To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Dickens, charles, 1812-1870, fiction.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Dickens, charles, 1812-1870, fiction'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Dickens, charles, 1812-1870, fiction.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Waters, Catherine. "The politics of the family in Dickens's fiction." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 1992. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/26450.
Full textAbstract:
On 12 June 1858, habitual readers of Household Words were amazed to find a proclamation on the front page announcing the editor's from his wife, the differences which had separation and attempting to controvert rumours addressed himself occasioned it. Dickens about to the public under the heading " PERSONAL":
Some domestic trouble of mine, of long-standing, on which I will make no further remark than that it claims to be respected, as being of a sacredly private nature, has lately been brought to an arrangement, which involves no anger or ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, progress, and surrounding circumstances of which have been, throughout, within the knowledge of my children. It is amicably composed, and its details have now but to be forgotten by those concerned in it. By some means, arising out of wickedness, or out of folly, or out of inconceivable wild chance, or out of all three, this trouble has been made the occasion of misrepresentations, most grossly false, most monstrous, and most cruel - involving, not only me, but innocent persons dear to my heart, and innocent persons of whom I have no knowledge, if indeed, they have any existence - and so widely spread, that I doubt if one reader in a thousand will peruse these lines, by whom some touch of the breath of these slanders will not have passed, like an unwholesome air.
The simile of pollution recalls the imagery of disease spread by noxious winds, so prevalent in Bleak House, and indicates the strength and vehemence of Dickens's indignation. But according to his friend Percy Fitzgerald, the belief that all his readers had heard of some slander concerning his domestic trouble was a "delusion" on Dickens's part:
People were all but bewild ered and almost stunne d, so unexpe cted was the revelat ion. Everyone was for the most part in supreme ignorance of what the document could possibly refer to.
As a result, Dickens's declared wish, in writing this document, to "circulate the Truth," was overshadowed by the titillating revelation made to otherwise uninformed people that the man held to be "so peculiarly a writer of home life, a delineator of household gods, "3 was embroiled in a domestic scandal.
2
RAZANANTSOA, GAYET LALAO FARA. "La question du sujet dans la fiction de charles dickens : oliver twist, david copperfield et great expectations." Lyon 2, 1999. http://www.theses.fr/1999LYO20020.
Full textAbstract:
La fiction dickensienne met en scene ce qui permet l'avenement d'un sujet a l'ordre symbolique de la parole. La diegese des trois romans choisis illustre comment le desir vient s'articuler a la loi de l'interdit, lorsqu'un processus de substitution permet a l'innommable de se faire entendre a travers les rets du discours, regulant ainsi le rapport du sujet a l'objet du desir. Notre tache, en tantque lecteur, a consiste a etre a l'ecoute de cette parole venue d'ailleurs, d'etudier le travail d'un texte qui voile et devoile a la fois le desir qu'il tait et l'impuissance a le dire, tout en disant sous une forme travestie son incapacite a taire ce desir. Notre but a ete de recenser les elements textuels et narratifs contribuant a l'elaboration de cette parole inconsciente, de voir "comment cela se fait texte" a l'aide de l'ecran de la fiction, et parfois de deceler ce qu'un langage apparemment chaotique vient a convoquer et invoquer. Ce parcours nous a permis d'entrevoir, dans des instants fugitifs, la beaute poetique des textes dickensiens, lorsque la lettre inconsciente, en frolant les bords de l'impossible a dire, ouvre une voie a la voix du desir, nous faisant ainsi parvenir les echos de ses cris dans l'ecrit.
3
Moon, Sangwha. "Dickens in the Context of Victorian Culture: an Interpretation of Three of Dickens's Novels from the Viewpoint of Darwinian Nature." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1996. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc279322/.
Full textAbstract:
The worlds of Dickens's novels and of Darwin's science reveal striking similarity in spite of their involvement in different areas. The similarity comes from the fact that they shared the ethos of Victorian society: laissez-faire capitalism. In The Origin of Species, which was published on 1859, Charles Darwin theorizes that nature has evolved through the rules of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and the struggle for existence. Although his conclusion comes from the scientific evidence that was acquired from his five-year voyage, it is clear that Dawinian nature is reflected in cruel Victorian capitalism. Three novels of Charles Dickens which were published around 1859, Bleak House, Hard Times, and Our Mutual Friend, share Darwinian aspects in their fictional worlds. In Bleak House, the central image, the Court of Chancery as the background of the novel, resembles Darwinian nature which is anti-Platonic in essence. The characters in Hard Times are divided into two groups: the winners and the losers in the arena of survival. The winners survive in Coketown, and the losers disappear from the city. The rules controlling the fates of Coketown people are the same as the rules of Darwinian nature. Our Mutual Friend can be interpreted as a matter of money. In the novel, everything is connected with money, and the relationship among people is predation to get money. Money is the central metaphor of the novel and around the money, the characters kill and are killed like the nature of Darwin in which animals kill each other. When a dominant ideology of a particular period permeates ingredients of the society, nobody can escape the controlling power of the ideology. Darwin and Dickens, although they worked in different areas, give evidence that their works are products of the ethos of Victorian England.
4
Ferron-Haghighat, Anne. "La famille victorienne à travers les œuvres de Charles Dickens : entre la réalité et la fiction." Paris 4, 1999. http://www.theses.fr/1999PA040095.
Full textAbstract:
La première partie de cette thèse offre un aperçu des conditions sociales et économiques dans lesquelles a émergé la nouvelle idéologie familiale qui s'est imposée au XIXe siècle au sein des classes moyennes. Y sont analysés la fonction normalisatrice de cette idéologie, le développement du culte du foyer et la doctrine de la séparation des sphères féminine et masculine. Après avoir rappelé quelques données historiques sur la structure familiale et la législation en vigueur à l'époque victorienne, l'auteur examine le rôle des femmes, pivots de cette idéologie domestique, dans le maintien du statut et de l'identité de la classe moyenne ainsi que la légitimation de l'ordre social. La seconde partie est consacrée à l'étude des œuvres de Charles Dickens, traditionnellement considéré comme l'un des apôtres du culte du foyer et le chantre des valeurs familiales victoriennes. Pourtant, ses écrits sont marqués par l'ambivalence et les contradictions, ce qui est le sujet principal de ce travail. Les qualités tant célébrées du foyer se révèlent aussi, dans l'imaginaire dickensien, porteuses de potentialités destructrices, l'utopie domestique ne cesse d'apparaitre comme illusoire. La représentation des figures féminines, chez Dickens, à la fois conforte et remet en question la mythologie de l'ange du foyer. Que ce soit dans le traitement du mariage, des relations conjugales ou la mise en scène des liens entre parents et enfants, il ressort une glorification du modèle domestique mais aussi une puissante révolte contre ce même modèle.
5
Pingitore, Gavin Viviane. "Charles Dickens, un auteur de transition à la croisée du gothique et du policier." Thesis, Bordeaux 3, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018BOR30051/document.
Full textAbstract:
Afin d'explorer la transition du genre Gothique vers le Policier dans la fiction de Dickens, notre étude suivra un plan général en trois grandes parties, divisées elles-mêmes en trois chapitres chacune. Il s'agira tout d'abord de présenter le contexte sociétal qui a conduit à la collision de deux genres littéraires, le Gothique et le Policier. Pour cela nous définirons les caractéristiques du Gothique dickensien. Dickens met en scène un univers doublement familier – un univers qui appartient au passé, un monde réel connu de ses lecteurs, mais également un univers qui appartient à l'histoire de la fiction, qui relève d'une intertextualité forte, que l'on pourrait qualifier de typique, aisément partagée par ses lecteurs. En second lieu, nous nous tournerons vers les effets de cette transition violente sur la mémoire des personnages, en définissant d'abord l'expression du trauma dans la fiction de Dickens. Nous verrons que le trauma repose en particulier sur le trouble identitaire que créent le sentiment d'une faillite de l'appartenance, ainsi que la disparition des repères que les Victoriens, et les personnages que Dickens met en scène, pensaient immuables. Dans un troisième temps, nous montrerons comment le Gothique et le Policier interagissent dans la fiction de Dickens, en analysant les éléments de société qui expliquent, à notre avis, cette rencontre presque contre nature – puisqu'on pourrait supposer que l'explication rationnelle obtenue au terme d'une fiction policière résolve les tensions gothiques. Nous verrons qu'il n'en est rien, et que la résolution des enquêtes ne libère pas complètement la fiction d'un après-coup gothique. Afin d'illustrer cette ligne d'analyse, nous étudierons la passation des pouvoirs entre les hommes de loi et les détectives, une passation des pouvoirs visible à la fois dans la société victorienne et dans le texte dickensien, et enfin la rémanence du Gothique qui fait des détectives les antiquaires d'un nouveau genreIn order to investigate the transition from the Gothic genre to the detective fiction in Charles Dickens's works, our study will first concentrate on the Victorian social context that led to the collision of two literary genres, the Gothic and the detective fiction. We will define Dickensian Gothic. Actually, Dickens stages a twofold familiar universe. One universe belongs to the past – a real world that is well known to the readers. The second universe shows an insertion in literary history of an intertextual fabric – described as typical and easily shared by his readers. We will then deal with the effects of this violent collision upon the characters' memories and will define the expression of trauma in Dickens's fiction. Trauma primarily rests upon identity confusion. It originates from a sense of failure of identity belonging together with a sense of loss of society bearings that Dickens's characters experience and thought to be immutable. Finally, we will show how Gothic and Detective fictions interact in Dickens's fiction. We will analyse the societal elements that explain this almost against nature meeting for we could assume that the rational explanation that comes at the end of the detective novel should solve the Gothic tensions. But in fact, the solving of the inquests doesn't free the fiction from a Gothic aftermath. We will then study the transfer of powers from lawyers to detective police officers. This transfer of powers is noticeable both in Victorian society and the Dickensian text. We will then conclude with the persistence of Gothic in Dickens's fiction that makes detective police officers some sort of antiquarians of a new genre
6
JUBAULT, RICHARD. "L'hysterie chez charles dickens." Rennes 1, 1992. http://www.theses.fr/1992REN1M098.
Full text
7
Bentley, Colene. "Constituting political interest : community, citizenship, and the British novel, 1832-1867." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=36875.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation asserts a strong connection between democratic culture and the novel form in the period 1832--1867. As England debated constitutional reform and the extension of the franchise, novelists Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot endeavoured to define human communities on democratic terms. Drawing on work of contemporary political philosopher John Rawls to develop a methodology that considers constitutions and novelistic representations as analogous contexts for reasoning about shared political values and citizenship, this study provides readings of Bleak House, North and South, and Felix Holt that emphasize each novel's contribution to the period's ongoing deliberations about pluralism, justice, and the meaning of membership in democratic life. When read alongside Bentham's work on legislative reform, Bleak House offers a parallel model of social interaction that weighs the values of diversity of thought, security from coercion, and the nature of harmful actions. Felix Holt and North and South are novelistic contributions to defining and contesting the attributes of the new liberal citizen. Through their central characters, as well as in their respective novelistic practices, Eliot and Gaskell highlight the difficulty of uniting autonomous individuals with collective social groups, and this was as much a problem for literary practice in the period as it was for constitutional reform.
