem completely unfounded and I certainly found myself almost repelled by this character until I studied the homosexual nature of his relationship with David and therefore came to realise that Dickens was perhaps deliberately making Steerforth repellent. We are led to see Steerforth as a bad influence upon the moral and social character of David Copperfield, and to admire Agnes who endeavours to keep David morally and socially upright throughout. It is clear, however, where Copperfield’s real affections lie throughout the novel. Despite the many heterosexual fancies he publicly admits, it is the secret desires and feelings David harbours for Steerforth that remain the example of true love in the novel.
Bibliography:
Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1999).
Nussbaum, Martha, ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
It seems to me that the premise of Nussbaum’s article is a defence of Steerforth’s character and conduct. Nussbaum claims that the reader, like Copperfield, falls deeply in love with Steerforth despite Dickens’ attempts to portray him as a villain or a ‘bad Angel’(p.313). Instead she sees Steerforth as inhabiting an alternate world, a shadow land or dream world, in which he can exist with ‘Daisy’. This world is conjured by Steerforth and David in the secrecy and mystery which surrounds their friendship, and David has access to it through his ‘shadowy sister’ (Nussbaum, p.348) Betsey Trotwood, the female he should have been born as who exists in the dream world permanently. In contrast to Copperfield’s ‘other angel’ Steerforth, Nussbaum attacks Agnes as the ‘Angel of Death’ (Nussbaum, p.359), claiming that she is linked closely to death in the novel and that she is unlovable and unattractive as a character.
I am not convinced by Nussbaum’s interpretation of Steerforth’s character and his friendship with David. I feel she is glossing over the homoerotic undertones in her conviction that Steerforth and Daisy inhabit a shadow land. The relationship between the two boys clearly contains elements of a sexual nature, and these are evident even from their first meeting. One of the first things Copperfield notes about Steerforth is that he is ‘very good-looking’ (p.76) and he is anxious to please him from this moment on. The attraction appears to be mutual and Steerforth immediately lays claim on Copperfield: ‘You belong to my bedroom, I find’ (p.76). From this moment we are led through the progression and development of this close and often touching relationship between the two boys, but there are undertones of sexual desire throughout.
The secrecy and mystery that surrounds the boys’ friendship, as noted by Nussbaum, does not signify a secret world, but a secret shared between them of homosexual desire. These first stages of the relationship affected David so acutely that he is transported back to these first moments of excitement simply by the memory of them:
A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again. (p.77)The excitement of the secrecy that the boys are sharing is linked to the thrill of the nature of their relationship. Steerforth comes to educate Copperfield that ‘that were all right which [Copperfield] had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong’ (p.77). Being a great deal older than David Steerforth introduces him to these secrets and feelings and he comes to see that his desires are not shameful.
Of course Copperfield purports to “fall in love” many a time throughout the novel, but these infatuations appear to attach themselves to any available and half-attractive woman that is present in David’s life. He claims to have feelings for Littl Em’ly, Miss Dartle, the eldest Miss Larkins, Dora, Agnes and several more besides. These feelings, therefore, cannot be considered to be true love as they appear to be inspired in David far too readily to earn that status. Instead they are mere entertainments, distractions even, to employ his public affection through a channel that is morally and socially acceptable to those around him. His fantasies with other women are merely a decoy, which is why he feels the need to attach himself to at least one at any point in his life, even from when he is a small boy.
Even in describing his love for these women, Copperfield appears to be trying to convince himself of his feelings. This is evident in his proclamation of love for Emily:
Of course I was in love with little Em’ly. I am sure I loved that baby…I am sure my fancy raised up something round that blue-eyed mite of a child, with etherealised, and made a very angel of her. (p.36)The repetition of ‘I am sure’ serves the opposite purpose of convincing us that David is particularly unsure of his feelings towards Emily, and his conviction that ‘of course’ he loves her suggests that he knows he should rather than that he actually does.
His love for Steerforth, however, is prevalent throughout, and no one ever replaces him in David’s affections. Even Steerforth’s own actions and elopement with Emily cannot shake Copperfield’s strong and determined love for him: ‘You have no best to me Steerforth …and no worst. You are always equally loved and cherished in my heart’ (p.373). Nussbaum suggests that the reader rejoices in this claim and sympathises with Copperfield’s feelings here. It seems, however, that we are led to believe that Steerforth is a bad influence on Copperfield, and perhaps that his influence on Copperfield is the reason for his homosexual persuasion and that this is an amoral path to have chosen.
Copperfield’s susceptibility is highlighted throughout the novel; he is always very small and vulnerable, he always has decisions made for him, he is almost a puppet in his own life. This is displayed most clearly in the scene in which his waiter manages to manipulate him easily into giving him most of his food and drink. Steerforth seems particularly aware of this trait of David’s, and he can be seen to act upon his vulnerability right from the start, when he takes all of Copperfield’s money. He also states later that he ‘feel[s] as if [David] were [his] property’ (p.250) and possessively nicknames him ‘my dear Daisy’ (p.250). The feminine nickname given to David also hints at an erotic relationship between the two of them, but one in which Steerforth is dominant and Copperfield is submissive.
Agnes represents the other side of the spectrum to that of Steerforth; she is presented as Copperfield’s ‘good Angel’ (p.313) and as a morally upright influence upon his character. Agnes warns David away from Steerforth:
It is very bold in me ... who have lived in such seclusion and can know so little of the world, to give you my advice so confidently, or even to have this strong opinion…I am certain that what I say is right. I am quite sure it is…when I caution you that you have made a dangerous friend. (p.314)Agnes’ stress on her innocence and inability to understand here hints at something unmentionable and even sordid in the issue she is addressing. It seems Agnes suspects the true nature of the relationship between Steerforth and Copperfield and is attempting to lead him away from it as his moral guide.
Nussbaum claims that Agnes’ ‘gesture’ (Nussbaum, p.358) is upward-pointing, and she claims it is a symbol of her link with death and heaven. It can also be viewed, however, as a symbol of her moral righteousness, of her social acceptability and her desire to help Copperfield remain upright in his morals and society. If Agnes represents all that is moral and upright, Steerforth represents all that is sordid and low, suggesting public attitudes to homosexual activity at the time. The fact that Copperfield marries Agnes at the end, whereas Steerforth is sent away like the ‘fallen woman’ and then found dead, endorses this idea of homosexuality as unacceptable both in the novel and in society at the time.
Perhaps one of the most telling points in the novel on this topic is the meeting between Copperfield and Steerforth’s mother and Miss Dartle. Here, despite her high esteem of Steerforth, his mother worries that ‘her son led but a wild life at college’ (p.251). This could be taken to imply a number of forms of misbehaviour or mischief until Miss Dartle takes up the conversation:
You know how ignorant I am, and that I only ask for information, but isn’t it always so? I thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be – eh? (p.252)The rest of the conversation continues with plenty of gaps and silences whenever such subject as is being discussed is to be mentioned. This silence suggests that the subject is something unspeakable, something not to be mentioned in society and something that is only assumed and hinted at, much like the homoerotic nature of Steerforth and Daisy’s relationship. Miss Dartle appears to be voicing her observations and concerns without ever stating overtly what she is actually suggesting.
Nussbaum’s claims then that the reader falls in love with Steerforth seem completely unfounded and I certainly found myself almost repelled by this character until I studied the homosexual nature of his relationship with David and therefore came to realise that Dickens was perhaps deliberately making Steerforth repellent. We are led to see Steerforth as a bad influence upon the moral and social character of David Copperfield, and to admire Agnes who endeavours to keep David morally and socially upright throughout. It is clear, however, where Copperfield’s real affections lie throughout the novel. Despite the many heterosexual fancies he publicly admits, it is the secret desires and feelings David harbours for Steerforth that remain the example of true love in the novel.
Bibliography:
Dickens, Charles, David Copperfield (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1999).
Nussbaum, Martha, ‘Steerforth’s Arm: Love and the Moral Point of View’, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Thursday 22 October 2009
Dickens and Autobiography response
Michael Englefield, 'A response to Ferguson-Carr's 'A Wild Beast and its Keeper'
Jean Ferguson-Carr has a very revealing insight into Dickens’s use of autobiography in his work. She writes of an author so seemingly reserved, one who “fear[ed]… releasing too much of himself” yet who “had a pressing autobiographical urge”. Her argument seems to tread the fine line between these two perspectives on Dickens’s life, personality and work; for Ferguson-Carr on the one hand he seems an incredibly private character due to a fear of “losing control of his ‘life’, both the written and lived versions” and yet on the other hand she accuses him of having a “powerful ego” who felt that he was a “public institution”. These two opinions surely need to be reconciled in some way through his works, particular David Copperfield and the posthumously published autobiographical fragment, yet the accounts of Dickens’s early years spent in the blacking factory and the accounts of the eventually-orphaned David Copperfield can be strikingly similar as well as strikingly different.
Perhaps the key aspect of the argument is the fact that David Copperfield was actually finished and published while Dickens was still alive, and yet the autobiographical fragment had to be published by someone else after his death. Though this may have been Dickens’s express wish, perhaps feeling that the mortification of having what he himself describes as a humiliating period of his life made so public given that he was, as Ferguson-Carr rightly asserts, a public institution and known to all, one cannot help but wonder why he was so able to complete David Copperfield, which was based on the intimate details of his early life, and not his own autobiography. Dickens himself admitted, according to Ferguson-Carr, that there was a “connection between David’s life and his own”, yet there was apparently not enough of a connection to treat his own life story the way he treated not only David’s but also the stories of countless other characters in his fiction.
