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Realism as a trend in literature. Charles dickens “the posthumous papers of pickwick club” (or his other early novel).

English critical realism of the XIX century is perfectly introduced in works of Ch.Dicken’s. He is concidered to be one of the creators of social realistic novel in England.

Charles Dickens was a prolific writer who was almost always working on a new installment for a story and rarely missed a deadline. At the beginning of his career, Dickens was not viewed as the literary monolith we know him as today, but rather as a popular entertainer of fruitful imagination and comic genius.Later critics championed his mastery of prose, his endless invention of memorable characters and his powerful social sensibilities, despite continued criticism from his more rarefied readers. Dickens played a major role in popularising the serialised novel.

Charles Dickens used his rich imagination, sense of humour and detailed memories, particularly of his childhood, to enliven his fiction.Dickens' writing style is florid and poetic, with a strong comic touch. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery — he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator" — are often popular.

Charles Dickens’novels were immensely popular during his lifetime. His first full novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), brought him immediate fame and this continued right through his career. He maintained a high quality in all his writings and, although rarely departing greatly from his typical "Dickensian" method of always attempting to write a great "story" in a somewhat conventional manner (the dual narrators of Bleak House are a notable exception), he experimented with varied themes, characterisations and genres. He was usually keen to give his readers what they wanted, and the monthly or weekly publication of his works in episodes meant that the books could change as the story proceeded at the whim of the public.

At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged at the heart of empire. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues — such as sanitation and the workhouse — but his fiction was probably all the more powerful in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. The exceptional popularity of his novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (Bleak House, 1853; Little Dorrit, 1857; Our Mutual Friend, 1865) underlined not only his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also insured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored.His fiction, with often vivid descriptions of life in nineteenth-century England, has inaccurately come to globally symbolise Victorian society (1837-1901) as uniformly "Dickensian,"

Dickens's fiction is often viewed as sentimental, as with the extended death scenes of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) and young Paul Dombey in Dombey and Son (1848). In Oliver Twist, Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a young boy so inherently and unrealistically "good" that his values are never overthrown by either brutal orphanages or constrain involvement in a gang of young pickpockets. The novel wass written in1837-38. it tells the story of an orphan boy of unknown parentage. Born in a workhouse, brought up under cruel conditions, the hero runs away from the workhouse to London, where he falls into the hands of a gang of thieves. He is resqued from them by the benevolent Mr.Brownlow, but the thieves make him join them once again and partake in their fouldealings. The novl ends with Oliver being adopted by Mr.Brownlow. The adventures of the boy-hero were used by Dickens to describe the lower depths of London.



Later novels are also centred on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in Bleak House and Amy Dorrit in Little Dorrit), this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens' goal of sharp social commentary. In actuality, each of his novels after Dombey and Son (1848) became increasingly less "sentimental" and more concerned with social realism, focusing on mechanisms of social control that direct people's lives . Bleak House was published during 1852-53. The basis of the novel is the law suit of Jarndyce, concerned with the division of estate. The case has been going on for many years, setting relatives quarelling with one another, driving some of them to ruin, others to suicide, while the layers engaged init obtain large fees from the case. In the end it turnsout that the law-costs have swallowed up the entire estate. The novel contains a vigorous satire on the British courts & shows that justice, as well as other things in bourgeois society, is the source of profot for the few, & the cause of misfortune for the many.

One of famous works by Dickens is A Tale of Two Cities. The novekl tells the story of people whose lives are interrupted or wasted, then reawakened with a new purpose. It shows how the mistakes of the past and the evil they cause can be turned into triumphs & virtuous actions. Stylistically A Tale of Two Cities was something new for Dickens. Unlike most of his novels, the book is not set in the England of Dickens’ time, & it is his only book that takes place mostly in foreign country. There is very little of the humor that made Dickens’ readerslaugh, & few episodes that made them weep. Dickens called it “the best story I have every written”. Dickens hoped to make the wider historical events of the French Revolution understandable by portraying the personal struggles of one group of people. The action of the novel takes place over the period of about eighteen years, beginning in 1775 & ending in 1793. some of the story takes place earleir, as told in flashback. A Tale of Two Cities, like all of Dickens’s novels, was published serially. In the novel Dickensrelyes on nature, which is a very powerful element here. Dickens often uses natural phenomena to comment on what is happening among the characters.

Novelists continue to be influenced by Dickens’s works. Ultimately, Dickens stands today as a brilliant, innovative and sometimes flawed novelist whose stories and characters have become not only literary archetypes but also part of the public imagination


Date: 2016-01-05; view: 2026


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