8
Coats, Jerry B. (Jerry Brian). "Charles Dickens and Idiolects of Alienation." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1993. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc277905/.
Full textAbstract:
A part of Charles Dickens's genius with character is his deftness at creating an appropriate idiolect for each character. Through their discourse, characters reveal not only themselves, but also Dickens's comment on social features that shape their communication style. Three specific idiolects are discussed in this study. First, Dickens demonstrates the pressures that an occupation exerts on Alfred Jingle from Pickwick Papers. Second, Mr. Gradgrind from Hard Times is robbed of his ability to communicate as Dickens highlights the errors of Utilitarianism. Finally, four characters from three novels demonstrate together the principle that social institutions can silence their defenseless constituents. Linguistic evaluation of speech habits illuminates Dickens's message that social structures can injure individuals. In addition, this study reveals the consistent and intuitive narrative art of Dickens.
9
Daly, Robyn Anne. "Asleep in a glass coffin: fairy tales as illuminating attitudes to women in the novels of Charles Dickens." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002270.
Full textAbstract:
The field of research of this thesis covers three main areas: the novels of Charles Dickens; fairy tales and storytelling; and notions of women as reflected in feminist literary theory. A reading of selected novels by Dickens provides the primary source. That he copiously drew on fairy tales has been explored in such notable works as Harry Stone's, but the thesis concentrates on Dickens 's propensity in his creation of female protagonists to give them a voice which is vivified through fairy tale. The analysis of fairy story through narrative theory and feminist literary theory functions as the basis of an exploration of the role female narrative voices play in a reading of the novels which reveals a more sympathetic vision of the feminine than has been observed hitherto. The context of this study is Victorian attitudes to women and that modem criticism has not sufficiently acknowledged Dickens's insight into of the condition of women; much of this is discovered through an examination of his use of fairy tale wherein the woman is bearer of imaginative and emotional capacities magically bestowed. The research aims to counter the view of Dickens's novels as being sexist, through the iIluminatory characteristics of fairy tale. Dickens activates his women characters by means of their often being tellers of tales replete with fairy tale imagery, and their tales are almost always seminal to the novelist's moral purpose.
10
Crowe, Julian. "Money and character in the novels of Charles Dickens." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15063.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis discusses the relationship between money and character in the novels of Charles Dickens, concentrating mainly on the later novels, from Dombey & Son onwards. Money is extremely important in Dickens's social criticism, and he is always conscious of money-related motives in his conception of character. However, despite its importance and omnipresence, money ought not to be elevated into the key explanatory principle in Dickens's thought. Dickens has been valued for different qualities over the years. Many who value him as an entertainer with a powerful poetic imagination tend to undervalue his social criticism and moralising, and to treat those aspects as non-essential or as belonging to a different side of his life and work. On the other hand those who value him as social and moral critic have combined this with exaggerated claims of thematic coherence. This thesis suggests that we can dispense with such claims while still regarding Dickens's novels as serious contributions to the moral and social debates of his day. A close consideration will be given to most of the later novels, with the intention of placing the money themes alongside other themes, so as to emphasise the many-sidedness of Dickens's social and moral criticism. Other themes explored in the thesis include marriage and the home, and hypocrisy and self-deception. The thesis seeks to do justice to Dickens's thorough-going ambivalence towards money, and to his capacity for revisiting characters and themes from one work to another. The bias of the thesis is towards the personal and individual, but money is inevitably a social topic. Much consideration is therefore given to Dickens's fictional and non- fictional responses to contemporary social problems and attitudes, and also to material not written by Dickens but published by him in Household Words and All the Year Round.
11
Nelms, Jeffrey Charles. "Orality, Literacy, and Character in Bleak House." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1988. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500998/.
Full textAbstract:
This work argues that the dynamics of the oral and of the literate consciousness play a vital role in the characterization of Bleak House. Through an application of Walter Ong's synthesis of orality/literacy research, Krook's residual orality is seen to play a greater role in his characterization than his more frequently discussed spontaneous combustion. Also, the role orality and literacy plays in understanding Dickens's satire of "philanthropic shams" is analyzed. This study concludes that an awareness of orality and literacy gives the reader of Bleak House a consistent framework for evaluating the moral quality of its characters and for understanding the broader social message underlying Dickens's topical satire.
12
Folléa, Clémence. "Dickens excentrique : persistances du Dickensien." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCC146.
Full textAbstract:
Cette thèse examine des trajectoires imaginaires décrites dans l’œuvre de Charles Dickens et à partir d’elle. On y étudie le texte et les réincarnations de Great Expectations (1860-61), Oliver Twist (1837-39) puis The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), trois romans qui, depuis l’ère victorienne, pénètrent l’imaginaire collectif et alimentent des discours divers, toujours influencés par leurs conditions de production. Ainsi, cette thèse pratique des microanalyses de ses sources primaires tout en prêtant attention au contexte de chaque œuvre. Son corpus comprend des adaptations filmiques mais aussi des reprises plus indirectes, telles que des réécritures, séries télévisées ou jeux vidéo faisant apparaître des éléments identifiables comme « dickensiens ». Cet adjectif qualifie des objets imaginaires et des phénomènes culturels dont on s’attache ici à préciser la nature. En particulier, le dickensien et ses persistances sont étudiées au prisme de l’excentricité, un terme souvent utilisé pour évoquer la qualité truculente et insolite des écrits de Dickens. Mais ici, la définition de cette notion est approfondie : l’excentrique, toujours situé entre un centre et ses marges, sert à penser les ambivalences du dickensien. Au gré des contextes socio-culturels et esthétiques dans lesquels il s’incarne, l’imaginaire créé par Dickens nourrit des discours tantôt normatifs et maîtrisables, tantôt subversifs et déroutants. La cartographie chaotique dressée dans ce travail aboutit à une réflexion méthodologique : les persistances du dickensien forment des trajectoires discontinues et imprévisibles, qui contrarient les classements bibliographiques, périodisations et barrières disciplinairesThis thesis looks at the text and afterlives of Great Expectations (1860-61), Oliver Twist (1837-39) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), by Charles Dickens. Ever since the Victorian era, these three novels have penetrated our collective imagination and have fed into various kinds of discourses, which are always determined by their conditions of production and reception. Thus, this thesis both performs microanalyses of its primary sources and explores the context in which each work was published. Its corpus includes filmic adaptations as well as more indirect reincarnations, such as rewritings, TV series and videogames featuring elements identifiable as ‘Dickensian’. The latter adjective points to a variety of fictional objects and cultural processes, which are gradually circumscribed throughout this thesis. In particular, the Dickensian and its afterlives are defined in connection with the ‘eccentric’, a term often used to conjure up the colourful and sometimes queer quality of Dickens’s texts. Here, however, a broader definition of this notion is adopted: the eccentric, which always stands halfway between a centre and its margins, is used to examine the many ambiguities of the Dickensian. For, as they move into new aesthetic and socio-cultural contexts, the fictions created by Dickens feed into discourses which can be normative and/or subversive, stereotyped and/or disturbing. My cartography of Dickensian afterlives gradually appears as chaotic, which eventually leads me to reconsider some of my methodological assumptions: Dickens’s fictions move in irregular and unpredictable ways, which often upset bibliographical, periodical and disciplinary boundaries
13
Sandy, Kébir. "The grotesque in the creation of the dickensian characters : constancy and evolution." Limoges, 1994. http://www.theses.fr/1994LIMO0506.
Full textAbstract:
Dickens et son oeuvre ont fait l'objet de multiples interpretations. Ceci est du a la complexite de la personnalite de l'ecrivain et a la richesse de son texte. Il y a cependant un sujet relativement peu aborde, celui de l'evolution du romancier comme artiste du grotesque. C'est le but que nous avons fixe a notre travail ; nous nous sommes appuyes sur l'analyse de nombreux personnages des romans. En tenant compte de sa nature ambigue, la premiere partie propose une definition historique et linguistique du terme "grotesque" et une serie d'opinions anciennes et modernes sur la question. Ensuite, nous avons porte attention aux rapports entretenus par dickens avec le theatre populaire et la satire picturale. Sa fidelite a ces traditions grotesques est explicitee dans notre deuxieme partie. Les ouvrages de jeunesse presentent des situations empruntees aux domaines de la pantomime et de la commedia dell'arte. Le caractere excentrique de certains personnages les apparente aux habitants du monde merveilleux d'arlequin et de pantalon, alors que d'autres semblent sortis tout droit des tableaux d'hogarth. Il est notable que, malgre la presence dans l'oeuvre de preoccupations sociales et politiques, cette periode est celle d'une vision generalement optimiste, caracterisee par la presence constante d'une forme tonique d'humour. Cependant, comme nous le montrons dans notre derniere partie, le grotesque dickensien subit un changement radical dans les romans de la maturite. L'humour cede la place a la satire amere et decapante. Les oeuvres ne sont plus peuplees de bouffons mais de creatures terifiantes. En fait, dickens consacre toute son attention au monstrueux et a l'incongru dans sa derniere periode. La situation tragiqsue de l'angleterre pendant les annees cinquante du siecle dernier est sans doute la cause de pareille "revolution"Dickens and his oeuvre have been the target of a welter of different approaches. This is mainly due to the complexity of theman and the richness of his text. Yet there is a subject which has rarely been undertaken : dickens's development as a grotesque artist. This is indeed the aim of this study ; and we have managed to realize it through the analysis of many dickensian characters. Bearing in mind the ambiguous nature of the grotesque, the opening part is meant to offer a historical and linguistic description of the term itself. It also provides a number of ancient and modern views on it. This point clarified, our attention is directed to dickens's relation to some strands of the tradition of the grotesque, namely popular theatre and visual satire. His faithfulness to these traditions is made crystal clear in our second part. The books of youth comprise situations which normally belong to commedia dell'arte and pantomime. Such is the case of some characters ; their eccentricities and idiosyncrasies relate them to the marvellous world of harlequin, pantaloon, clown, and punch ; whereas others seem to have been simply taken frim hogarth's volumes. It should be noted that in spite of the presence of social and political issues, this period remains generally sunny thanks to dickens's fresh, flowing humour. However, as it is discussed in the closing part, in his mature works dickens's grotesque art undergoes a radical change. Sparkling humour leaves its place to bitter, sharp-edged satire ; and the novels are not peopled with buffoons, but terrible creatures. In fact, the monstrous and incongruous received dickens's utmost attention during the last stage of his career. The tragic situation of england in the 1850's is without doubt the principal cause of such a "revolution"
14
Ma, Ying. "Charles Dicken's search for an image of ideal women : a case study of Florence Dombey in Dombey and Son." Thesis, University of Macau, 2012. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2586640.