In John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens (the handout) the accounts that Forster claims as Dickens’s own are littered with real-life people that he has consumed into his fiction: a boy at the blacking factory accidentally christened ‘Poll’ made his way into Martin Chuzzlewit; Dombey and Son’s Mrs Pipchin arose from an amalgamation of two elderly women that had been his landladies; an orphan girl in the debtors’ prison became the Marchioness from The Old Curiosity Shop and he borrowed the name of another blacking factory co-worker and gave it to Oliver Twist’s Fagin. The fact that he was so willing to borrow from real life experiences, not just for the names of his characters but also, in the case of David Copperfield, for large parts of the plot shows his willingness to share, albeit covertly, aspects of his life with the general public through his fiction. Despite this appropriation of his life experiences into his fiction, however, Dickens appears to blench at actually composing the real thing; Ferguson-Carr speaks of his fear of “dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world” which, unlike the mere hints and suggestions at his own life in his fiction, would perhaps be too much for Dickens to bear. This ‘shadowy world’ of his writing seems to be composed of “floating ideas” according to an account Ferguson cites in her article; perhaps his own real life experiences were just too tangible, too real, to be committed to paper in the way the experiences of his other characters are.
Ferguson-Carr closes are article with the assertion that the biography of Dickens “both revealed [him] and suggested the ominous nature of what still lay concealed”. This seems an appropriate way to conclude. Dickens interwove his work with real-life experiences, and even wrote part of an autobiography on his early life, yet there is always the sense that Dickens seems to be holding back some part of himself from being published, some part to keep personal to himself, his intimate friends and family. The “shadowy world” of the written word could be seen as Dickens’s obsession, given the sheer volume of work that he published in his lifetime yet also, especially when we learn that he burned an account of an adolescent love-interest of his, it could be seen as his greatest fear. To lose himself in the world belonging to his characters was something Dickens seemed desperate to save himself from, though he flirts closely with that danger in the real-life details of David Copperfield, the shadowy world of the written word was something Dickens never let his entire self fall into.
Jean Ferguson-Carr has a very revealing insight into Dickens’s use of autobiography in his work. She writes of an author so seemingly reserved, one who “fear[ed]… releasing too much of himself” yet who “had a pressing autobiographical urge”. Her argument seems to tread the fine line between these two perspectives on Dickens’s life, personality and work; for Ferguson-Carr on the one hand he seems an incredibly private character due to a fear of “losing control of his ‘life’, both the written and lived versions” and yet on the other hand she accuses him of having a “powerful ego” who felt that he was a “public institution”. These two opinions surely need to be reconciled in some way through his works, particular David Copperfield and the posthumously published autobiographical fragment, yet the accounts of Dickens’s early years spent in the blacking factory and the accounts of the eventually-orphaned David Copperfield can be strikingly similar as well as strikingly different.
Perhaps the key aspect of the argument is the fact that David Copperfield was actually finished and published while Dickens was still alive, and yet the autobiographical fragment had to be published by someone else after his death. Though this may have been Dickens’s express wish, perhaps feeling that the mortification of having what he himself describes as a humiliating period of his life made so public given that he was, as Ferguson-Carr rightly asserts, a public institution and known to all, one cannot help but wonder why he was so able to complete David Copperfield, which was based on the intimate details of his early life, and not his own autobiography. Dickens himself admitted, according to Ferguson-Carr, that there was a “connection between David’s life and his own”, yet there was apparently not enough of a connection to treat his own life story the way he treated not only David’s but also the stories of countless other characters in his fiction.
In John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens (the handout) the accounts that Forster claims as Dickens’s own are littered with real-life people that he has consumed into his fiction: a boy at the blacking factory accidentally christened ‘Poll’ made his way into Martin Chuzzlewit; Dombey and Son’s Mrs Pipchin arose from an amalgamation of two elderly women that had been his landladies; an orphan girl in the debtors’ prison became the Marchioness from The Old Curiosity Shop and he borrowed the name of another blacking factory co-worker and gave it to Oliver Twist’s Fagin. The fact that he was so willing to borrow from real life experiences, not just for the names of his characters but also, in the case of David Copperfield, for large parts of the plot shows his willingness to share, albeit covertly, aspects of his life with the general public through his fiction. Despite this appropriation of his life experiences into his fiction, however, Dickens appears to blench at actually composing the real thing; Ferguson-Carr speaks of his fear of “dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world” which, unlike the mere hints and suggestions at his own life in his fiction, would perhaps be too much for Dickens to bear. This ‘shadowy world’ of his writing seems to be composed of “floating ideas” according to an account Ferguson cites in her article; perhaps his own real life experiences were just too tangible, too real, to be committed to paper in the way the experiences of his other characters are.
Ferguson-Carr closes are article with the assertion that the biography of Dickens “both revealed [him] and suggested the ominous nature of what still lay concealed”. This seems an appropriate way to conclude. Dickens interwove his work with real-life experiences, and even wrote part of an autobiography on his early life, yet there is always the sense that Dickens seems to be holding back some part of himself from being published, some part to keep personal to himself, his intimate friends and family. The “shadowy world” of the written word could be seen as Dickens’s obsession, given the sheer volume of work that he published in his lifetime yet also, especially when we learn that he burned an account of an adolescent love-interest of his, it could be seen as his greatest fear. To lose himself in the world belonging to his characters was something Dickens seemed desperate to save himself from, though he flirts closely with that danger in the real-life details of David Copperfield, the shadowy world of the written word was something Dickens never let his entire self fall into.
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Steerforth
Did you know that eminent contemporary philosophy Martha Nussbaum has fallen in love ('rushing into the eager volatility of desire') with Steerforth, from David Copperfield? No? Read this essay, 'Steerforth's Arm: Love in the Moral Point of View' from her celebrated collection Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1990). [If the link doesn't work for you, either type 'Steerforth's Arm' into the 'search this book' box on the left hand side of the page, or else scroll down and click on the 'contents' page at the bottom].
Monday 19 October 2009
Moretti, Wilson
Here are some links on the critical texts we talked about in today's seminar. First, here's the Google books version of Franco Moretti's Way of the World: the Bildungsroman and European Culture (1987; English translation Verso 2000); you can read a good proportion of it there. It's a much fuller, and more complex text than I was, perhaps, giving the impression when we discussed it, but its core thesis -- that the Bildungsroman is essentially the narrative of youth -- is certainly relevant for David Copperfield:
We also discussed Edmund Wilson's long essay 'Dickens: the Two Scrooges', which is definitely worth a browse. This doesn't seem to be online anywhere, but you'll find it in the library; it was collected in a volume called The Wound and the Bow.
Achilles, Hector, Ulysses: the hero of the classical epic is a maure man, an adult. Aeneas, carrying away a father by now too old, and a son too young, is the perfect embodiment of the symbolic relevance of the 'middle' stage of life ... but with the first enigmatic hero of modern times, it falls apart. According to the text Hamlet is thirty years old: far from young by Renaissance standards. But our culture, in choosing Hamlet as its first symbolic hero, has 'forgotten' his age, or rather has had to alter it, and picture the Prince of Denmark as a young manTwelve, I think, was Michael's judgement in class today. Moretti goes on to talk more specifically about the novel as a mode:
The decisive thrust in this sense was made by Goethe, and it takes new shape, symptomatically, precisely in the work that codifies the new paradigm and sees youth as the most meaningful part of life: Wilhelm Meister. This novel was simultaneously the birth of the Bildungsroman (the form which will dominate or, more precisely, make possible the Golden Century of Western narrative) and of a new hero: Wilhelm Meister, followed by Elizabeth Bennet and Julien Sorel, Rastignac and Frederic Moreau and Bel-Ami, Waverley and David Copperfield ... [p.3]There's our boy. The 'Golden Century of Western narrative' is the nineteenth-century, of course; Moretti has a theory that the Bildungsroman faltered after the first-world war, although I don't think that's right, personally. Check out the link on Wilhelm Meister if you're interested in those novels.
We also discussed Edmund Wilson's long essay 'Dickens: the Two Scrooges', which is definitely worth a browse. This doesn't seem to be online anywhere, but you'll find it in the library; it was collected in a volume called The Wound and the Bow.
Monday 12 October 2009
Week 4: Copperfield and the 'Autobiographical Fragment'
Today I want to discuss the autobiographical aspects of David Copperfield; and to that end I've given you the 'Autobiographical Fragment' that John Forster published in his Life of Dickens (1870-71). Both the fragment and the whole life (well worth reading) are available in many locations online: the former here, the latter here for instance.
There's also a good deal of criticism on the Autobiogaphical aspect of Dickens's novel. One of the best, I think, is Jean Ferguson Carr's 'Dickens and Autobiography: a Wild Beast and its Keeper' ELH 52:2 (Summer 1985), 447-69.
Also of interest is Barbara Gelpi's 'The Innocent I: Dickens' Influence on Victorian Autobiography' (in Jerome Buckley, The Worlds of Victorian Fiction, Harvard University Press, 1975).
If you're interested in the actual biographical context out of which Dickens wrote this novel, then Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding's edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849 is absolutely invaluable. You'll find a copy of this in the library; and here's a review of that monument of Dickensian scholarship.
See also Annette R. Federico 'David Copperfield and the Pursuit of Happiness', Victorian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 69-95.
There's also a good deal of criticism on the Autobiogaphical aspect of Dickens's novel. One of the best, I think, is Jean Ferguson Carr's 'Dickens and Autobiography: a Wild Beast and its Keeper' ELH 52:2 (Summer 1985), 447-69.
Also of interest is Barbara Gelpi's 'The Innocent I: Dickens' Influence on Victorian Autobiography' (in Jerome Buckley, The Worlds of Victorian Fiction, Harvard University Press, 1975).
If you're interested in the actual biographical context out of which Dickens wrote this novel, then Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding's edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849 is absolutely invaluable. You'll find a copy of this in the library; and here's a review of that monument of Dickensian scholarship.
See also Annette R. Federico 'David Copperfield and the Pursuit of Happiness', Victorian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 69-95.
Two responses to 'The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey' by Ian Milner
1. Sophia Hussain, ‘Response to "The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey" by Ian Milner’
Milner’s 1970 essay attempts to refute the charge that Dickens’ work is ‘theatrical art’ and not concerned with the hidden drama of moral choice. He shows how Dombey’s inner conflict is dramatically articulated at important points in his life and implies that the successful presentation of Dombey’s inner tension overrides the conventionalised character of Florence and Edith’s melodramatic portrayal.
