Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickens

ISBN-13: 9780230110885 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 226 str.

John Gordon

Opis

To what extent did Charles Dickens see himself as a medium of forces beyond his conscious control? What did he think such subconscious mechanisms might be, and how did his thoughts on the subject play out in his writings? Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickens traces these questions through three Dickens novels: Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, and Bleak House. It is the first book-length study to approach Dickensian psychology from the vantage point of what the speculations of Dickens's-rather than of our own-had to say about mental phenomena, both normal and abnormal.

Recenzje

"The reader of this excellent study of Dickens's Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, and Bleak House quickly becomes

enmeshed in Gordon's impassioned inquiries. Exhilarating reads, these serious novels provide inexhaustible material

for critical analyses. Drawing on the work of such scholars as J. Hillis Miller, Terry Castle, and Michel Slater (author

of the magisterial Charles Dickens, CH, Apr'10, 47-4288), Gordon (Connecticut College) sheds light on Dickens's

magical force. Among the topics he examines are pedophilia, anti-Semitism, industrialism, capitalism, and liminal

experiences. Dickens's complex narrative style includes a variety of tropes - melodrama, fairy tale, the gothic. The

three novels depict child sacrifice, corrupt patriarchs, and social disharmony. Oliver Twist is preoccupied by sadism

and infanticide, horrors Dickens buffers with Oliver's good fortune and hypnagogic trances. Dombey and Bleak

House move beyond that fairy-tale world, dealing with contemporaneous social institutions and issues (railroads,

capitalism, social leadership). In the complex Bleak House, women's trials constitute a special subset of issues as

women seek satisfaction in an elusive motherhood; the narrative intertwines a retrospective, wounded female voice

with a dominating masculine presence. Thus the reader of the novelist's "psychological pleasure palace" is challenged

by alternative perceptions. Gordon's discussion of all this makes for an excellent book." - Choice

"With the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth imminent, we can expect a flood of books on Charles Dickens. I suspect, however, that few of them will display as much critical intelligence as Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickens, and I doubt that any will match the positively Dickensian energy, wit, and gusto that Gordon brings to his subject." - Austin Briggs, Tompkins Professor of English Emeritus, Hamilton College

"This astonishingly alert reading explores the tension between surface narrative and covert allusion. Its many new insights strengthen our sense ofDickens's creative brilliance anddeepenourunderstanding of three of his novels." - Robert Lapides, Professor of English, City University of New York

Spis treści

What Right Have They to Butcher Me?' 'Thankee, Mum,' said Toodle, 'Since You Are Suppressing' 'In a Thick Crowd of Sounds, but Still Intelligibly Enough to be Understood' 'Is Esther Pretty?' and Nine Other Questions About Bleak House

O autorze

JOHN GORDON is Professor of English at Connecticut College, USA.