Full text
15
Bouvard, Luc. "Les fils de Dickens : filiation et focalisation dans cinq adaptations cinématographiques des romans de Charles Dickens." Montpellier 3, 2005. http://www.theses.fr/2005MON30062.
Full textAbstract:
Le personnage du jeune garçon, orphelin de père et de mère, est central dans la fiction de Charles Dickens. Issu de la Révolution Industrielle, les textes dickensiens semblaient réfracter la problématique de la quête oedipienne, que l'on retrouve à d'autres périodes où la fonction paternelle est mise à mal. Cela semble être le cas pour deux moments particuliers du XXe siècle, où les adaptations cinématographiques de ses œuvres furent nombreuses : la Grande Crise des années 30 aux Etats-Unis et l'immédiate après-guerre britannique. Par une mise en parallèle des trois périodes de production et de réception (ère victorienne, années 30 américaines, années 45 britanniques), ce travail vise à inventorier des causes communes à cet intérêt pour Dickens. Si la problématique sociétale semble avoir trouvé une résonance particulière dans les romans à tendance autobiographiques de l'auteur victorien et dans le destin de leurs protagonistes, le cinéma lui fait également écho. En effet, puisque le cinéma se veut le digne héritier du roman victorien, il semble que se joue une tierce filiation dans l'adaptation filmique d'un roman dickensien. Qu'en est-il des cinq adaptations du corpus ? Jouent-elles la carte de la fidélité ou bien sont-elles de belles infidèles ? Qu'en est-il de la filiation dans ces œuvres filmiques ? Offrent-elles une réfraction de l'époque contemporaine ? Entre la filiation et la focalisation, l'un des pôles vise la transmission, la répétition et l'autre révèle le point de vue, la différence. De quelle manière le cinéma adapte-t-il cette problématique ? Ce travail tente d'offrir des réponses à ces questionsThe young orphan boy is a central character in Charles Dickens's fictions. The Dickensian texts, as an expression of the times of the Industrial Revolution seem to reflect the protagonists' oedipal quest, which is found in other times when the paternal function is under strain. Indeed, this also seems to be the case during two specific periods of time in the twentieth century, when screen adaptations of his works were numerous: the American Great Depression and the immediate post World War II period in Britain. By comparing three periods of the production and the reception of works (the Victorian era, the New Deal in the United States, and the post World War II Labour Government in Britain), this study aims at investigating the common grounds for a particular taste in Dickens's novels. If social problems are reflected in the individual destiny of Dickens's protagonists, cinema is also included in this sense. Since the cinema is the real inheritor of the Victorian novel, there seems to be a third relationship in the film adaptations of Dickens's novels. Are the adaptations in this study true to their sources? Or have they reached some sort of autonomy? Do they reflect their own production times? Concerning inheritance or a point of view at the time of their production, there is transmission and repetition, but differences are also revealed. In which ways do the films in question adapt these specific points? This study is an attempt to find suitable answers to these questions
16
Fayemi-Wiesebron, Anne-Gaëlle. "L'objet dickensien, entre profusion et vide : étude de l'objet dans David Copperfield, Bleak House et Great Expectations." Thesis, Rennes 2, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012REN20039/document.
Full textAbstract:
Pris dans les rouages de la révolution industrielle, l'objet dickensien est synonyme d'abondance. Cette profusion d'objets – qu'ils soient concrets ou diégétiques – permet au texte ses plus beaux excès et se prête à merveille au jeu de la collection et des listes, chères à Dickens. Les objets brillent de possibilités inouïes, bousculent l'ordre préétabli et en viennent à supplanter les personnages, souvent relégués au second plan. Le récit, réaliste, est incrusté de surnaturel et fait aussi bien allégeance à l'excès qu'à l'ordre qui en découlera. Les deux extrêmes oeuvrent donc à la réconciliation quand sonne le glas de la suprématie de l'objet et que s'opère la transition de l'euphorie du conte au fantastique dysphorique. Le texte normalise donc son rapport à l'objet et se déleste d'un trop-plein subversif. Pris dans la vague diluvienne balayant sur son passage cette surabondance trop peu conventionnelle, l'objet se délite. Ce travail se propose donc, au travers de trois romans de l’oeuvre dickensienne, d’étudier le passage subtil de l’abondance d’objets à la sublimation du videCaught in the machinery of the Industrial Revolution, the Dickensian object is synonymous of abundance. This profusion of objects – be they tangible or diegetic – allows the text to give way to all excess, and lends itself to the play of collection and lists, both dearly appreciated by Dickens. The objects blaze with unthought-of possibilities, disrupt the pre-established order, and come to supersede the characters, themselves often relegated in the background. The narration, albeit realist, isinlaid with supernatural interpolations, thus making an oath of allegiance either to excess and order, the second deriving from the first. Both these extremes work towards reconciliation as tolls the bell of the object's pre-eminence, and as a transition takes place from the fairy-tale euphoria to the fantastic dysphoria. Therefore, the text brings its relation to the object back to normal and relieves itself from the weight of a subversive overflow. Enmeshed in the diluvian wave which sweeps aside this unconventional overabundance, the object disintegrates. This work on three Dickensian novels thus offers to study the subtle transition from the abundance of objects to the sublimation of the void
17
Fitzsimmons, John Francis. "The construction of meaning in narrative : Dickens and the stereotype /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1995. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phf562.pdf.
Full text
18
Morgentaler, Goldie 1950. "When like begets like : Dickens and heredity." Thesis, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=39968.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation attempts to trace hereditary motifs in the novels of Charles Dickens and to relate these motifs to broader concerns--specifically Dickens's depiction of the formation of the self, his understanding of history and of the role of time Towards this end, I offer an historical overview of scientific and popular thinking on heredity, and suggest how some of these notions were translated into Dickens's fiction. The discussion of hereditary themes in the novels falls into two broad categories--the private and the public.In the first of these, I argue that Dickens tended to define positive moral qualities, such as goodness, as hereditable. At the same time, he was reluctant to portray negative characteristics, such as criminality or insanity as being amenable to hereditary transmission. This assumption of a moral basis to heredity had ramifications for Dickens's understanding of human nature which, in turn spill over into his depiction of the broader public issues associated with heredity--its relationship to class, to race, and to history.
The very last section of the thesis focuses on the Darwinian revolution. There I argue that Dickens's attitude towards the importance of hereditary endowment changed after the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species in 1859. I suggest that Darwin's book prompted Dickens to rethink his earlier deterministic approach to the problem of human identity. After 1859, Dickens jettisons heredity entirely as a factor in the formation of the self and replaces it with environment and experience. The last novels displace the Dickensian metaphors of hidden kinship and universal connection--both of which are related to heredity--and put in their place, the thematics of dispersal and disintegration.
19
Lawrie-Munro, Brian. "The double in Dickens' final completed novels /." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=27950.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is an examination of the double motif used by Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend. There is a subtle shift that takes place in these last completed works, from a double motif which is used to prescribe individual behaviour along the lines of domestic or Christian ideology, to one which examines the social and psychological consequences of the individual's submission to such ideological imperatives. In fine, Dickens begins to distance himself from the stock, physical double he had inherited, turning instead to a double that finds its causes and ramifications firmly located in both the social and psychological spheres. This increasing complexity of the double motif is indicative of Dickens' gradually more sophisticated, less stereotypical view of the relationship between the individual and society than that suggested by his famous caricatures or his previous works.
20
Ebelthite, Candice Axell. ""The wife of Lucifer" : women and evil in Charles Dickens." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002231.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines Dickens's presentation of evil women. In the course of my reading I discovered that most of the evil women in his novels are mothers, or mother-figures, a finding which altered the nature of my interpretation and led to closer examination of these characters, rather than the prostitutes and criminals who may have been viewed negatively by Nineteenth century society and thereby condemned as evil. Among the many unsympathetically portrayed mothers and mother-figures in Dickens's works, the three that are most interesting are Lady Dedlock, Miss Havisham, and Mrs Skewton. Madame Defarge initiates the discussion, however, as a seminal figure among the many evil women in the novels. Psychoanalytical and socio-historic readings grounded in Nineteenth century conceptions of womanhood provide background material for this thesis. Though useful and informative, however, these areas of study are not sufficient in themselves. The theory that shapes the arguments of this thesis is defined by Steven Cohan, who argues strongly that the demand for psychological coherence as a requisite of character obscures the imaginative power of character as textual construct, and who both refutes and develops character theory as it is argued by Baruch Hochman. Cohan's theory is also finally closer to that outlined by Thomas Docherty, who provides a complex reading of character as ultimately "unknowable".
21
Colledge, Gary. "Revisiting the sublime history : Dickens, Christianity, and 'The life of Our Lord' /." Thesis, St Andrews, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/422.
Full text
22
Trefler, Caroline. "Dickens and food : realist reflections in a puddle of chicken grease." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=24107.
Full textAbstract:
Food has a near-ubiquitous role in the fiction of Charles Dickens. From the action that does and does not take place, to the appearance and essence of the characters, and to the language and style in which they were written, virtually every aspect of Dickens's novels and short stories is, to some extent and at one time or another, connected with food. This thesis explores the nature and implications of food in Dickens and, in addition to its introduction and conclusion, it has been divided into three chapters: (a) Language, Style, and Subject/theme; (b) Plot and Setting; and (c) Characterization. As well, the parallel between food's omni-presence in Dickens's fiction and its centrality in the so-called 'real world' has meant that the literary concept 'realism' is a recurrent concern.
23
Vanfasse, Nathalie. "Normes et déviances dans les romans de Charles Dickens." Paris 4, 2001. http://www.theses.fr/2001PA040136.
Full textAbstract:
Cette étude se propose d'analyser les notions de norme et de déviance dans les romans de Charles Dickens. Le mot " norme " est entendu ici au sens large de règle communément admise, tandis que le mot " déviance " est compris comme un écart par rapport à la norme. Durant la période victorienne, le poids du conformisme ainsi que l'intérêt très vif manifesté par les Victoriens pour tous les phénomènes de déviance et pour ce qui a trait à la normalité et à ses limites, confèrent aux notions de norme et de déviance une importance fondamentale. Or les romans de Dickens sont particulièrement intéressants de ce point de vue. En effet, les contemporains du romancier le considéraient comme le champion de l'orthodoxie victorienne, tandis que la critique littéraire du vingtième siècle souligne au contraire sa fascination pour les phénomènes de déviance. La présente étude montre que l'écriture de Dickens n'est ni conformiste ni subversive, mais qu'elle dépasse ces catégories réductrices pour explorer toutes les dimensions des normes et déviances de son temps. Cette démonstration s'appuie d'abord sur une étude des liens entre les romans de Dickens et les normes et déviances sociales de l'époque, puis sur une analyse des contraintes extérieures littéraires et artistiques s'exerçant sur cette écriture, et enfin sur un examen des normes et des déviances internes à l'œuvre elle-même et décelables à partir d'une analyse linguistique et stylistique des œuvres, complétée par une approche génétiqueThe aim of this study is to analyse the concepts of norms and deviance in Dickens's novels. " Norms " is broadly understood to mean usual or expected standards, while " deviance " is understood to be a deviation from the norms aforementioned. During the Victorian period, norms and deviance were essential topics, owing to the pressure of conformity and to the cultural obsession of the Victorians with deviance and with the definition and bounds of normality. Dickens's novels are particularly interesting in this respect because the Victorians themselves considered the novelist as a champion of Victorian orthodoxy, while twentieth-century criticism focuses on his fascination for cases of deviance. This study shows that Dickens's writing is in fact too subtle to be fitted into either of these categories, since the novelist explores the many facets of the norms and deviances of his time. This demonstration is based first on an analysis of social norms and deviance in Dickens's work, then on an examination of the external literary and artistic conventions the writer complied with or subverted, and finally on a close study of the norms and deviations which can be discovered within the work itself, by resorting to linguistic and stylistic analyses, as well as to a genetic approach based on a study of the writer's rough drafts, notes, proofs and manuscripts
24
Smith, Karl A. "Dickens and the unreal city : the metropolitan symbolism of the mystery story." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14710.