The essay is a direct response to Henry James’ argument that Dickens ‘was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’. James argued that Dickens was unable to see and unable to present what was ‘beneath the surface of things’ and that he added nothing to our understanding of the human character. James’ argument is that Dickens’ art was not ‘serious art’ because he did not dramatise moral choice in the inner life of an individual’s consciousness. Milner accepts that Dickens did not concern himself with ‘intellectual inquiry, self-analysis, and debate’ and that there is a lack of insight to what Mr Dombey is thinking – we don’t see Dombey doing any reflecting, nor does Dickens analyse Dombey’s state of mind. Instead, Milner argues, Dickens exposes Dombey’s personality by ‘providing dramatic intensity and vividness of focus’ at ‘nodal’ points in the action i.e. it is the things that Dombey says and does that reveal his inner self and its motivations. We are not given a linear sense of a development of Dombey’s character: Dickens himself said that Dombey does not undergo ‘violent change… A sense of injustice is within him, all along’; rather we are presented with a series of dramatic elucidations and it is the cumulative effect of this which gives us the insight into Dombey’s inner life. Milner looks at certain instances where Dickens is successful in characterising Dombey without having to reveal his ‘inner life’.
In the opening chapter of the novel we are given minimal descriptive information about Dombey and it is his actions that suggest the kind of person he is. Milner quotes the sentence about Dombey with his ‘heavy gold watch-chain’ and shows how it has a metonymic quality where it focuses our attention on Dombey’s euphoric pride. Milner shows that even though little has been authorially said about him, his personality has still been exposed. This, he argues, is how Dickens is not just responsible for ‘theatrical art’: Dickens is not a ringmaster standing in between the audience and the character; rather Dombey is at centre-stage from the very beginning. It is his actions and words that show us the man.
Chapter 18 is a key chapter where we see Dickens’ skill in using scene to ‘suggest inner qualities’. At the funeral, we do not get any indication of Dombey’s thoughts but the inscription on the grave: ‘beloved and only child’ gives away so much in the sense of pathos about his obsessive pride in his son and his heir. There is also significance when Florence goes to visit her father on the night when she has been told he is to leave the next morning and his door is slightly open. On her previous nightly visits, ‘the door was ever closed and he shut up within’. This leads to Florence being afraid of the ‘something’ in her father’s face and significantly Dickens does not offer any analysis and interpretation. This indicates that Dombey himself is not aware of his new darker feelings towards his daughter and shows his conflicting impulses and genuine suffering. Milner argues that this chapter is shows the ‘hand not of any ‘theatrical’ manipulator of externalised characters but that of the born dramatist who matches control of stage and scene with searching insight into basic human motivations’.
Dickens uses the dramatic mode to show Dombey’s inner workings: in chapter 47 when he strikes Florence after Edith’s elopement, his suddenly unleashed violence dramatically reveal his ‘interlocked sexual frustration, jealousy, and rage’. But as Milner points out Dickens does not just rely on the dramatic mode. In Chapter 40, he points out the natural shift from the authorial stance to free indirect speech has the ‘advantages of dramatic immediacy and authentic expression of Dombey’s tortured rationalizing’. The same chapter also allows us to see how important narration is in the presentation of character: the passage he uses as an example shows how the atmospheric and suggestive power of the narration presents the conflict between husband and wife. The visual detail Dickens uses complements the narrative and brings the issue into sharper focus. Finally, Dickens’ denouement concentrates on the inner life of Dombey’s self-conflict and its resolution, rather than the social framework. Milner concludes that Dickens vividly catches the ‘felt life’ of the human journey that breaks Dombey’s pride ‘not as theatrical manipulation but as the objective revelation of great art’.
I found this to be quite an interesting approach to Dombey and Son, especially as when I read it, I noticed the lack of ‘depth’ in Dombey, so to speak. Until I read this essay, I was inclined to side with Henry James’ conclusion that the lack of insight into Dombey’s interiority was a negative thing. However, after reading Milner’s essay it is easy to see how through the use of rhetoric and its metonymic quality, scenes which suggest phases of character and motivation, dramatising without analysis, free indirect style, narration with visual detail and a focus on the individual in the closing scenes create the insight into Dombey we crave. I think Dickens does provide some interior insight when he uses free indirect speech as Dombey’s thoughts slip into the narration. I agree with the assertion that a character is better presented through their actions, what they do and say defines them. This seems to be true in real life – our subconscious actions tend to reflect our true personalities and feelings: ‘Character is shown in action; the mode is kinetic’.
2. Sarah Anstee ‘The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey’: A Response
The principle argument for Milner‘s essay is that the character of Mr Dombey is successfully created through Dickens’s use of scene and action, as opposed to the creation of a character that relies on our insight into their ’inner life’. Milner, therefore, describes Dombey as a ‘test case for Dickens’s art’. As persuasive as Milner’s argument is, one cannot help but question his thesis that a successful character can be built on their scenes and actions alone. For a reader to fully engage with and understand a character, especially one like Mr. Dombey, surely an insight into their inner life is crucial?
Milner starts then by quoting both Henry James and G. H. Lewes, who argue that ’Dickens was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’ and that ’ Dickens sees and feels, but the logic of feeling seems the only logic he can manage. Thought is strangely absent from his works’. Like Milner, one can agree that ’thought’ is a tricky word and that it is not completely void in Dickens’s characters, but, there still remains the tension of: ’How will Dombey’s character develop if the reader is given no insight into these thoughts?’.
Milner argues that ‘Character is shown in action’ and that Dickens is only truly concerned with Dombey’s motivation and the different elements that dominate it. Milner contends that:
Another small point to think about in Milner’s essay is his constant reference to the ’suggestiveness’ of Dombey’s character. Should we question Milner’s analysis of Dombey as a successful character, whose characteristics are only ever suggested at and never clearly shown to the reader? Or, should we take on board Milner’s argument and acknowledge that a lot can be gained about Dombey through mere suggestions? Milner cites the passage in the novel where Florence is outside her father’s door, where ‘the door was ever closed, and he shut up within’. Here, this particular scene is very suggestive of Dombey’s character and images of immurement are constantly recurring throughout the novel. But, does this scene tell us anything new about Dombey that allows the reader to see a growth or development in his character? It seems that Dickens is hiding something from the reader that suggestiveness cannot tell. Like Florence, is not arguable that they are both longing for a sense of Dombey’s inner life?
Milner’s argument can be seen from many different perspectives depending on what a reader expects from an author. Some readers, such as Milner, are content with the fact that Dickens does not give us an insight or a sense of Dombey’s inner life and that a lot of his character is dependant on suggestiveness and a close attention to scene and action. For example, when Milner argues that the watch has a metonymic quality and is thereby standing in for the character of Mr. Dombey himself. Suggestiveness, however, can never be for certain, cannot something also suggest something else? On the other hand, other readers may find that a closer and deeper sense of Dombey’s inner life would have made his secretive and reclusive character more understandable. As such, I contend that after reading Dombey and Son, the reader resorts to empathising with Florence and cannot help feeling just like her, in that they were always left standing on the other side of a locked door, longing to be let in.
Milner’s 1970 essay attempts to refute the charge that Dickens’ work is ‘theatrical art’ and not concerned with the hidden drama of moral choice. He shows how Dombey’s inner conflict is dramatically articulated at important points in his life and implies that the successful presentation of Dombey’s inner tension overrides the conventionalised character of Florence and Edith’s melodramatic portrayal.
The essay is a direct response to Henry James’ argument that Dickens ‘was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’. James argued that Dickens was unable to see and unable to present what was ‘beneath the surface of things’ and that he added nothing to our understanding of the human character. James’ argument is that Dickens’ art was not ‘serious art’ because he did not dramatise moral choice in the inner life of an individual’s consciousness. Milner accepts that Dickens did not concern himself with ‘intellectual inquiry, self-analysis, and debate’ and that there is a lack of insight to what Mr Dombey is thinking – we don’t see Dombey doing any reflecting, nor does Dickens analyse Dombey’s state of mind. Instead, Milner argues, Dickens exposes Dombey’s personality by ‘providing dramatic intensity and vividness of focus’ at ‘nodal’ points in the action i.e. it is the things that Dombey says and does that reveal his inner self and its motivations. We are not given a linear sense of a development of Dombey’s character: Dickens himself said that Dombey does not undergo ‘violent change… A sense of injustice is within him, all along’; rather we are presented with a series of dramatic elucidations and it is the cumulative effect of this which gives us the insight into Dombey’s inner life. Milner looks at certain instances where Dickens is successful in characterising Dombey without having to reveal his ‘inner life’.
In the opening chapter of the novel we are given minimal descriptive information about Dombey and it is his actions that suggest the kind of person he is. Milner quotes the sentence about Dombey with his ‘heavy gold watch-chain’ and shows how it has a metonymic quality where it focuses our attention on Dombey’s euphoric pride. Milner shows that even though little has been authorially said about him, his personality has still been exposed. This, he argues, is how Dickens is not just responsible for ‘theatrical art’: Dickens is not a ringmaster standing in between the audience and the character; rather Dombey is at centre-stage from the very beginning. It is his actions and words that show us the man.
Chapter 18 is a key chapter where we see Dickens’ skill in using scene to ‘suggest inner qualities’. At the funeral, we do not get any indication of Dombey’s thoughts but the inscription on the grave: ‘beloved and only child’ gives away so much in the sense of pathos about his obsessive pride in his son and his heir. There is also significance when Florence goes to visit her father on the night when she has been told he is to leave the next morning and his door is slightly open. On her previous nightly visits, ‘the door was ever closed and he shut up within’. This leads to Florence being afraid of the ‘something’ in her father’s face and significantly Dickens does not offer any analysis and interpretation. This indicates that Dombey himself is not aware of his new darker feelings towards his daughter and shows his conflicting impulses and genuine suffering. Milner argues that this chapter is shows the ‘hand not of any ‘theatrical’ manipulator of externalised characters but that of the born dramatist who matches control of stage and scene with searching insight into basic human motivations’.
Dickens uses the dramatic mode to show Dombey’s inner workings: in chapter 47 when he strikes Florence after Edith’s elopement, his suddenly unleashed violence dramatically reveal his ‘interlocked sexual frustration, jealousy, and rage’. But as Milner points out Dickens does not just rely on the dramatic mode. In Chapter 40, he points out the natural shift from the authorial stance to free indirect speech has the ‘advantages of dramatic immediacy and authentic expression of Dombey’s tortured rationalizing’. The same chapter also allows us to see how important narration is in the presentation of character: the passage he uses as an example shows how the atmospheric and suggestive power of the narration presents the conflict between husband and wife. The visual detail Dickens uses complements the narrative and brings the issue into sharper focus. Finally, Dickens’ denouement concentrates on the inner life of Dombey’s self-conflict and its resolution, rather than the social framework. Milner concludes that Dickens vividly catches the ‘felt life’ of the human journey that breaks Dombey’s pride ‘not as theatrical manipulation but as the objective revelation of great art’.
I found this to be quite an interesting approach to Dombey and Son, especially as when I read it, I noticed the lack of ‘depth’ in Dombey, so to speak. Until I read this essay, I was inclined to side with Henry James’ conclusion that the lack of insight into Dombey’s interiority was a negative thing. However, after reading Milner’s essay it is easy to see how through the use of rhetoric and its metonymic quality, scenes which suggest phases of character and motivation, dramatising without analysis, free indirect style, narration with visual detail and a focus on the individual in the closing scenes create the insight into Dombey we crave. I think Dickens does provide some interior insight when he uses free indirect speech as Dombey’s thoughts slip into the narration. I agree with the assertion that a character is better presented through their actions, what they do and say defines them. This seems to be true in real life – our subconscious actions tend to reflect our true personalities and feelings: ‘Character is shown in action; the mode is kinetic’.
2. Sarah Anstee ‘The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey’: A Response
The principle argument for Milner‘s essay is that the character of Mr Dombey is successfully created through Dickens’s use of scene and action, as opposed to the creation of a character that relies on our insight into their ’inner life’. Milner, therefore, describes Dombey as a ‘test case for Dickens’s art’. As persuasive as Milner’s argument is, one cannot help but question his thesis that a successful character can be built on their scenes and actions alone. For a reader to fully engage with and understand a character, especially one like Mr. Dombey, surely an insight into their inner life is crucial?
Milner starts then by quoting both Henry James and G. H. Lewes, who argue that ’Dickens was incapable of effectively treating the inner life’ and that ’ Dickens sees and feels, but the logic of feeling seems the only logic he can manage. Thought is strangely absent from his works’. Like Milner, one can agree that ’thought’ is a tricky word and that it is not completely void in Dickens’s characters, but, there still remains the tension of: ’How will Dombey’s character develop if the reader is given no insight into these thoughts?’.
Milner argues that ‘Character is shown in action’ and that Dickens is only truly concerned with Dombey’s motivation and the different elements that dominate it. Milner contends that:
Dickens’s primary mode is to show us Dombey […] at a series of nodal points in the action.He then develops this by asserting:
Character, and inner growth, is evoked and suggested by the discontinuous, selective “picturing” of high points of experience. There is not the linear sense of character development depending on the knowledge and insights derived from continuous authorial or other mediation. Rather an intermittent series of dramatic illuminations imply and suggest instead of interpreting and defining.With the lack of any authorial input into Dombey’s inner life, one is again faced with the predicament of how to successfully create a character that a reader can fully understand and connect with. Milner does come up with a convincing method by focusing on the nodal points throughout the novel that allow Dombey’s character to grow. However, one of the only reserves with this method is that one could argue that it makes Dombey’s character seem like a playing piece in a board game. Dickens is moving this particular character (Dombey) along to different nodal points throughout the novel, but just because a character is moving does that necessarily mean they are growing and developing? Dickens needs to get Dombey to the final ‘square’ on the board, the reconciliation of his relationship with Florence, and Milner’s method of characterisation through nodal points sees him arrive there, but again, the successfulness is questionable. One is not arguing that every thought and emotion Dombey feels needs to be accounted for, but a deeper insight into his inner life, that goes beyond his actions, could have made his character more successful (meaning in this case, the ability of the reader to be able to understand, identify and sympathise with).
Another small point to think about in Milner’s essay is his constant reference to the ’suggestiveness’ of Dombey’s character. Should we question Milner’s analysis of Dombey as a successful character, whose characteristics are only ever suggested at and never clearly shown to the reader? Or, should we take on board Milner’s argument and acknowledge that a lot can be gained about Dombey through mere suggestions? Milner cites the passage in the novel where Florence is outside her father’s door, where ‘the door was ever closed, and he shut up within’. Here, this particular scene is very suggestive of Dombey’s character and images of immurement are constantly recurring throughout the novel. But, does this scene tell us anything new about Dombey that allows the reader to see a growth or development in his character? It seems that Dickens is hiding something from the reader that suggestiveness cannot tell. Like Florence, is not arguable that they are both longing for a sense of Dombey’s inner life?
Milner’s argument can be seen from many different perspectives depending on what a reader expects from an author. Some readers, such as Milner, are content with the fact that Dickens does not give us an insight or a sense of Dombey’s inner life and that a lot of his character is dependant on suggestiveness and a close attention to scene and action. For example, when Milner argues that the watch has a metonymic quality and is thereby standing in for the character of Mr. Dombey himself. Suggestiveness, however, can never be for certain, cannot something also suggest something else? On the other hand, other readers may find that a closer and deeper sense of Dombey’s inner life would have made his secretive and reclusive character more understandable. As such, I contend that after reading Dombey and Son, the reader resorts to empathising with Florence and cannot help feeling just like her, in that they were always left standing on the other side of a locked door, longing to be let in.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Oliver Twist: Response
Alice Gayle, 'Response to Larry Wolff article: Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Oliver Twist.'
The premise for Wolff’s sometimes outlandish assertions about the precise nature of crime in Oliver Twist is the idea of ‘cryptic delinquency’. That is, rather than reading only the obvious crimes that Dickens portrays in the novel, largely thievery and prostitution, one might guess at what is more obliquely inferred, and that more mysterious, and certainly disturbing criminal activity is also present. Wolff initially cites Dickens’s 1841 preface to Oliver Twist, highlighting what he feels might exist surreptitiously in Dickens’s language as he talks of ‘unavoidable inference’. Yet while Wolff pushes the point that the censure of more than just swearing is present in the novel, it seems hard to believe Dickens is also suggesting the idea of the ‘boys…as prostitutes’. After all, Dickens seems to find it shocking enough to break it to the reader the obvious natures of his criminal characters:
An important textual reference for Wolff is in Nancy’s words, following her kidnap of Oliver from Brownlow and his return to Fagin. In an outburst, she cries that Oliver will be ‘a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad’ from that day on, in the company of Fagin, Sikes and co. Wolff takes this breakdown of specificity of description, from ‘thief’ to ‘all that’s bad’ as evidence for some other, unutterable vice. Yet this may be attributed simply to her loss of articulation in her passion, rather than hinting at something worse than devilish. There is scope for the idea that vice cannot help but associated with sexuality after a point, yet there is something unashamedly comforting in the idea that while Fagin may be crooked, greedy, bullying, even violent, he would never stoop to a level of indecency which if it were widely broadcast, would make sinister, even inappropriate reading. Wolff further uses some historical material to show the contextual presence of the boy-prostitute, yet it is undeniable that this was not as commonly regarded as the woman or girl prostitute.
After again quibbling some specific ‘language of criminality’ which might give some clue as to what type of juvenile crime Oliver is really caught up in, Wolff picks up on the emphasis on Oliver’s looks in the text. Fagin favours Oliver for his looks, this is true, yet it is more persuasive that Oliver’s beautiful, innocent looks (as his register of speech) are a symptom of his true place in a better society than the one he is dragged into, rather than as a some obscure means of sexual allurement. After all, it is not only Fagin who comments on Oliver’s looks; he is used as a mourner by Mr Sowerberry early on in the novel in consequence of them. In addition, Wolff suggests that Oliver’s particular ‘spiritual agony’, according with his looks and character, at being made a thief, also implies ‘that there is more at stake than stealing’.
Following this, Wolff discusses various contextual testaments to houses of corruption that existed in the 1830s, in which ‘diabolical practices’ took place, involving both males and females. He links this to further evidence about the ‘illicit sexual lives of Victorian men’, and more broadly to relationships between gentlemen and young boys both contextually and specifically in Oliver Twist. Again, Wolff implies the possibility of untoward relations taking place, yet the idea is dependent on the ‘if’ clause, i.e. this can only be the case ‘if’ criminal inferences extend to sexual vices. Therefore it seems that even Wolff is hesitant to suggest that Brownlow, if not Fagin’s, interest in Oliver in any way oversteps the paternal. It cannot be denied that a deliberate depiction of such crime written in by a philanthropic, gentleman-like author fond of children is somewhat grotesque.
Wolff’s final point in his defence of ‘cryptic delinquency’ regards the ‘sexualisation of Oliver’s innocence’. He draws on the imagery of Oliver asleep, for example, and the significance of the older, male eyes upon him (Fagin and Monks at the window in a memorable scene). Yet as even Wolff points out, the interpretation of Oliver as an object of titillation to the ‘respectable gentlemen within the text’ is only secondary to what this must force the reader to do, i.e. engage in ‘a possibly pornographic relation to the innocent child’ – abject and unlikely.