Full textAbstract:
London is not only a backdrop in the novels of Charles Dickens. Its workings both conceal truth of various sorts from characters and push it into the open. This thesis claims that it is the primary symbolic means by which Dickens dramatizes the conflict between concealment and revelation which provides the driving force of his fiction. The first chapter discusses how the city extrapolates the gothic motif of the haunted castle - a built environment which attempts to cut off connections with the rest of the world, leading to a state of atrophy and death. The second particularly explores urban squalor as evidence that human relationships have been obscured and that death is the result. Chapter three explores the kind of concealments and deaths effected by London and explains that the regenerative revelation required as an antidote to them is both social and religious in character. Dickens conceptualizes it as a participation in a familial system of love relationships originating in God's love for his children. The fourth and fifth chapters deal with two parts of London's organisation that bring knowledge inexorably to light, the detective police force and the railway network. They are part of a city that hides truth and brings it to light according to a carefully laid plan. Chapters six and seven consider two sub-symbols, the Thames and the crowd, that reflect the city's dual role in bringing both death and regeneration, both concealment and discovery. Characters' immersion in these brings about a death to their old identity and often a re-emergence into a new identity, based on the scheme of interconnections, that is both a revelation and an induction into new life. The mysteries worked out by Dickens's symbolic London are therefore an imaginative engagement with Christianity as a mystery religion, promising revelatory regeneration through surrender to death in the modern world.
25
Annoussamy, Christophe. "Charles Dickens et le monde victorien dans l'oeuvre de Julien Green." Paris 4, 2004. http://www.theses.fr/2004PA040149.
Full textAbstract:
Ce travail se propose de cerner la présence de Charles Dickens et du monde victorien dans l'œuvre de Julien Green, en en soulignant les manifestations probables, les spécificités, et les limites. La première partie montre comment le roman victorien prévaut dans les lectures de Green et comment, au sein du Journal, Dickens apparaît effectivement comme une figure privilégiée. Cette analyse permet de valider la solidité du " fait comparatiste " que nous voulons établir entre les œuvres de Green et de Dickens. C'est à partir d'un tel rapport que nous pouvons préciser les éléments d'un parallèle entre les deux œuvres, dans la deuxième partie. Les portraits féminins dickensiens ne sont pas sans trouver en effet quelques échos chez Green, dont l'humour évoque aussi les figures dickensiennes du grotesque et de la théâtralité, témoignant des tonalités adverses qui traversent les deux œuvres. Dans ce contexte, les personnages plus " sérieux " tournent leurs regards vers l'Invisible : pour reprendre les termes de la préface de Bleak House, le romancier insiste à travers eux sur l'" aspect romantique des réalités familières ". Cette tension vers l'ailleurs apparaît surtout dans le Visionnaire et Minuit, auxquels nous consacrons notre troisième partie, à une époque où Green voit en Dickens le modèle du romancier " visionnaire ". L'adolescent et l'enfant sont ici les acteurs de quêtes identitaires qui les désignent en même temps comme les dépositaires du don de " vision ". Envisageant enfin la question des représentations du monde social, mais aussi le caractère victorien de la trilogie des Pays lointains, notre quatrième partie nous permet de déterminer les limites, mais aussi la postérité du rapprochement que nous proposons entre les deux romanciersThis work attempts to define the presence of both Charles Dickens and the Victorian world in Julien Green's works as well as pointing to its eventual manifestations, specificities, and limits. The first part shows us how the Victorian world prevails in Green's readings and how in the Journal, Dickens indeed appears as a privileged character. This analysis enables us to validate the reliability of the "comparative link" that we want to establish between the works of Green and those of Dickens. It is from such a relationship that we are able to define the elements that are similar in the two works in the second part. The female portraits found in Dickens'works are actually quite similar to those found in Green's, whose humour also evokes the grotesque and theatrical aspects of Dickens' characters, witnessing opposing tonalities found in both works. In this context, the more "serious" figures turn their gaze towards the Invisible : to go back to the words of the Bleak House foreword, the novelist insists on the "romantic side of familiar things". This longing towards the "nowhere" can be found especially in Le Visionnaire and Minuit - which will be studied in the third part - at a time when Dickens appears as the model of the "visionary" novelist. There, the teenager and the child are the actors still in search of their identities, which at the same time names them as the possessors of the gift of "vision". Eventually, considering the issue of the social world representations as well as the Victorian aspect of the Pays lointains trilogy, the fourth part of the work allows us to define the boundaries and also the posterity of the connection that we suggest exists between the two novelists
26
Allingham, Philip Victor. "Dramatic adaptations of the Christmas books of Charles Dickens, 1844-8 : texts and contexts." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28615.
Full textAbstract:
Although Dickens' familiarity with Victorian theatre has been explored with reference to his own playwrighting, amateur theatricals, style, and characterization, little work has been done on his actual
involvement with the adaptation of his works for the stage. For example, even though A Christmas Carol remains his most staged and filmed work, few critics have explored the degree of Dickens' involvement in the 'officially-sanctioned' adaptation by one of the Victorian theatre's most prolific adaptors, Edward Stirling. Dickens' letters shed some light on his involvement
in the staging of the various Christmas Books, but they do not indicate much about the adaptations
themselves.
Furthermore, neither Malcolm Morley in his series
of articles in the Dickensian nor F. Dubrez Fawcett in Dickens the Dramatist (1952) has considered the relationship between the final printed text of each novella, that of the corresponding official adaptation, and the original manuscript of the play that was submitted to the office of the Lord Chamberlain
for licensing.
While the intention of the following dissertation
is to reveal the methods employed by Dickens' stage adaptors, it occasionally reveals passages that, rejected for the final text of the novella, were retained in the drama, based as it was on early proof sheets. The most notable instance of such a phenomenon occurs in the Mark Lemon/Gilbert A'Beckett adaptation of the second of the Christmas Books, The Chimes (1844), in which Dickens seems to have modified the plot in the final stages in order to make it less controversial.
Although Dickens was not much involved in the staging of The Chimes, he appears to have worked closely with the company at the Royal Lyceum (his friends the Keeleys being both the comedic stars and managers of that theatre) and the adaptor, Albert
Smith. In the 1846 production of The Battle of Life Dickens made innovative suggestions about the staging, including the transformation scene and the use of a miniature coach advancing through the background,
climaxed by the appearance of a real carriage
on stage. Dickens' letters attest to his being the originator of these innovations; reviews in the contemporary press attest to their effectiveness.
Finally, despite their tremendous popularity in their own day, the dramatic adaptations of the Christmas Books seem to be accorded a place neither in studies of the early Victorian theatre nor in discussions of that most formative period in the literary
career of Charles Dickens, the 1840s. The Christmas Books and their theatrical progeny occupied a good deal of Dickens' time between Martin Chuzzle-wit and David Copperf ield, but only recently have the importance of the Christmas Books and the scope of Dickens' works on stage been fully recognized.
Another intention of this study is to reveal the extent of Dickens' role in the dramatisation of the Christmas Books through an examination of the texts of the sanctioned adaptations and the Christmas Books themselves. The dissertation has a two-fold structure in that it consists of a critical study of the plays and their contexts, as well as a (non-critical)
edition of Stirling's Christmas Carol and Lemon's Haunted Man, which exist only in manuscript. No previous writer on the subject of Dickens and the drama has attempted to bring together information on the adaptors, actors and actresses, theatres, play manuscripts and published texts. This dissertation provides an exhaustive study of what is known about these subjects while endeavouring to establish the extent of Dickens' involvement in the writing and staging of the officially-sanctioned plays based on the Christmas Books.
Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through, and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature, were never called into action among those to whom they should ever be strangers!
(Charles Dickens, Sketches By Boz, p. 210)Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate
27
Cabreira, Regina Helena Urias. "Literal and metaphorical frames in Dickens's little dorrit." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UFPR, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1884/24415.
Full text
28
Lieutaud, Henri. "La voie de l'individuation dans les derniers romans de Charles Dickens." Grenoble 3, 1997. http://www.theses.fr/1997GRE39018.
Full textAbstract:
Dans great expectations et our mutual friend, la grande majorite des personnages qui entourent le heros representent avant tout certains aspects de la personnalite, consciente ou inconsciente, de celui-ci. L'evolution de ces personnages par rapport au heros symbolise les diverses etapes de l'evolution interieure du heros, ce que c. G. Jung a appele le "processus d'individuation". En identifiant les personnages peripheriques au categories jungiennes de persona, d'ombre, d'anima et de soi, on peut recomposer toute la complexite du processus d'individuation. A travers une etude detaillee du symbolisme des images et des actions, une analyse de ce type montre que le processus echoue dans le cas de pip, le heros de great expectations, mais qu'il est mene a bien, par l'integration des contenus de l'inconscient, dans le cas de eugene wrayburn, le heros principal de our mutual friendIn great expectations and our mutual friend, the great majority of the characters who surround the hero represent, first and formost, a certain number of conscious and unconscious aspects of the latter's personality. The evolution of those characters in relation to the hero symbolises the various stages of the hero's inner evolution, what c. G. Jung has called the "individuation process". By identifying the peripheral characters to the jungian categories of persona, shadow, anima and self, one can reconstruct the whole complexity of the individuation process. Through a detailed study of the symbolism of both images and actions, this type of analysis shows that the individuation process miscarries in the case of pip, the hero of great expectations, but is successful, thanks to the "integratio" of the unconscious contents, in the case of eugene wrayburn, the main hero of our mutual friend
29
Bengochéa, Anne. "Le réalisme dickensien dans quatre traductions en français de David Copperfield." Thesis, Paris 3, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PA030005.