As such, the article uses some persuasive arguments regarding the nature of the criminal world Dickens portrays in Oliver Twist. However, despite the use of historical documents to bolster his hypotheses on this issue, it seems that there is little concrete evidence in the text to fully support such ideas. While it is true that Dickens is often vague about the gritty details (as well as the swearing) that actually take place in the criminal underworld of the novel, it is difficult to believe that he is hinting at such sexual vice in a text that already exposes what he considered ‘shocking circumstance and ‘degraded aspect’.
[Comments please: what do you think of Wolff's argument, and Alice's response?]
The premise for Wolff’s sometimes outlandish assertions about the precise nature of crime in Oliver Twist is the idea of ‘cryptic delinquency’. That is, rather than reading only the obvious crimes that Dickens portrays in the novel, largely thievery and prostitution, one might guess at what is more obliquely inferred, and that more mysterious, and certainly disturbing criminal activity is also present. Wolff initially cites Dickens’s 1841 preface to Oliver Twist, highlighting what he feels might exist surreptitiously in Dickens’s language as he talks of ‘unavoidable inference’. Yet while Wolff pushes the point that the censure of more than just swearing is present in the novel, it seems hard to believe Dickens is also suggesting the idea of the ‘boys…as prostitutes’. After all, Dickens seems to find it shocking enough to break it to the reader the obvious natures of his criminal characters:
It is, it seems, a very shocking circumstance, that some of the characters in these pages are chosen from the most criminal and degraded of London’s population; that Sikes is a thief, and Fagin a receiver of stolen goods; that the boys are pick-pockets, and the girl is a prostitute.Dickens seems to save the worst confession, regarding Nancy, until last, as if to break it to the reader gravely and gently. The idea of his going beyond what he already feels is ‘vilest evil’ to crime that may well cause mass offence and disgust in readers (Wolff suggests pederasty, involving Fagin himself), seems far-fetched. Wolff indicates that Dickens’s reliance on inference amounts to a freedom of interpretation in the novel, yet what he seems to imply is that anything may then be possible, regardless of little evidence.
An important textual reference for Wolff is in Nancy’s words, following her kidnap of Oliver from Brownlow and his return to Fagin. In an outburst, she cries that Oliver will be ‘a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad’ from that day on, in the company of Fagin, Sikes and co. Wolff takes this breakdown of specificity of description, from ‘thief’ to ‘all that’s bad’ as evidence for some other, unutterable vice. Yet this may be attributed simply to her loss of articulation in her passion, rather than hinting at something worse than devilish. There is scope for the idea that vice cannot help but associated with sexuality after a point, yet there is something unashamedly comforting in the idea that while Fagin may be crooked, greedy, bullying, even violent, he would never stoop to a level of indecency which if it were widely broadcast, would make sinister, even inappropriate reading. Wolff further uses some historical material to show the contextual presence of the boy-prostitute, yet it is undeniable that this was not as commonly regarded as the woman or girl prostitute.
After again quibbling some specific ‘language of criminality’ which might give some clue as to what type of juvenile crime Oliver is really caught up in, Wolff picks up on the emphasis on Oliver’s looks in the text. Fagin favours Oliver for his looks, this is true, yet it is more persuasive that Oliver’s beautiful, innocent looks (as his register of speech) are a symptom of his true place in a better society than the one he is dragged into, rather than as a some obscure means of sexual allurement. After all, it is not only Fagin who comments on Oliver’s looks; he is used as a mourner by Mr Sowerberry early on in the novel in consequence of them. In addition, Wolff suggests that Oliver’s particular ‘spiritual agony’, according with his looks and character, at being made a thief, also implies ‘that there is more at stake than stealing’.
Following this, Wolff discusses various contextual testaments to houses of corruption that existed in the 1830s, in which ‘diabolical practices’ took place, involving both males and females. He links this to further evidence about the ‘illicit sexual lives of Victorian men’, and more broadly to relationships between gentlemen and young boys both contextually and specifically in Oliver Twist. Again, Wolff implies the possibility of untoward relations taking place, yet the idea is dependent on the ‘if’ clause, i.e. this can only be the case ‘if’ criminal inferences extend to sexual vices. Therefore it seems that even Wolff is hesitant to suggest that Brownlow, if not Fagin’s, interest in Oliver in any way oversteps the paternal. It cannot be denied that a deliberate depiction of such crime written in by a philanthropic, gentleman-like author fond of children is somewhat grotesque.
Wolff’s final point in his defence of ‘cryptic delinquency’ regards the ‘sexualisation of Oliver’s innocence’. He draws on the imagery of Oliver asleep, for example, and the significance of the older, male eyes upon him (Fagin and Monks at the window in a memorable scene). Yet as even Wolff points out, the interpretation of Oliver as an object of titillation to the ‘respectable gentlemen within the text’ is only secondary to what this must force the reader to do, i.e. engage in ‘a possibly pornographic relation to the innocent child’ – abject and unlikely.
As such, the article uses some persuasive arguments regarding the nature of the criminal world Dickens portrays in Oliver Twist. However, despite the use of historical documents to bolster his hypotheses on this issue, it seems that there is little concrete evidence in the text to fully support such ideas. While it is true that Dickens is often vague about the gritty details (as well as the swearing) that actually take place in the criminal underworld of the novel, it is difficult to believe that he is hinting at such sexual vice in a text that already exposes what he considered ‘shocking circumstance and ‘degraded aspect’.
[Comments please: what do you think of Wolff's argument, and Alice's response?]
Monday 5 October 2009
Mid-Victorian Railways
Next week, as I mentioned in class, I want to talk about the representation of the railways in Dombey and Son. There's a wealth of material, most of it historical (or economic history) about the mid-century Railway boom -- the 'Railway Mania' that's the immediate background to Dickens's novel. Half an hour in the library will turn up all sorts of things; half an hour trawling google will turn up even more. But here are a couple of specific links:
Check out Ian Carter's Railways and culture in Britain: the epitome of modernity (Studies in popular culture: Manchester University Press, 2001), especially the chapter on Dombey and Son (p.71f.)
Also worth looking at is Michael J. Freeman, Derek H. Aldcroft (eds), Transport in Victorian Britain (Manchester University Press ND, 1991).
Incidentally, the rather splendid image at the head of this post is sourced from the Museum of London website. This is what they say about it:
George Cruikshank, 'The Railway Dragon' [Etching] A steam engine belching steam and smoke has invaded a dining room where a family had gathered to eat a Christmas meal. Its human arms hold forks with which to seize a roast of beef and a plum pudding. Chairs are overturned by fleeing terrified children, a baby lies in an upset highchair and his mother screams 'Oh! the Monster!'. The father clutches his forehead crying 'Oh! my beef! and oh! my babbies!!!' The engine intones 'I come to dine, I come to sup/I come, I come..to eat you up. From 'The Table Book', a part work by G. Cruikshank. This etching alludes to the crash in value of railway stock in 1845/6.Isn't it lovely?
There's also this famous image:
Some Dombey Links
Interesting discussion in the class today about father-son relationships in culture, and the reason why they're so often mediated by death. Please add in the comments below any thoughts you had in seminar but didn't get round to saying, or any thoughts you've had since. (If you're having trouble commenting -- and I think you need a gmail or blogger account to do it -- email me the comments and I shall post them).
Here are a few things of interest re: Dombey and his relationship to his son.
David Lee Miller, 'Charles Dickens: a Dead Hand at a Baby', in Dreams of the Burning Child: Sacrificial Sons and the Father's Witness (Cornell University Press, 2003) Google books has most of this chapter, and some of the rest of the book. This whole monograph is interesting, actually: Miller identifies what he calls 'the formal embarrassment of fatherhood's inability to represent itself' through the frequent and core cultural representation of common sacrifice as the bond between father and son: he looks at the Aeneid, Hamlet, The Winter's Tale and Dombey and Son.
Ian Milner, 'The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey', Nineteenth-Century Fiction, (Vol. 24, No. 4, The Charles Dickens Centennial Mar., 1970), pp. 477-487. [JSTOR] Interesting if slightly old fashioned article on the extent to which Dickens can successfully characterise Dombey without giving us any sense of his 'inner life'.
Anne Humpherys, 'Dombey and Son: Carker the Manager' Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Mar., 1980), pp. 397-413. [JSTOR] Reads Carker as 'a Gothic hero-villain.'
And here's a recent (well: 2003) overview of the state of Dickens criticism more generally: some stuff on Dombey and Son although the focus is broader.
Here are a few things of interest re: Dombey and his relationship to his son.
David Lee Miller, 'Charles Dickens: a Dead Hand at a Baby', in Dreams of the Burning Child: Sacrificial Sons and the Father's Witness (Cornell University Press, 2003) Google books has most of this chapter, and some of the rest of the book. This whole monograph is interesting, actually: Miller identifies what he calls 'the formal embarrassment of fatherhood's inability to represent itself' through the frequent and core cultural representation of common sacrifice as the bond between father and son: he looks at the Aeneid, Hamlet, The Winter's Tale and Dombey and Son.
Ian Milner, 'The Dickens Drama: Mr. Dombey', Nineteenth-Century Fiction, (Vol. 24, No. 4, The Charles Dickens Centennial Mar., 1970), pp. 477-487. [JSTOR] Interesting if slightly old fashioned article on the extent to which Dickens can successfully characterise Dombey without giving us any sense of his 'inner life'.
Anne Humpherys, 'Dombey and Son: Carker the Manager' Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Mar., 1980), pp. 397-413. [JSTOR] Reads Carker as 'a Gothic hero-villain.'
And here's a recent (well: 2003) overview of the state of Dickens criticism more generally: some stuff on Dombey and Son although the focus is broader.
Dombey and Daughter
Two contemporary reactions to the big success of Dombey. The first is reprinted in Dickens: the Critical Heritage ... a popular Punch-like magazine called The Man in the Moon published an 'Inquest on the late Master Paul Dombey', which is interesting:
Thou art gone from our counter,And here's something rather different, if related: my account of Renton Nicholson's unauthorised sequel to Dombey and Son, Dombey and Daughter: you'll see, if you click that link, how tangential this book is to Dickens, a desperate attempt to cash-in on the enormous success of the original tale.
Thou are lost to our pocket
Thou hast fallen, brief meteor,
Like spark of a rocket.
New numbers appearing
Fresh interest may borrow,
But we go on "oh dearing,
For Paul there's no morrow!"
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Fagin as Pimp
In Monday's class, Megan (I think it was) mentioned 'a long critical essay' she had read that talked about the sexual, prostitutory subtext of Fagin's den, though she couldn't remember the specifics. I wonder if it was this paper by Larry Wolff, '"The Boys Are Pickpockets, and the Girl Is a Prostitute": Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Early Victorian England from Oliver Twist to London Labour', New Literary History (27:2 Spring, 1996), 227-249. That's a link to the JSTOR version of the essay; I'd be interested to know what you all think of it, and may set 'write a 500 word response to this paper' as one of the non-assessed tasks for this term.
Monday 28 September 2009
Twisty
Apologies for the slightly chaotic start to today's class: in future we should be able to start on time at noon in that room (QA 135).
Today I talked a little about the historical and biographical contexts out of which Dickens wrote Oliver Twist; and touched on the cultural context a little too: Silver Fork novels and the Newgate Novel. We discussed Dickens's claims to realism in the book, and the contrary discursive pull away from realism and towards the sort of schematic expressive allegory associated with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (memorialised in the novel's original subtitle: the Parish-Boy's Progress) -- if you haven't read that last book, it's worth skimming through: Google Books have numerous editions for free, including this rather handsome mid-Victorian edition. I was trying to argue that Dickens's writing mediates a creative tension between being tied to reality and flying off into wish-fulfilment fantasy (between the formal enclosure of 'realist' writing and the formal disclosure of the fantastical). Then we talked a little about 'eyes' in the novel; in the focus on set-piece largescale spectacles, on audiences and surveillance -- Nancy's eyes appearing spectrally in the sky and terrifying Sikes, the eager eyes watching Fagin's last days -- and tried to suggest that this again had a formal, as well as a content-based, aspect. All these eyes are in a sense our eyes, eagerly reading and watching all these things that are more usually hidden and secret. I mentioned D A Miller's The Novel and the Police (1989), a Foucauldian reading of 'surveillance' and power in Dickens, Collins and Trollope, that tropes the developing form of the novel as a kind of panopticon.** The link to Miller's study, there, is to a google books edition that has a fair selection of the whole; it's also in the library. (Here's a JSTOR review of the study that sums up its argument).
If you've any problems, come see me or drop me a line -- or feel free to put them in the comments to this post, and I'll answer them here. Comments or observations are also welcome. Otherwise check the blog for more later this week.
---
**What's a pantopticon? Originally it was a special design of prison at Millbank: see this wikipedia article. It's a word that crops up a lot in more recent literary criticism, especially of the nineteenth-century, because the idea behind the prison was isolated by Foucault in his important study Discipline and Punish (1975) as emblematic of the way bourgeois culture places surveillance at the heart of policing its increasingly carcereal society. And if you don't know what carcereal means ... google it.
Today I talked a little about the historical and biographical contexts out of which Dickens wrote Oliver Twist; and touched on the cultural context a little too: Silver Fork novels and the Newgate Novel. We discussed Dickens's claims to realism in the book, and the contrary discursive pull away from realism and towards the sort of schematic expressive allegory associated with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (memorialised in the novel's original subtitle: the Parish-Boy's Progress) -- if you haven't read that last book, it's worth skimming through: Google Books have numerous editions for free, including this rather handsome mid-Victorian edition. I was trying to argue that Dickens's writing mediates a creative tension between being tied to reality and flying off into wish-fulfilment fantasy (between the formal enclosure of 'realist' writing and the formal disclosure of the fantastical). Then we talked a little about 'eyes' in the novel; in the focus on set-piece largescale spectacles, on audiences and surveillance -- Nancy's eyes appearing spectrally in the sky and terrifying Sikes, the eager eyes watching Fagin's last days -- and tried to suggest that this again had a formal, as well as a content-based, aspect. All these eyes are in a sense our eyes, eagerly reading and watching all these things that are more usually hidden and secret. I mentioned D A Miller's The Novel and the Police (1989), a Foucauldian reading of 'surveillance' and power in Dickens, Collins and Trollope, that tropes the developing form of the novel as a kind of panopticon.** The link to Miller's study, there, is to a google books edition that has a fair selection of the whole; it's also in the library. (Here's a JSTOR review of the study that sums up its argument).
If you've any problems, come see me or drop me a line -- or feel free to put them in the comments to this post, and I'll answer them here. Comments or observations are also welcome. Otherwise check the blog for more later this week.
---
**What's a pantopticon? Originally it was a special design of prison at Millbank: see this wikipedia article. It's a word that crops up a lot in more recent literary criticism, especially of the nineteenth-century, because the idea behind the prison was isolated by Foucault in his important study Discipline and Punish (1975) as emblematic of the way bourgeois culture places surveillance at the heart of policing its increasingly carcereal society. And if you don't know what carcereal means ... google it.
EN3515 Course Booklet
Department of English
Royal Holloway, University of London
BA PROGRAMME – 2009/10
Special Author Option: Charles Dickens
EN3515
Royal Holloway, University of London
BA PROGRAMME – 2009/10
Special Author Option: Charles Dickens
EN3515
Course Tutor: Professor Adam Roberts
The course aims to provide students with the chance to study the complete career of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), with detailed discussion of eight novels in their historical and cultural contexts. We will look at Dickens’s life and times, and the cultural discourses that shaped his fiction; the serialisation and illustration of his work, and the themes, forms and structures of his writing. But above all the course will encourage students to pay close attention to the richness and specificity of Dickens’ actual work.
It is taught in fifteen consecutive two-hour seminars.
Early Dickens
Week 1. Oliver Twist (1837-9)
Week 2. Dombey and Son (1846-8)
Week 3. Dombey and Son (1846-8)
Week 4. David Copperfield and the Autobiographical Fragment
Week 5. David Copperfield (1849-50)
Mid period Dickens
Week 6. Bleak House (1852-3)
Week 7. Bleak House (1852-3)
Week 8. Household Words (1851-9)
Week 9. Dickens and his illustrations
Week 10. A Christmas Carol (1843)
Late Dickens
Week 11. Little Dorrit (1855-7)
Week 12. Little Dorrit (1855-7)
Week 13. Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)
Week 14. Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)
Week 15. Edwin Drood (1870)
Assessment
The course assessment is by one long essay (7500-8000 words) which constitutes 100% of the grades for this course. Essay titles will be distributed in the final seminar of the course. Satisfactory attendance at seminars, and submission of one piece of (non-assessed) work are requirements that you will have to meet in order to be eligible to submit the long essay. This piece of work takes the place of the more usual seminar presentation: it will be 500-2500 words long, depending on what it is; and will be posted here on the course blog prior to the seminar in question.
Reading List
Library marks are given for most titles. You are advised to use this list as a resource; you will not be expected to read all the books listed here.
Titles marked with an asterisk are particularly recommended.
1. General
The best place to start for anything related to Dickens is The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens (ed. Paul Schlicke, Oxford: OUP 1999). If you’re interested in studying Dickens you’d be well advised to buy this book, which is available in paperback (although the hardback has lots of nice pictures) -- ISBN: 019866253X, £8.99.
Ackroyd, Peter, Dickens. London: Sinclair-Stevenson 1990. [827 DIC B/ACK]
*Butt, John E. and Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens at Work. London: Methuen, 1957. [827 DIC D/BUT]
Clayton, Jay, Romantic Vision and the Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Chittick, Kathryn, Dickens and the 1830s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990. [827 DIC D/CHI]
Cockshut, A.O.J., The Imagination of Dickens. London: Collins, 1961. [827 DIC D/COC]
Collins, Philip. Dickens and Education. New York: St. Martins, 1963 [827. DIC D/COL]
Collins, Philip, Dickens and Crime. London: Macmillan, 1968 [827 DIC D/COL]
Collins, Philip, ed. Dickens: The Critical Heritage. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1971 [827 DIC D/COL]
Collins, Philip, ed. Dickens: Interviews and Recollections. 2 vols paginated as 1. London: Macmillan 1981 [827 DIC D/COL]
Connor, Steven, Charles Dickens (Blackwell 1985) [827 DIC D/CON]
Eigner, Edwin M., The Metaphysical Novel in England and America: Dickens, Bulwer, Melville, and Hawthorne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. [828.EIG]
Flint, Kate, Dickens. Harvester, 1986. [827 DIC D/FLI]
Forster, John, The Life of Charles Dickens [1872-74], ed. A. J. Hoppe (Dent 1966) [827 DIC B/FOR]
Frye, Northrop, ‘Dickens and the Comedy of Humours’, Experience in the Novel ed. R. H. Pierce. Columbia Univ. Press 1968
Greene, Graham, `The Young Dickens' [1950], Collected Essays (Penguin 1970) [828 GRE]
Hardy, Barbara, The Moral Art of Dickens: Essays. Dover, NH: Athlone Press, 1985. [827 DIC D/HAR]
Hollington, Michael, Dickens and the Grotesque. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1984. [827 DIC D/HOL]
*House, Humphry, The Dickens World. London: Oxford University Press, 1941. [827 DIC D/HOU]
Kaplan, Fred, Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. [827 DIC D/KAP]
*Kincaid, James R., Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. [827 DIC D/KIN]
Larson, Janet, Dickens and the Broken Scripture. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.
Leavis, F. R., and Q.D., Dickens the Novelist (Chatto and Windus 1970) [827 DIC D/LEA]
Lucas, John, The Melancholy Man: A Study of Dickens’s Novels, 2d edn.. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980. [827 DIC D/LUC]
Manning, Sylvia, Dickens as Satirist, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971.