Full textAbstract:
A la lumière de la notion de mimêsis, principe antique qui a donné naissance aux arts et se situe au fondement de la pratique de la traduction, cette étude se propose d’analyser la traduction de certains traits signifiants du réalisme dickensien, dont l’hybridité esthétique se manifeste dans l’œuvre David Copperfield. Huitième roman de Dickens, cet ouvrage de transition initie la seconde période de la carrière du romancier, orientée vers un style plus conforme à l’esthétique réaliste édictée par le mouvement artistique français de ce temps. Cependant, une originalité distinctive s’y révèle toujours avec force, contenue dans une hybridité générique accueillante à des figures d’une qualité réaliste ambivalente, par leur configuration et leur poéticité. A la problématique du transfert du sens des références historiques qui constituent l’arrière plan du récit, s’ajoute donc celle de la translation d’une liberté de style inhabituelle aux lecteurs français habitués aux textes réalistes nationaux d’une unicité esthétique plus grande. Par ailleurs, l’analyse contrastive menée à partir de quatre traductions intégrales de l’œuvre tend à apporter des éléments de réponse à la question de savoir si la retraduction bénéficie ou pâtit des changements du polysystème culturel du pays d’accueilGiven the notion of mimesis, a principle that gave birth to the arts and is at the foundation of the practice of translation, this study proposes to analyze the translation of some significant traits of Dickensian realism in the work David Copperfield which constitutes a synthesis of a variety of aesthetics. Dickens' eighth novel is a transitional work which initiates the second period of the novelist's career. It is oriented towards a style more in line with realistic aesthetics, defined by the French artistic movement of the time. However, a distinctive originality is always revealed with force, contained in a generic hybrid welcoming figures of ambivalent realistic quality through their configuration and their poeticism. The translation of this novel presents two issues, one being the sense of historical references which constitute the background of the narrative; the other being translating an unusual free-wheeling style that is in conflict with the writing and aesthetic unity of French literary realism. Moreover, the contrastive analysis based on four unabridged translations of the work tends to provide some answers to the question of whether retranslation benefits or suffers from changes in the cultural polysystem of the host country
30
Teachout, Jeffrey Frank. "The importance of Charles Dickens in Victorian social reform." Diss., Click here for available full-text of this thesis, 2006. http://library.wichita.edu/digitallibrary/etd/2006/t035.pdf.
Full text
31
Wadoux, Charlotte. "The Intertextual Quest(ion) ˸ detection in Neo-Victorian Rewritings of Charles Dickens." Thesis, Paris 3, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019PA030028.
Full textAbstract:
Cette thèse explore un corpus de romans contemporains qui ont en commun la réécriture de Charles Dickens, l’œuvre et l’homme. Dans ces romans, l’Inimitable apparait tantôt sous les traits du détective, tantôt sous ceux du criminel. Ces portraits de Dickens nous amènent à nous interroger sur l’usage des modalités de la détection dans les romans néo Victoriens qui réécrivent l’auteur. Cette thèse vise à démontrer que la détection est partie intégrante du roman néo-Dickensien (et, par extension, du roman néo Victorien), offrant une autre façon de concevoir la double structure temporelle caractéristique du genre ainsi que le rapport à l’intertextualité. Le premier chapitre offre une réflexion sur la lecture et la représentation de l’espace, en particulier, la ville, Londres, que l’on comprend ici non pas comme reflet de la réalité historique mais comme appropriation du Londres fictionnel de Dickens. Mon étude de la relation entre le lieu et l’espace s’appuie sur les théories de Yi-Fu Tuan (1977) et de Franco Moretti (1998). Ce dernier permet de voir comment les romans postcoloniaux réécrivent et renversent la topographie des romans victoriens. Se pose également la question de la biofiction. Si les historiens et biographes peuvent être considérés comme des sortes de détectives, les auteurs néo-Victoriens ayant recours à la biofiction sont des détectives qui déforment, remettent en question et jouent avec les faits historiques, ce qui les amène à créer des intrigues alternatives et inquiétantes. Le néo Victorianisme créée sa propre critique au fur et à mesure, en défiant et taquinant les critiques qui eux n’ont guère d’autre choix que de plonger et démêler ces énigmes intertextuellesThis thesis concerns a body of contemporary novels which all use Charles Dickens’s works as hypotext while also featuring the Victorian author amongst their cast of characters. In these novels, the Inimitable is either presented as a detective, or as a criminal figure, or both. Drawing upon both Detective Fiction and Neo-Victorian Studies, the present work shows how the neo-Dickensian novel (and neo-Victorianism at large) may be thought of in terms of a detective mode, which provides a framework that enables a renegotiation of intertextuality. Neo-Victorian fiction is fascinated with the emergence of the city as the site of modernity, of a shattered, threatened identity. From the crowded streets the figure of the flâneur emerges first, soon to be followed by that of the detective. Neo-Dickensian novels exhume the Victorian, or rather Dickensian London, to immerse their readers in this re-constructed past. The study of the relation to space and place draws upon Yi-Fu Tuan’s theory (1977) but also Franco Moretti’s (1998), which enables to see that in novels from the Antipodes, the topographical plots of the nineteenth century are reversed. The texts under study not only invest the Dickensian city but Dickens himself through the use of biofiction. If historians and biographers may be thought of as detectives of a kind, then neo-Victorian writers engaging in biofiction are detectives who distort, play with and question the historical facts that they encounter thereby revealing uncanny but also alternative plots. Neo-Victorianism creates its own criticism as it goes and thus challenges, teases its critics who have no choice but to try and go through with these riddles
32
Vega-Ritter, Max. "Dickens et Thackeray, essai d'analyse psychocritique : des "Pickwick papers" à "David Copperfield" et de "Barry Lyndon" à "Henry Esmond"." Montpellier 3, 1986. http://www.theses.fr/1986MON30003.
Full text
33
Renault, Florence. "Charles Dickens et la BBC au XXIe siècle : réinventions, réécritures, nouveaux publics." Paris 7, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014PA070079.
Full textAbstract:
Cette thèse explore les réinterprétations des oeuvres de Charles Dickens par la BBC durant la décennie 2001-2011. Pendant cette période, la BBC a opté pour des choix filmiques profondément différents de ceux des périodes précédentes, axant sa publicité sur les aspects « soap opera » des nouvelles séries, et expliquant ouvertement être à la recherche de nouveau) publics pour les adaptations des oeuvres du patrimoine victorien et dickensien. Notre travail met à jour le fait qu'il s'agit également d'un renouvellement profond de l'esthétique télévisuelle délibérément centrée sur la réception, prenant en compte les nouvelles habitudes des téléspectateurs. L'esthétique est influencée par celle de la publicité pour la longueur des scènes et la conception des dialogues, et propose une approche codifiée par la commodification des objets et la symbolique qui s'y rattache ; l'oeuvre de Dickens est alors ré-encodée pour que l'intrigue soit mieux perçue, et peut désormais correspondre aux horizons d'attente des téléspectateurs du début du XXIe siècle. Le sens du grotesque, le recours à la farce et au soulagement comique permettent de reconfigurer Dickens pour une nouvelle génération de téléspectateurs peu versée dans la lecture de ses oeuvres. Ce faisant, Dickens est à la fois transmis et réécrit pour que le talent de l'auteur à dénoncer les maux de la société soit mis au service de nouvelles causes : racisme, intolérance religieuse, déviances sexuelles font désormais partie des sujets d'indignation portés par la verve dickensienne. L'oeuvre devient ainsi un « Conte de Noël » diffusé en fin d'année, invitant à la congruence et à la décence, la télévision portant le rituel globaliséThis thesis explores recent rereadings and rewritings of Charles Dickens's oeuvre by the BBC between 2001 and 2011. During this period, the BBC opted for filmic choices very different from those of previous periods. They advertised for the new series highlighting the 'soap opera' aspects, openly acknowledging the fact that they were trying to conquer new audiences for adaptations of Victorian and Dickensian classics. My work brings to light the fact that televisual aesthetics have been profoundly renewed, deliberately centered on the reception and taking int account TV watchers's present habits. For the scenes' length and the conception of dialogues, the aesthetics is influenced by advertising, and relies on the commodification of objects and the symbolic dimension they have. Dickens's oeuvre is thus re-encoded for an easier perception of the plot, and can fit in with the horizon of expectations of TV watchers in the XXIst century. A reliance on the grotesque, farcical aspects and comic relief allows to recompose Dickens for a new audience whose knowledge of the source-text may be poor. Dickens is both transmitted and rewritten for the author's talent at denoucing the evils of society to serve new causes: racism, bigotry and sexual abuse are now denouced by Dickens's talent. His whole oeuvre is thus turned into a 'Christmas Carol' for end-of-the-year celebrations, and inducement to more congruence and decency, Television conveying this globalized ritual
34
Matos, Erika Paula de. "Tempos difíceis na Inglaterra: forma literária e representação social em \'Hard Times\' de Charles Dickens." Universidade de São Paulo, 2007. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8147/tde-08112007-150309/.
Full textAbstract:
Charles Dickens é um autor cujos méritos literários são, muitas vezes, obscurecidos por sua enorme popularidade, sendo seus livros relegados por muitos à categoria de mero entretenimento. O propósito deste trabalho é analisar na forma do romance como - apesar de temas e estilo que se apresentam como populares - o texto de Hard Times pode revelar um interessante e profundo diálogo entre literatura e sociedade. Sentimentalismo e melodrama são estudados como formas tipicamente dickensianas de representação dos conflitos e transformações sociais que afetaram o século XIX.Charles Dickens has sometimes had his literary qualities darkened by his enormous popularity, and his books have been considered by many critics as nothing but entertainment. The objective of this work is to analyse how the form of the novel - in spite of its popular style and theme- promotes in Hard Times an interesting and profound dialogue between literature and society. Sentimentalism and melodrama are studied as typically Dickensian forms of representation of social changes and conflicts in the 19th Century.
35
Milhan, Trish. "Developing new approaches to Dickens' Great Expectations." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1993. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/707.
Full text
36
Santos, Leandra Alves dos [UNESP]. "O romance europeu do século XIX: uma leitura de Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) de Victor Hugo e A tale of two cities (1859) de Charles Dickens." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/115583.