Marcus, Steven, Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey. New York: Harper Collins, 1965. [827 D/MAR]
Miller, D.A., The Novel and the Police. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
*Miller, J. Hillis, Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958. [[827 DIC D/MIL]
Newlin, George, Everyone in Dickens. 3 vols: Greenwood 1996. [827 DIC D/NEW]
Roberts, Adam, ‘Pre-Victorian Dickens’, English 43 (1994), 271-3
Schlicke, Paul, Dickens and Popular Entertainment. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1985. [827 DIC D/SCH]
*Slater, Michael, Dickens and Women. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983. [827 DIC D/SLA]
Stone, Harry, Dickens and the Invisible World: Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Novel-Making. London: Macmillan 1968. [827 DIC D/STO]
Sucksmith, Harvey Peter, The Narrative Art of Charles Dickens: The Rhetoric of Sympathy and Irony in His Novels. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970. [827 DIC/SUC]
Swindell, Julia, Victorian Writing and Working Women: the Other Side of Silence. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
Trotter, David, Circulation: Defoe, Dickens and the Economies of the Novel. London: Macmillan, 1988.
Wall, Stephen (ed), Charles Dickens: A Critical Anthology (Penguin 1970) [827 DIC D/WAL]
Waters, Catherine, Dickens and the Politics of the Family. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Welsh, Alexander. The City of Dickens. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Wilson, Angus, ‘Dickens -- the Two Scrooges’, The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature. New York: Houghton Mifflin 1941. [827 DIC D/WIL]
Zambrano, A. L., Dickens and Film. Gordon, 1977. [827 DIC D/ZAM]
2. Oliver Twist (1837-8)
For a thorough bibliography of Oliver Twist criticism before 1986, see David Parroissien's Oliver Twist: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishers, 1986. [827 DIC P2/PAR]
Collins, Philip, ‘Murder: From Bill Sikes to Bradley Headstone,’ in Dickens and Crime. London: Macmillan, 1962.
Connor, Steve, ‘“They’re All One Story”: Public and Private Narratives in Oliver Twist’, Dickensian 85 (1989)
Dowling, Constance, ‘Cervantes, Dickens, and the World of the Juvenile Criminal’, Dickensian. 1986. (82) 151-157.
Ginsburg, Michal Peled. ‘Truth and Persuasion: The Language of Realism and of Ideology in Oliver Twist’, Novel. 1987. (20/3/Spr) 220-236.
Heller, Deborah, ‘The Outcast as Villain and Victim: Jews in Dickens’s Oliver Twist and Our Mutual Friend’, in Jewish Presences in English Literature, eds. Derek Cohen and Deborah Heller. Montreal: McGill Queen's UP, 1990.
Hollington, Michael, ‘Dickens and Cruikshank as Physiognomers in Oliver Twist’, Dickens Quarterly. 1990 (7/2) 243-254.
Jordan, John O., ‘The Purloined Handkerchief’, Dickens Studies Annual. 1989. (18) 1-17.
Kincaid, James R. ‘Oliver Twist: Laughter and the Rhetoric of Attack’, in Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Marcus, Steven. ‘The Wise Child’, and ‘Who Is Fagin?’ in Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey. New York: Harper Collins, 1965.
Miller, J. Hillis., ‘Oliver Twist’, in Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.
Patten, Robert L, ‘Capitalism and Compassion in Oliver Twist’, Studies in the Novel. 1969. (1) 207-221.
Schlicke, Paul, ‘Bumble and the Poor Law Satire of Oliver Twist’, Dickensian. 1975. (71) 149-156.
Slater, Michael, ‘On Reading Oliver Twist’, Dickensian. 1974. (70) 71-81.
Tillotson, Kathleen, ‘Introduction’ to the Clarendon Edition of Oliver Twist. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.
Tracy, Robert, ‘“The Old Story” and Inside Stories: Modish Fiction and Fictional Modes in Oliver Twist’, Dickens Studies Annual. 1988. (17) 1-33.
Wheeler, Burton M., ‘The Text and Plan of Oliver Twist’, Dickens Studies Annual. 1984. (12) 41-61.
Wolff, Larry, ‘“The Boys Are Pickpockets and the Girl is a Prostitute”: Gender and Juvenile Criminality in Early Victorian England from Oliver Twist to London Labour’, New Literary History. 1996. (27/2) 227-249.
3. Dombey and Son
Auerbach, Nina, ‘Dickens and Dombey: A Daughter After All’, in Charles Dickens: Dombey and Son and Little Dorrit: A Casebook, ed. Alan Shelston (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985)
Clark Robert, ‘Riddling the Family Firm: The Sexual Economy in Dombey and Son’, English Literary History, 51 (1984): 69-84
Horton, Susan R., Interpreting Interpreting: Interpreting Dickens’s ‘Dombey’ (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979)
Leavis, F.R. and Q.D., ‘The First Major Novel: Dombey and Son’ in Dickens the Novelist (London: Chatto and Windus, 1970)
Perera, Suvendrini, ‘Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation: Empire and the Family Business in Dombey and Son’, Victorian Studies, 33 (1990): 603-20
Schwarzbach, F.S., ‘Dombey and Son: The World Metropolis’, in Dickens and the City, (London: Athlone Press, 1979), pp. 101-13
Tambling, Jeremy, ‘Death and Modernity in Dombey and Son’, Essays in Criticism, 43 (1993): 308-29
Williams, Raymond, ‘Introduction’ to Dombey and Son (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970)
Yelin, Louise, ‘Stategies for Survival: Florence and Edith in Dombey and Son’, Victorian Studies, 22 (1979): 297-319
Zwinger, Lynda, ‘The Fear of the Father: Dombey and Daughter’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction (1985): 420-40
4. David Copperfield
For a thorough bibliography of Copperfield criticism before 1981, see Dunn, Richard, David Copperfield: An Annotated Bibliography (Garland 1981) [827 DIC]
‘The Autobiographical Fragment’ in Forster, John, The Life of Charles Dickens [1872-74], ed. A. J. Hoppe (Dent 1966) [827 DIC B/FOR]
Gelpi, Barbara Charlesworth, ‘The Innocent I: Dickens’ Influence on Victorian Autobiography’, in Jerome Buckley (ed), The Worlds of Victorian Fiction. Boston: Harvard Univ. Press 1975, 57-71 [827.3 BUC]
Gilmour, Robin, ‘Memory in David Copperfield’, Dickensian 71 (1975)
Mulvey, Chris, ‘David Copperfield: the Folk Story Structure’, Dickens Studies Annual 5 (1976), 74-94
Needham, Gwendolyn B., ‘The Undisciplined Heart of David Copperfield’, Nineteenth- Century Fiction 9 (1954), 81-107
Patten, Robert L., ‘Autobiography into Autobiography: the Evolution of David Copperfield’, in George Landow (ed), Approaches to Victorian Autobiography. Ohio Univ. Press 1979, 269-291 [808.06692 LAN]
5. A Christmas Carol (1843)
Davis, Paul, The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990.
Charles Dickens, The Annotated Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, with introduction, notes, and bibliography by Michael Patrick Hearn, Avenel, New York, 1976.
Charles Dickens, The Christmas Carol, with Introduction and Notes by Philip Collins, New York Public Library, 1971.
Patten, Robert L., ‘Dickens Time and Again’, Dickens Studies Annual, 2 (1972), 163-96
Slater, Michael, ‘The Triumph of Humour: The Carol Revisited’, The Dickensian 89 (1993), 190-200
6. Bleak House (1852-3)
Cowles, David, ‘Methods of Inquiry, Modes of Evidence: Perception, Self-Deception and Truth in Bleak House’, The Dickensian, 87 (1991): 153-65
Dyson, A.E., (ed) Bleak House: A Selection of Critical Essays, (London: Macmillan Casebook, 1969)
Graver, Suzanne, ‘Writing in a “Womanly” Way and the Double Vision of Bleak House’, Dickens Quarterly, 4 (1987): 3- 15
Harvey, W.J., ‘Bleak House’, Character and the Novel (London: Chatto and Windus, 1965)
Jolly, Diane L., ‘The Nature of Esther’, The Dickensian, 86 (1990): 29-40
Kearns, Michael S., ‘“But I Cried Very Much”: Esther Summerson as Narrator’, Dickens Quarterly, 1 (1984): 121-9
Leavis, Q.D., ‘Bleak House: A Chancery World’, F.R. and Q.D. Leavis, Dickens the Novelist (London: Chatto and Windus, 1970), pp. 118-86
McCusker, Jane A., ‘The Games Esther Plays: Chapter Three of Bleak House’, The Dickensian, 81 (1985): 163- 74
Miller, D.A., ‘Discipline in Different Voices: Bureaucracy, Police, Family and Bleak House’, The Novel and the Police (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1988); partially repr. in Charles Dickens, ed. Steven Connor (London: Longman Critical Reader, 1996), pp. 135-50
Miller, J. Hillis, ‘Introduction’ to Bleak House, ed. Norman Page (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), pp., 11-34; partially repr. in Charles Dickens, ed. Steven Connor (London: Longman ‘Critical Reader’, 1996), pp. 59-75
Moseley, Merritt, ‘The Ontology of Esther’s Narrative in Bleak House’, South Atlantic Review, 50 (1985): 35- 46
Peltason, Timothy, ‘Esther’s Will’, ELH, 59 (1992): 671-91
Schwarzbach, F.S., ‘Bleak House: Homes for the Homeless’, in Dickens and the City (London: Athlone Press, 1979), pp. 114-42
Shatto, Susan, The Companion to Bleak House (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987)
Thoms, Peter, ‘“The Narrow Track of Blood”: Detection and Storytelling in Bleak House’, Nineteenth-Century Literature, 50 (1995): 147-67
West, John B., ‘Krook's Death By Spontaneous Combustion and the Controversy Between Dickens and Lewes: A Physiologist’s View’, The Dickensian, 90 (1994): 125-29
7. Little Dorrit (1855-7)
Barickman, Richard, ‘The Spiritual Journey of Amy Dorrit and Arthur Clennam: “A Way Wherein There is No Ecstasy”.’, Dickens Studies Annual, 7 (1978): 163-89.
Barret, Edwin B., ‘Little Dorrit and the Disease of Modern Life’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 25 (1970): 199-215.
Bernard, Robert, ‘The Imagery of Little Dorrit’, English Studies 52 (1971) 520-532.
Booth, Alison, ‘Little Dorrit and Dorothea Brooke: Interpreting the Heroines of History’, Nineteenth-Century Literature, 41 (1986): 190-216.
Brantlinger, Patrick, ‘Dickens and the Factories’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 26 (1971): 270-85.
Burgan, William, ‘Little Dorrit in Italy’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 29 (1975): 393-411.
Burgan, William, ‘People in the Setting of Little Dorrit’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 15 (1973): 111-28.
Burgan, William, ‘Tokens of Winter in Dickens’s Pastoral Setting’, Modern Language Quarterly 36 (1975): 293-315.
Carlisle, Janice, ‘Little Dorrit: Necessary Fictions’, Studies in the Novel 7 (1975): 195-214. Also in The Sense of an Audience. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981, pp. 96-118.
Childers, Joseph W., ‘History, Totality, Opposition: The New Historicism and Little Dorrit’, Dickens Quarterly 6 (1989) 150-157.
Fleishman, Avrom, ‘Master and Servant in Little Dorrit’, Studies in English Literature 14 (1974): 575-86.
Frow, John, ‘Voice and Register in Little Dorrit’, Comparative Literature 33 (1981): 258-70.
Leavis, F. R., ‘Dickens and Blake: Little Dorrit’, in Dickens the Novelist. London: Chatto and Windus, Ltd., 1970, pp. 213-76.
Librach, Ronald S., ‘The Burdens of Self and Society: Release and Redemption in Little Dorrit’, Studies in the Novel 7 (1975): 538-51.
Manning, Sylvia, ‘Dickens, January, and May’, Dickensian 71 (1975): 67-74.
Maxwell, Richard, ‘Dickens’s Omniscience’, ELH 46 (1979): 290-313.
Metz, Nancy Aycock, ‘Little Dorrit’s London: Babylon Revisited’, in Victorian Studies 33 (Spring 1990): 465-486.
Myers, William, ‘The Radicalism of Little Dorrit,’ in Literature and Politics in the Nineteenth Century, Ed. John Lucas. London: Methuen, 1971. 77-104.
Nunokawa, Jeff, ‘Getting and Having: Some Versions of Possession in Little Dorrit,’ in Charles Dickens: Modern Critical Views, Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
Ralegh, John, ‘The Novel and the City: England and America in the Nineteenth Century’, Victorian Studies 11 (1968) 291-328.
Sadoff, Dianne F., ‘Storytelling and the Figure of the Father in Little Dorrit’, PMLA 95 (1980): 234-45.
Showalter, Elaine, ‘Guilt, Authority, and the Shadows of Little Dorrit’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 34 (1979): 20-40.
Squires, Michael, ‘The Structure of Dickens's Imagination in Little Dorrit’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 30 (1988): 49-64.
Styczynaska, Adela, ‘The Shifting Point of View in the Narrative Design of Little Dorrit’, Dickensian 82 (1986): 39-51.
Wain, John, ‘Little Dorrit’, in Dickens and the Twentieth Century. Ed. J. Gross and G. Pearson. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1962.
Walter, Dennis, ‘Dickens and Religion: Little Dorrit’, in Dickens and Religion. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1981.
Weiss, Barbara, ‘Secret Pockets and Secret Breasts: Little Dorrit and the Commercial Scandals of the Fifties’, Dickens Studies Annual 10 (1982): 67-76.
Wilde, Alan, ‘Mr. F.'s Aunt and the Analogical Structure of Little Dorrit’, Nineteenth- Century Fiction 19 (1964): 33-44.
Winter, Sarah, ‘Domestic Fictions: Feminine Deference and Maternal Shadow Labor in Dickens's Little Dorrit’, Dickens Studies Annual 18 (1989): 243-54.
Woodward, Kathleen, ‘Passivity and Passion in Little Dorrit’, Dickensian 71 (1975): 140-48.
Zimmerman, James R, ‘Sun and Shadow in Little Dorrit’, Dickensian 83 (1987): 93-105.
8. Our Mutual Friend (1864-5)
For a comprehensive bibliography of Our Mutual Friend before 1982, see Brattin and Hornback’s Our Mutual Friend: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland Publishing, 1984).
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, ‘Our Mutual Friend,’ in Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens. London: J.M. Dent and Sons, ltd., 1911. E-text.
Gissing, George, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. London: Blackie, 1898.
Johnson, Edgar, ‘The Great Dust-Heap,’ in Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952.
Demarcus, C., ‘Wolves Within and Without: Dickens’s Transformation of Little Red Riding Hood in Our Mutual Friend’, Dickens Quarterly. 1995. (12/1) 11-17.
Dvorak, Wilfred P., ‘Dickens and Popular Culture: Silas Wegg's Ballads in Our Mutual Friend’, Dickensian 1990. (86/3) 142-157.
*Fulwiler, Howard W., ‘“A Dismal Swamp”: Darwin, Design, and Evolution in Our Mutual Friend’, Nineteenth-Century Literature. 1994. (49/1) 51-74.
Gaughan, Richard T., ‘Prospecting for Meaning in Our Mutual Friend’, Dickens Studies Annual. 1990. (19) 231-246.
Ginsburg, Michal Peled. ‘The Case Against Plot in Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend’, in Economies of Change: Form and Transformation in the Nineteenth-Century Novel. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996.
Grossman, Jonathan H., ‘The Absent Jew in Dickens: Narrators in Oliver Twist, Our Mutual Friend, and A Christmas Carol’, Dickens Studies Annual. 1996. (24) 37-57.
Hake, Stephen, ‘Becoming Poor to Make Many Rich: The Resolution of Class Confict in Dickens’, Dickens Studies Annual. 1998. (26) 107-120.
Hecimovich, Gregg A., ‘The Cup and the Lip and the Riddle of Our Mutual Friend’, ELH. 1995. (62/4) 955-977.
Heller, Deborah, ‘The Outcast as Villain and Victim: Jews in Dickens’s Oliver Twist and Our Mutual Friend,’ in Jewish Presences in English Literature, ed. Derek Cohen and Deborah Heller. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 1990.
Miller, J. Hillis, ‘The Topography of Jealousy in Our Mutual Friend,’ in Dickens Refigured: Bodies, Desires, and Other Histories, ed. John Schad. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996.
Royle, Nicholas, ‘Our Mutual Friend,’ in Dickens Refigured: Bodies, Desires, and Other Histories, ed. John Schad. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996.
Shuman, Cathy, ‘Invigilating Our Mutual Friend: Gender and the Legitimation of Professional Authority’, Novel. 1995. (28/2/Win) 154-172.
Smith, J., ‘Heat and Modern Thought - Charles Dickens: The Forces of Nature in Our Mutual Friend’, Victorian Literature and Culture. 1995. (23) 37-69.
Smith, Peter, ‘The Aestheticist Argument of Our Mutual Friend.’ Cambridge Quarterly. 1989. (18/4) 362-382.
Watts, Alan, ‘Dickens and Pauline Viardot’, Dickensian. 1995. (91/3) 171-178.
Wiesenthal, C.S. ‘Anti-Bodies of Disease and Defense: Spirit-Body Relations in Nineteenth-Century Culture and Fiction’, Victorian Literature and Culture. 1994. (22) 187-220.
9. Edwin Drood.
Beer, John, ‘Edwin Drood and the Mystery of Apartness’, Dickens Studies Annual 13 (1984), 143-91
Cockshut, ‘Edwin Drood: Early and Late Dickens Reconsidered’, in Gross and Pearson (eds), Dickens and The Twentieth Century. London: Routledge 1962. [827 DIC D/GRO]
Jacobson, Wendy, The Companion to The Mystery of Edwin Drood. London: Allen and Unwin 1986. [827 DIC P2/JA]
Thacker, John, Edwin Drood: Antichrist in the Cathedral. London: St Martin's Press 1990. [827 DIC P2/THA]
Wales, Katie, ‘Dickens and Interior Monologue: the Opening of Edwin Drood reconsidered’, Language and Style 17 (1984), 234-50; Rpt in Hollingworth (ed), Charles Dickens: Critical Assessments. 4 vols, Helm: 1995. III: 753-769
10. Dickens and his Illustrators
Cayzer, Elizabeth, ‘Dickens and His Late Illustrators: A Change in Style: Two Unknown Artists’, Dickensian, 1991. (87/1) 13-16.
Cohen, Jane R., Charles Dickens and his Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980.
Hollington, Michael, ‘Dickens and Cruikshank as Physiognomers in Oliver Twist’, Dickens Quarterly 7 (1990)
O'Hea, Michael, ‘Hidden Harmony: Marcus Stone’s Wrapper Design for Our Mutual Friend’, Dickensian. 1995. (91/3) 198-208.
Patten, Robert L., George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art. 2 vols. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. [827 DIC D/STE]
[WEB RESOURCES]
Victorian Research Web
http://www.indiana.edu/~victoria/other.html
Invaluable array of links.
The Victorian Web
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/victov.html
The most used Victorian resource; George Landow’s superb collection of an enormous amount of material
Victorian Women Writers Project
http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/
Indiana University’s project on a good spread of women writers.
The Dickens Project
http://humwww.ucsc.edu/dickens/index.html
The best portal for Dickens-related material.
The Dickens Page
http://lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/Dickens.html
All manner of questions answered on Mitsuharu Matsuoka's well-though-of pages.
Monuments and Dust: the Culture of Victorian London
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/mhc/
Stylish and useful site on all sorts of literary, visual, architectural and historical aspects of Victorian London.
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