Full textAbstract:
Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T11:52:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0
Previous issue date: 2011-05-30Bitstream added on 2015-03-03T12:07:27Z : No. of bitstreams: 1
000809956.pdf: 11088567 bytes, checksum: f61da15ba3a27fcc67b4127bc0f80c4a (MD5)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)
O objetivo deste estudo é analisar a categoria da espacialidade e o procedimento grotesco nos romances Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) de Victor Hugo e A tale of two cities (1859) de Charles Dickens, mostrando como esses procedimentos narrativos auxiliam na projeção das ações das personagens e como produzem efeito de sentido, revelando assim uma das infinitas leituras oferecidas pelas referidas obras. Em Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), Victor Hugo revela a miséria humana por meio da marca dos sentimentos opostos que habitam no homem; as contradições desses sentimentos existentes uma ao lado da outra, e não no predomínio de uma sobre a outra. Os espaços da narrativa hugoana são configurações de um novo tempo-espaço marcado pela modernidade da época, e representam uma extensão dos personagens desse romance. Em A tale of two cities (1859), Charles Dickens expressa a miséria que permeia as cidades em crise diante da mesma modernidade, evidenciando que a fome, a ausência de liberdade e de condições de vida adequadas para se viver na urbe moderna transformam o homem em um ser irracional e insensível
This study aims to analyse the spatiality category and the grotesque procedure in the novels Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) written by Victor Hugo and A tale of two cities (1859) written by Charles Dickens, the intention is to show how these narrative procedures help in the projection of the characters actions and how they can produce meaning effect, thereby revealing infinite readings which are offered by the referred works. In Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), Victor Hugo reveals the human misery through the opposite feelings which inhabit the human mind; the contradictions of those feelings exist one alongside another and not on the dominance of one over the other. The spaces in Hugo’s narrative are configurations of a new time-space defined by the modernity era, and they represent an extension of the characters in this novel. In A tale of two cities (1859), Charles Dickens expresses the misery that permeates the cities facing crisis in the same modernity, emphasizing that hunger, the lack of freedom and the appropriate living conditions in order to inhabit the modern metropolis transform man into an irrational and insensitive human being
37
Zeske, Karen Marie. "Browning and Dickens: Religious Direction in Victorian England." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1991. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500704/.
Full textAbstract:
Many Nineteenth century writers experienced the withdrawal of God discussed by Miller in The Disappearance of God. Robert Browning and Charles Dickens present two examples of "Fra Lippo Lippi" and Great Expectations model effective alternatives to accepting God's absence. Conversely "Andrea del Sarto" accepts the void the other two heroes shun.
38
Coste, Marie-Amélie. "L'être et le paraître dans les romans de Charles Dickens." Paris 4, 2005. http://www.theses.fr/2005PA040198.
Full textAbstract:
Cette étude se fonde sur un trait de l'écriture dickensienne, à savoir, un usage particulièrement fréquent du sens littéral. L'objectif de ce travail est de démontrer que la distinction entre sens littéral et sens figuré n'est pas seulement une question de jeu de mots, mais une opposition fondamentale qui sous-tend les trois niveaux du mot, de la fiction et de l'être et indique une quête problématique de la nature propre de ce qui est. Or la notion de littéral revêt une importance d'autant plus grande qu'elle n'est pas une préoccupation du seul Dickens, mais s'inscrit au cœur de débats propres à l'époque victorienne. Prenant en compte le contexte victorien, cette recherche débute par les phénomènes de " défiguration " observables dans la fiction dickensienne, c'est-à-dire l'effort de distinction radicale entre sens littéral et sens figuré. Cette distinction radicale, toutefois, se trouve fondamentalement remise en cause par les moments de l'œuvre dickensienne où sens littéral et sens figuré se confondent. Mais la suggestion fantastique et absurde, née d'une telle confusion, n'envahit jamais le texte de manière irréversible. Elle demeure de l'ordre du possible, du problème à résoudre dans un troisième type de rapport entre le littéral et le figuré, fusionnel celui-ci. Cela est rendu possible par la sympathie qui permet de dépasser les dichotomies stériles, forme une issue au désespoir et à l'angoisse du doute critique, donnant à l'être l'espoir d'une nouvelle croyance plus lucideThis study is based on a typical trait of Dickens's writing – the frequent use of literal meanings. This work aims to show that the distinction between literal and figurative meanings is not simply a matter of puns, but an essential opposition underlying the three levels of word, fiction and being, and revealing a problematic quest for the nature of what is. The notion of the literal appears as all the more important as it does not concern Dickens only, but is at the core of debates particular to the Victorian period. Taking into account the Victorian context, this research starts with the theme of “disfiguring” present in Dickens's novels, in other words with the attempted radical distinction between literal and figurative meanings. The latter, however, is challenged at those places, in Dickens's work, where literal and figurative meanings are confused. But the summoning of the fantastic and the absurd, which arises out of this confusion, never invades the text irrevocably. It remains a potentiality, an issue to be resolved in a third, harmonious way to envisage the relation between the literal and the figurative. This harmony is made possible by the notion of sympathy, which overcomes sterile dichotomies, allows an escape out of the despair and anxiety caused by critical doubt, giving human beings the hope of a more lucid form of belief
39
Hamdi, Sabeur. "La mémoire et l’imaginaire dans les romans de Dickens de 1840 à 1870." Thesis, Paris 4, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013PA040060.
Full textAbstract:
Dickens formule un projet de la mémoire qui s’étend sur plusieurs de ses romans publiés entre 1840 et1870. Cette dimension de son œuvre se place entre les deux pôles de la memoria – une forme institutionnalisée de la mémoire technique chez les classiques et les médiévaux – et une mémoire subjective, proustienne. Les romans étudiés s’articulent autour d’une mise en scène de cette combinaison à travers laquelle les deux sujets de l’individu et de la société sont liés aux thèmes de la Loi, du savoir, et du désir. Ils sont autant de « livres de la mémoire » qui font système de l’univers psychique et social représentés en mettant en œuvre les outils métaphoriques et logiques propres à l’art et aux phénomènes mnémoniques.Cependant, ce système de la mémoire correspond aussi bien à ce qui organise les données du réel qu’à ce qui les perturbe. Ainsi, il constitue une manière de représenter tant l’effort de symbolisation que ce qui l’entrave, le subvertit ou le pervertit. Les personnages du roman sont pris entre les deux pôles de l’ordre et de la discipline, d’un côté, et du choc traumatique qui sème le chaos, de l’autre. L’évolution de ce parcours de la représentation correspond à la poursuite du processus de subjectivation que les personnages de Dickens traversent, allant du premier moment de la sujétion à la Loi symbolique au dernier moment de l’accès au savoir ou à la vérité, une révolution subjectiveDickens formulates a project of memory which extends over several of his novels published between1840 and 1870. This dimension of his work is to be situated between the two poles of memoria – aninstitutionalized form of technical memory developed during the classic and medieval periods – and asubjective, Proustian memory. The novels studied here are built on an enactment of this combinationthrough which the agencies of the individual and society are related to the themes of Law, knowledge,and desire. They are “books of memory” that totalize the psychic and social worlds represented infiction by using metaphorical and logical material peculiar to the art of memory and to mnemonicphenomena.However, this system of memory corresponds to that which orders the coordinates of reality as to thatwhich disturbs them. It is a way of representing the effort of symbolization as well as the factor thatimpedes, subverts, or perverts it. The characters are placed between the two poles of order anddiscipline, on one side, and traumatic shock leading to disorder, on the other. The evolution of this lineof representation corresponds to the process of subjectivization that Dickens’s characters undergo,moving from a first moment of subjection to the symbolic Law to an ultimate moment of access toknowledge or truth, a real subjective revolution
40
Navarro, Latorre Fernanda. "Great expectations: subjectivities moving through the public and private realm." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2012. http://www.repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/112717.
Full textAbstract:
Facultad de Filosofía y HumanidadesInforme de seminario para optar al grado de Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa
This work is in line with the main theme in our seminar ‘The City and the urban subject in English and American Literature’. In the course of it we have studied the first appearance of the urban subject, amazed by the new metropolitan surroundings that he finds himself in. Then comes the Fláneur who observes, sometimes as an outsider, the new bohemian life in the big cities and finally cannot find a place to fit in the crowd, or either enjoying the crowd in their loneliness. In literature, the cities are built up by the narrator; here is where detail shows its power to set full images in our minds. Cities we know as the back of our hands and like to wander to recall the past, cities we meet for the first time and would like to walk all over, and cities we knew when they were great and now we find destroyed. That we have studied concerning the city. However, this present work is almost entirely related to the urban subject and how they manage to live in the ever-growing city.
41
Obayda, Zaynab. "L'enfance orpheline et la défaillance parentale dans les romans de Dickens : le génie stylistique de l'écrivain engagé." Thesis, Nancy 2, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010NAN21027.
Full text
42
Almeida, Wilson Filho Ribeiro de. "O autor em cena: as leituras públicas de A Christmas Carol, de Charles Dickens." Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, 2012. https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/11831.
Full textAbstract:
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível SuperiorThe object of this study was the novelette A Christmas Carol, by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870+), specially concerning about its presentation on Dickens Public Readings, spectacles in which, on stage, the author would read pieces of his books. The objective was to observe the transformation process of the novelette to the Public Reading performances. Dickens adapted the text for stage through manuscript notes on a printed edition of the original text. This volume, named by Philip Collins as prompt-copy and by us, in Portuguese, as Roteiro de Leitura (Reading Script), was used as a guide for rehearsals and performances. We had access to the prompt-copy by means of the manuscript facsimile, edited by Philip Collins in the book A Christmas Carol: the Public Reading Version (1971). Firstly published in 1843, the novelette A Christmas Carol was already on the repertoire of the author s first Public Reading, presented, in 1853, with the intention of collecting funds for charity. Five years later, Dickens began to perform professionally, in a career that lasted twelve years. His repertoire counted with sixteen items, being A Christmas Carol one of the most enjoyed by the author and by the public. Such repertoire was carefully adapted for the stage. Dickens not only read the contents, but interpreted each character, seeking to create a variety of voices, gestures and emotions. Altogether, he presented about 470 times, in England, in Ireland, in Scotland, in Paris and in the United States. A Christmas Carol, the longest item in the repertoire, was read in no less than 127 performances, being part of the author s last Reading, in 1870. First, we made a historic contextualization of Dickens Public Readings, seeking to understand which aspects of that context were favorable to their good reception and that made them possible. Then, understanding Paul Zumthor s concept of performance, we analyzed A Christmas Carol s Public Readings, observing them with respect to the textual and performance aspects. In this way, we tried both to perceive the adaptation process of the text, through the analyses of the manuscript, and to form an idea about the scenic aspects of the Public Readings, by registers of spectators who witnessed them.
O objeto deste estudo foi a novela A Christmas Carol, do escritor inglês Charles Dickens (1812-1870+), em especial o que se refere à sua apresentação nas Leituras Públicas de Dickens, espetáculos em que, no palco, o autor lia trechos de seus livros. O objetivo foi observar o processo de transformação da novela para as performances de Leituras Públicas. Dickens realizou a adaptação do texto para o palco por meio de anotações manuscritas feitas em uma edição impressa do texto original. Esse volume, o qual nomeamos de Roteiro de Leitura, era usado como guia para os ensaios e para as performances. Tivemos acesso ao Roteiro por meio do fac-símile do manuscrito, editado por Philip Collins no livro A Christmas Carol: the Public Reading Version (1971). Inicialmente publicada em 1843, a novela A Christmas Carol já constava no repertório da primeira Leitura Pública do autor, realizada, em 1853, com o intuito de arrecadar fundos para caridade. Cinco anos mais tarde, Dickens passou a se apresentar profissionalmente, numa carreira que durou doze anos. Seu repertório contou com dezesseis itens, sendo A Christmas Carol um dos preferidos do autor e do público. Tal repertório era cuidadosamente adaptado para o palco. Dickens não apenas lia o conteúdo, mas interpretava cada personagem, buscando criar uma variedade de vozes, gestos e emoções. Ao todo, ele se apresentou por volta de 470 vezes, na Inglaterra, na Irlanda, na Escócia, em Paris e nos Estados Unidos. Item mais longo do repertório, A Christmas Carol foi lida em não menos que 127 performances, fazendo parte da última Leitura do autor, em 1870. Inicialmente, fizemos uma contextualização histórica das Leituras Públicas de Dickens, procurando entender quais aspectos daquele contexto favoreceram-lhes a boa acolhida e tornaram-lhes possível a realização. Num segundo momento, entendendo o conceito de performance de Paul Zumthor, analisamos as Leituras Públicas de A Christmas Carol, observando-as com respeito a dois aspectos: o textual e o performático. Desse modo, procuramos tanto perceber o processo de adaptação do texto, pela análise do manuscrito, quanto formar uma ideia dos aspectos cênicos das Leituras Públicas, por meio de registros de espectadores que as testemunharam.
Mestre em Teoria Literária
43
Abdel, Azim Khalaf Abdel Aziz. "La polyvalence du thème de la misère chez Dickens, Maupassant, et Taha Hussein." Paris 3, 2001. http://www.theses.fr/2001PA030110.
Full textAbstract:
Développé et encouragé par la poussée de la bourgeoisie émergente au XIXe siècle, le roman réaliste anglais et français suscite de nombreuses interrogations relatives à son appartenance à l'idéologie bourgeoise. Qu'il soit accusé de soutenir les thèses bourgeoises face aux classes dites dangereuses, ou qu'il soit considéré comme un genre romanesque ségrégationniste qui n'existe pas en dehors du champ fictionnel qu'est la littérature, le roman réaliste a fait couler beaucoup d'encre dans le monde entier. Riche de signes et de force de pénétration, le roman réaliste, par son esthétique, ses thèmes et ses thèses, a acquis la notoriété dans maintes littératures en Europe et hors du monde européen. Salué au lendemain de sa réception dans le monde arabe, ce roman réaliste a vite trouvé des partisans parmi une génération de romanciers arabes. En Egypte, son succès immédiat était lié au contexte politique et social de l'époque. Taha Hussein, baptisé tantôt le doyen des lettres arabes, tantôt l'agent secret de l'Occident culturel, fut une des principales figures de cette génération qui s'est familiarisée avec le roman réaliste occidental, notamment français. .Encouraged and developped by the growth of emerging bourgeoisie of the XIXth century, the English and French realist novel opens to numerous questions concerning the relationship of this realist novel to bourgeois ideology. At times accused of supporting bourgeois ideas confronted with the classes they thought dangerous, at times considered to be a segregationist genre of the novel form which does not exist outside that fictional field which is literature, the realist novel is the cause of much spilt ink on this question everywhere in the world. Being rich in signs and penetration power, the realist novel, with its aesthetic, its themes, its theses, has finally become famous in many literary spheres in Europa and beyong the European world. Acclaimed shortly after its reception in the Arabic world, this realist novel quickly found supporters throughout a generation of Arab novelists. In Egypt its success was immediate and was linked to the political and social context of the period. Taha Hussein, at times called doyen of Arabic literature, at times the secret agent of Western culture, was one of the figures of that generation who was familiar with the Western realist novel, in particular the French. .
44
Cadwallader-Bouron, Delphine. "L'imaginaire de la pathologie : discours médical et écrits romanesques chez Wilkie Collins et Charles Dickens." Thesis, Paris 3, 2009. http://www.theses.fr/2009PA030136.
Full textAbstract:
Les études qui entreprennent d’évaluer la place de la maladie dans les romans de Dickens et Collins adoptent souvent le point de vue du médecin, montrant comment leurs peintures de la maladie constituent des diagnostics scientifiquement exacts. Or la médecine est d’abord un discours sur la maladie : diagnostiquer les personnages des romanciers reviendrait donc à considérer la grille de lecture médicale comme outil d’analyse valable pour évaluer la maladie dans leur œuvre. Cette thèse se propose d’interroger la pertinence d’une telle grille de lecture, qui semble anachronique [ce discours se construit tout au long du XIXe siècle, il n’est donc pas constitué au moment où les deux romanciers écrivent]. Il s’agit de comprendre comment le discours médical s’est imposé au fil du XIXe siècle : pour dire et écrire la maladie, la médecine s’est inspirée d’autres types de discours, et en premier lieu celui du roman, qu’elle a utilisé pour tenter de prendre place dans les esprits victoriens. Après avoir établi les conditions dans lesquelles est né ce nouveau discours normatif, cette thèse analyse la relation de Dickens et Collins avec ce discours. Conscients que les médecins tentent de passer d’un art à une science positive, les deux romanciers semblent se méfier des nouvelles catégories nosographiques et méthodes cliniques. Nous sommes alors fondés à lire leurs romans non plus seulement comme des documents qui questionnent la pathologie scientifique, mais aussi comme des prismes d’autres imaginaires du corps malade. L’étude de leur œuvre dévoile ainsi les soubassements imaginaires de la nouvelle médecine, mais aussi l’esthétique du morbide propre à chacun des deux auteursStudies concentrating on the value of disease in novels by Collins or Dickens often adopt a medical point of view, showing that the novelists depict illness with the eyes of trained clinicians, offering surprisingly precise case studies and diagnoses. This approach sheds light on some episodes; yet, the “medico-realists” seem to overlook that by viewing literature through a medical prism, they are using the tools and rationale of a constructed discourse. Pathology, which is the science that studies the disease and not the disease itself, was created all long the 19th century. Viewing the novelists’ treatment of disease only through the filter of pathology gives a reductive image of the way they understand morbidity. This research aims at deconstructing the medical discourse, and at showing how, to take up Dickens’s words, “for theories, as for organised beings, there is also a Natural Selection and a Struggle for Life”, which str! uggle scientific medicine has apparently won. Doctors have used other types of discourse to create their own, and in so doing, novels have been a great source of inspiration. After positing that medicine creates a myth of positivism, this study goes on to analyse the way Dickens and Collins considered the rise of this new field. Unlike what medico-realists seem to take for granted, the novelists did not subscribe to the new medical methods and even denied understanding disease according to pathological categories. Their use of diseases unexpectedly unveils the way doctors wrote and imagined disease. Studying Dickens’s and Collins’s ways of conceiving pathology offers insight into the imaginary origins of a burgeoning science
45
Prest, Céline. "Le spectre du document : supports, signes et sens dans l’œuvre romanesque de Charles Dickens." Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCA117.
Full textAbstract:
Né en 1812 et mort en 1870, Charles Dickens assiste tout au long du XIXe siècle au développement de l’ère industrielle, de la société de consommation et de nouvelles pratiques de lecture qui transforment les usages du document. Ce sont ces nouveaux usages que Dickens commente continuellement dans ses romans ainsi que dans ses essais, en ne cessant d’en exposer toute l’ambivalence. Le romancier manifeste une inquiétude permanente quant au pouvoir de l’instance auctoriale qui n’est jamais pris pour acquis. Ce travail s’inscrit donc dans une réflexion sur le lecteur et la réception tels qu’ils se présentent dans les textes dickensiens. Le personnage dickensien est présenté comme un lecteur concret et un herméneute imparfait. Sa réception des textes écrits dépend de sa subjectivité d’une part, et d’autre part de la matérialité du support qui s’interpose entre lui et le texte. Ainsi, le sens construit ultérieurement par les lecteurs dickensiens peut se distinguer de l’intention originelle de l’auteur : contrairement à l’oral, l’écrit s’inscrit dans une communication différée et crée un écart dans lequel la subjectivité et la matérialité s’insère. En considérant ces deux paramètres dans le processus de la communication écrite, ce travail adopte les perspectives d’étude de ce que la critique anglo-saxonne nomme Book History. L’analyse de l’objet textuel qu’est le document rejoint également les constructions théoriques du courant Thing Theory. Dans la continuité de ces courants, nous nous intéresserons à “l’imagination matérielle” de l’œuvre dickensienne qui pense, rêve et vit dans la matière du document. Il s’agira de voir pourquoi et comment Dickens cherche paradoxalement à se défaire des matières inertes que sont le papier, la plaque et la pierre comme supports de l’écriture, pour ensuite examiner son rêve de textes vivants qui trouvent leur possibilité en l’homme, dans un au-delà de la matièreFrom his birth in 1812 until his death in 1870, Charles Dickens was part of the industrial development era of the 19th century which brought about the consumer society and new forms of reading that transformed the use of documents. Dickens comments on these different forms and uses throughout his work, both in his novels and in his essays, in which he demonstrates a persistent uncertainty concerning the power of the author. This dissertation aims at reflecting on the role of the reader and the act of reading as they are presented in Dickens’s novels. Dickens’s characters are presented as concrete readers who imperfectly interpret the various texts they are presented with. The reception of written texts is subject on the one hand to the character’s subjectivity and on the other hand the materiality of the document which comes between the reader and the text. Thus whatever sense is construed by a Dickensien reader can differ from the original intent of the text’s author. Contrary to an orally delivered message, a written text is part of a differed communication into which subjectivity and matter irrupt. Considering these two parameters within the process of written communication, this work adopts the perspectives of the Anglo-Saxon critical study called Book History. The analysis of the textual object which is the document is connected with the theoretical reflections on objects as considered in Thing Theory. Together with these theories, this work is interested in “the material imagination” in Dickens’s work which thinks and dreams about the materiality of the document. We set out to understand why and how Dickens paradoxically attempts to deconstruct inert materials such as paper, signboards, stones as media for writing to then examine his dream of living texts which find its answer in man, beyond matter
46
Bird, Barbara. "The Victorians and role performance : the middle class gentleman in John Halifax, gentleman and Great expectations." Virtual Press, 2001. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1221277.
Full textAbstract:
This project investigates the social role of gentleman in Victorian England as defined in two Victorian novels, Dinah Maria Mulock's John Halifax, Gentleman and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Mulock and Dickens promote the middle-class gentleman as a role that prioritizes the fulfillment of duty. Mulock's protagonist, John Halifax, displays this gentlemanliness throughout his social and economic rise. He bridges the upper and lower classes and embodies both a model and a pathway to middleclass gentlemanliness. Dickens's protagonist, Pip, develops this middle-class gentlemanliness as he learns from his own and four other characters' experiences. Dickens separates the inward, duty-focused gentleman and the outward, appearance-focused gentleman in the four characters that influence Pip, thus emphasizing their relationship and the power of social role encoding. These two novels reveal the performances of roles as social constructions that utilize the power of group definitions and the role writers play in shaping those definitions.Department of English
47
Tarif, Julie. "Enjeux et défis du style dickensien : Analyse de quatre traductions françaises d'Oliver Twist." Phd thesis, Université d'Angers, 2011. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00979108.
Full textAbstract:
Il s'agit d'analyser les enjeux du style dans les oeuvres de jeunesse de Charles Dickens, et de dégager les défis linguistiques que pose ce style d'écriture au traducteur, afin d'apprécier dans quelle mesure ils ont été relevés dans les traductions françaises, et par le biais de quelles stratégies. A cet effet, nous examinerons quatre traductions d'Oliver Twist, un roman typique de cette période de l'écriture de Dickens : les deux premières traductions, produites au XIXe siècle, par Emile de La Bédollière et Alfred Gérardin, et les deux dernières, produites au XXe siècle, par Sylvère Monod et Francis Ledoux. Parmi les enjeux et les défis caractéristiques de cette prose, cinq traits de style principaux seront retenus : le greffage du discours spécialisé dans le discours du narrateur, les constructions nominales, les associations lexicales non conventionnelles, la présence de marques d'oralisation dans le discours, et l'ambiguïté. Face à ce texte hérissé de difficultés du fait de la très grande créativité de l'auteur, et de son extrême sensibilité à la langue, les traducteurs n'adoptent pas toujours la même stratégie globale; les défis posés par le texte ne sont pas tous relevés par les traducteurs, ou pas de la même manière. Globalement, deux tendances sont notables, avec une plus grande " fidélité " des traducteurs du XXe siècle au texte de départ, par rapport aux traducteurs du XIXe siècle, même si les différences s'estompent pour certains traits de style. Nous nous interrogerons alors, d'une part, sur ce que cette " infidélité " implique pour le texte d'arrivée, et d'autre part, sur les limites de cette entreprise de " fidélité ".
48
Robles, Fanny. "Émergence littéraire et visuelle du muséum humain : les spectacles ethnologiques à Londres, 1853-1859." Thesis, Toulouse 2, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014TOU20038.
Full textAbstract:
Les spectacles ethnologiques victoriens mettent en scène des milliers de colonisés dans des zoos, cabarets, appartements privés et institutions scientifiques. Cette thèse se penche sur deux spectacles sud-Africains en particulier : les « Zulu Kafirs » et les « Earthmen », montés à Londres dans les années 1850. Prenant pour point de départ « The Noble Savage » de Charles Dickens, écrit après qu’il a vu les « Zulus », ce travail porte sur le fantasme victorien d’un « muséum humain ». Après une étude des concepts de « race » et de « sauvagerie » aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, nous abordons l’évolution des pratiques muséologiques et la fascination de Dickens pour un muséum humain monstrueux. Nous passons ensuite aux spectacles ethnologiques victoriens et au « spécimen » Africain comme « métonyme ethnographique » et mythe, évoluant dans un « fantasme hétérotopique ». Ce fantasme est réalisé dans le Département d’Histoire Naturelle du Palais de Cristal de Sydenham, dans lequel des moulages des « spécimens » sont exposés dans des « théâtres écologiques ». La visite y permet l’exploration sociale et pose le problème d’un cannibalisme moral, quand le colonialisme et l’impérialisme victoriens se heurtent à leurs propres contradictions. Ces dernières sont développées dans Bleak House (1853), où Dickens attaque la « philanthropie télescopique », alors que la « préférence ethnologique » semble aller aux esclaves américains, dont les récits sont publiés et mis en scène. A Tale of Two Cities (1859) pourrait ainsi être lu comme la réalisation de la crainte dickensienne de voir les pauvres s’ensauvager, si les philanthropes persistent à les exclure de leur muséum humainNineteenth-Century ethnological shows involved the display of thousands of colonised people in a variety of urban settings, including zoos, cabarets, private apartments, and scientific institutions. This dissertation focuses on two South African shows in particular: the “Zulu Kafirs” and “Earthmen”, both staged in London in the 1850s. Taking its lead from Charles Dickens’s pamphlet “The Noble Savage”, written after he saw the “Zulus”, this thesis looks at the Victorian fantasy of a “human museum”. Following a historical study of the concepts of “race” and “savagery” in the 18th and 19th centuries, we retrace the evolution of museological practices and look at Dickens’s fascination with a (monstrous) human museum. We then move on to consider Victorian ethnological shows and the African “specimen” as “ethnographical metonym” and myth, displayed in a true “heterotopic fantasy”. This fantasy was realized in the Natural History Department of the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, where casts of the “specimens” on show were arranged in “ecological theatres”. There, the museum visit allowed for social exploration among the visitors, and raised the issue of (moral) cannibalism, at the point at which Victorian capitalism and imperialism met their own contradictions. These are further explored in Bleak House (1853), where Dickens attacks “telescopic philanthropy”, as the “ethnological preference” seemed to go to American slaves, whose narratives were published and staged. In this light, we might read A Tale of Two Cities (1859) as the realisation of the writer’s fear that the Poor might revert to a state of “primitive” savagery, if they remain overlooked in the philanthropists’ human museum
49
Arienta, Sonia. "La voix-son des personnages à l'aube de la communication de masse : l'exemple des romans de Hugo et de Dickens, et des opéras de Verdi." Thesis, Université Grenoble Alpes (ComUE), 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015GREAL007.
Full textAbstract:
La voix dans sa substance acoustique est un trait primaire dans l'identité d'un individu : c'est une partie de l'habitus social, elle indique l'appartenance à un groupe, à une classe, à une culture. L'importance de la gestion vocale, déjà mise en évidence par la Actio dans la rhétorique, réside dans la capacité de susciter ou d'éteindre les émotions et l'attention ; d'exercer le pouvoir de persuasion d'un discours, soit auprès d'une grande audience, soit auprès d'un seul interlocuteur.En fonctions des contextes, elle se pose comme un instrument d'échange, de dévoilement de l'intériorité, de contrôle (de soi et des autres). Par rapport à ces conditions, cette recherche porte sur l'imaginaire vocal de la période 1830-1871, très conflictuelle au niveau politique-social, avec des establishments restaurateurs en lutte contre des spectres révolutionnaires. Une période qui témoigne, aussi, d'un renforcement de la notion d'opinion publique et de la naissance de produits annonçant la communication de masse, où la persuasion exprimée par la voix, acquiert un rôle de premier plan. On considère donc l'emploi de la voix dans une typologie spécifique de conversations, celles qui sont insérées dans les produits culturels pour le grand public, comme le roman et l'opéra à cette époque-là. Les dialogues fictifs « transfigurés », assignés aux personnages sont analysés comme une forme particulière des témoignages d'une période dépourvue de technologies d'enregistrement audio. Grâce à la diffusion minutieuse sur le territoire et à l'emploi socialement stratifié, le mélodrame en Italie, le roman en France et en Grande Bretagne, sont parmi les principaux instruments dans la circulation des idées et, par conséquent, dans la proposition de modèles de comportement et de goût. Ces textes permettent de se mesurer avec le rôle et avec les fonctions de la voix, révélateurs de rapports sociaux filtrés par les auteurs. Notamment, lorsque ces derniers sont Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Verdi et Charles Dickens, des monuments nationaux de la société post-Révolution et appartenant à des cultures et à des modèles d'Etat, avec des problématiques spécifiques et ayant un rapport différent avec 1789. Le concept-clé, dans cette recherche, est le rôle d'interstice de la voix-son dans le texte écrit, par laquelle, selon notre thèse, émergent des informations fondamentales (et conflictuelles) sur la vision du monde proposée et sur la société d'appartenance, au-delà de ses stratégies officielles de communication. En particulier, par rapport au contrôle des émotions et à l'exercice du pouvoir, à l'intérieur et à l'extérieur du cadre de l'intrigue, c'est-à-dire entre les personnages-individus et entre l'auteur et le public. La Première Partie analyse l'habitus vocal ; les rapports de pouvoir, le jugement des différentes émotions reconnaissables dans les modèles du comportement vocal proposés même au niveau subliminal ; le degré d'ouverture ou de défense dans la communication. Soit dans le protagoniste-locuteur (avec ce qui ensuit, même en fonction de sa crédibilité, de son ethos) ; soit dans les personnages principaux engagés dans des conversations significatives, concernant la sphère affective (entre partenaires, parents et fils) et celle politique (entre sujets et souverain). La deuxième partie s'occupe du rôle de la voix-son par rapport aux autres deux éléments de la persuasion, pathos et logos. On prend en considération les problématiques posées par les protagonistes comme orateurs, par rapport à leurs performances dans les points principaux du texte (exorde, finale, dialogues où le personnage principal joue son destin). On porte l'attention sur l'Actio et sur la « bienséance », sur leurs effets référés aux personnages à l'intérieur de l'intrigue, aussi bien que sur le conséquences vis-à-vis du public. Notamment émerge le sens attribué à la parole-sonore, à une forme paradoxale « d'oralité écrite », ou « d'écriture oralisée » dans la société du XIX siècleThe voice, in its acoustic essence, is the main signal of identity of an individual, it is a part of his social habitus. It shows his membership to a group, to a class, to a culture. The importance of vocal behaviour it was stressed by the Actio since ancient rhetoric and it resides in the capacity of raising or extinguishing emotions and attention; in the power of persuasion towards a big audience, or towards a single interlocutor. Voice is a means of contact, it reveals or it hides interiority, it is an instrument of self or of social control. This research concerns the vocal imagination during the years between 1830 and 1871, a period of strong political and social disputes. A period where mass communication starts his way, and with it, the importance of the persuasive effects of the voice takes an important place. This research turns its particular attention to a specific use of the voice: fictional conversations, in novels and operas, enjoyed by a large audience. Opera in Italy, novels in France and in Great Britain are the main instruments for divulgation of ideas and for promotion of patterns of behaviour, thanks to their diffusion in that period. These texts deal with the role and functions of the voice, and discover social relations and the interpretation of the reality traced by the authors. Especially when they are national monuments like Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Verdi and Charles Dickens, who live in a post-revolutionary historic context, in Countries having different social and economical structures, and different relations with 1789 events. The key-concept of this research is the interstice role played by the voice in a written text. Through it, very important (and conflicting) information may appear, concerning the interpretation of the reality advanced by the author, outside his same conscious control about emotions and exercise of power, inside and outside the plot dimension. Among the characters, and between authors and public. The first part considers the vocal habitus; the power relations, the “right” and the “censured” emotions; the degree of opening or closing of a communication. In the protagonist-speaker (with his credibility, his ethos) and in the main characters involved in speeches with a symbolic significance, in affection context (partners and parental relationships) and authority context (sovereign-subjects). The second part analyses the role of voice-sound towards the other elements of persuasion: pathos and logos, and especially the problems prompted by the protagonists as orators in their performances in the main point of the text (exordium, end, speeches where the character fights for his destiny). This research pays attention to the Actio, and to the “decorum-prepon”, to their effects on the characters inside the plot, and outside of it. So, the significance given to the resonant words can emerge, a paradoxical form of written orality, or “oralized” writing in XIX century society
50
Campbell, Jane. "Dickens' angels : ambivalence and ambiguity in Dickens' portrayal of feminine virtue." Phd thesis, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/145132.
Full text