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Äèïëîìíàÿ ðàáîòà: "Christmas stories" by Charles Dickens
In the context of Charles Dickens creative activity, the
complex analysis of social defects and their interdependence is emphasized,
preparing grandiose linen of the later masterpieces: kind motives of villains
in “The Chimes” directed ideas prompting earlier name of the novel Little
Dorrit – “No One Guilty”. Only one Christmas story is read with great
pleasure till the present days – the earliest, Christmas Song, and this merited
success where the short form is revealed in the most profitable way: energetic
action, natural dialogue, simple plot. From that point of view we can realize
the whole idea about social problems disturbing Charles Dickens, however, here
these problems understood as a myth accompanying Dickens from his childhood,
and the scene appeared amazingly natural, as if simple, clear, logic dream.
In Martin Chuzzlewit Charles Dickens has already tried
to create the world of dreams, one way or another presents in all his novels.
In the eve of murder of Montague Tigg, John Chuzzlewit dreams of the end of
life: something strange, disturbed, as if the city is seen above from the bird
flight, a lot of people hurrying in the streets – they are familiar, but they
look strange, they pass as the chilly memories of everything what had happened
to hi in his life. This type of dream takes its origin from the Arabic tales,
where the heroes of the story fly on the carpet-plane or on the wings of the
magic bird above the cities, countries. Lesage used this idea in his own story,
but the scenes of social life and morality is described by the author and he
showed the contrast between – wealth and poverty, guilt and innocence, old and
youth, death and birth.
In Christmas song, in the dreams of Scrooge, these two themes
merged as a whole –we see the world by these contrasts and we also are informed
about past life of Scrooge, his gone childhood that will never return and lost
innocence. In the latent depth of Scrooge’s visions Dickens Charles hides his
personal pains, suffered in the factory of Warren: we find ourselves in the
horrible darkness after the warm bedroom; from the hot fire we are taken away
to the deserted, bare plains, to the sea; we just sit at the holiday table
and already see thrown children: the name of a girl – Poverty, the name of a
boy – Ignorance. That time Dickens convicted that the crime, poverty,
inequality, violence which he hated and was afraid of in modern society, - all
these is cause of uneducation, I think everybody should think like that if they
need and desire better future for themselves and for their nation. Charles
Dickens always believed in education, but his thoughts about the methods of
education essentially changed. But, then, coming back from America, he did not
change his mind that only education is able to stop the deep-rooted evil, where
he saw consequence of injustice and severely arranged society, where the human
is only economic unit.
This idea presents in two firstly written Christmas stories,
but in The Chimes Charles Dickens gives it as thesis in the form of
political satire that in Christmas Song, accompanying it with horrible scene
facing Scrooge children – Ignorance and Poverty – he expresses his past
sufferings and ideas. Scrooge is last who could be appealed to – all
kind-hearted generous men, who are able to reorganize the society with personal
nobility and generosity. The difficulty, however, presents because Scrooge is
partly hero of typical story with ghosts; but this Christmas story, myth about
expiation and condescended for good fortune, is necessary for holiday,
promising changes better future. We can not mark Scrooge as the true merchant.
Like Pickwick, he passes through purifying fire of world sufferings, only for
this reason he should experience his own childhood, to see childhood of Little
Tim, by the spirits of Poverty and Ignorance to see general childhood. And in
the middle of our lives we are under the power of the death – “…christmas
holidays… when people… visit their relatives, they see their close peoples even
in poor and destitute persons, they are just as we, walking across on the road
of death, but there are also another type of men who choose another ways” – so,
even in our childhood we are on the threshold of the end. In the visions of
Scrooge, he sees the childhood of him come to the end and his heart becomes
rough; he visions the death of Tim, and other kids’ too – Ignorance and Poverty
come forward as the bulletin of something more terrible: “mostly care about
the boy, the “death” follows him”: the nightmares of Scrooge were so horrible
but, all depends on the occasion, whether to sit with the kid by the fire or to
be “a little boy lost in the snow-storm”, about what Little Tim sang about, with
the thin, pity, low voice, and sang it truly splendidly. Neither in the
Christmas stories nor in “The Chimes” there is no consecutive
scenes of social abuse, and there is only one means to stop all this – praying;
but these nightmares make us to understand how the life is unsafe and the small
happiness, joy of us is unlasting, then the vague idea appears that all these
emotions have connection with something forgotten in our childhoods, and also
it has connection with Christianity. These thoughts belonged to Charles
Dickens: “How joyful is to feel like a child, at times.” Essentially, Dickens
talked about various themes in his Christmas stories, however, he used
narrative form of writing, and rearranged it as the stories which he read in
his childhood and related them with his biggest wish. That is why the Christmas
stories make reader to think deeply on it and gives sentimental emotions. This
idea concerns another books of Charles Dickens too. That is why the novel
Oliver Twist is wide-read all over the world, and lovely book of the readers.
Impression of the Christmas stories on readers was surprising. Dickens’ heart
filled with generous feeling. Thackeray wrote: “You blessed everyone who read
this story.” Unfortunately, Charles Dickens got less profit from the great
circulation of the stories than he counted on.[26]
Blessed with ageless appeal, the stories of Charles Dickens
were the drawing force behind the Victorian era’s revival of the previously
declining Yuletide tradition. Universally popular almost from the moment of
publication, they are widely regarded as the catalyst that rekindled the joy of
Christmas in Britain and America. Originally published in the weekly periodical
Household Words, which Dickens edited until his death, these
short-stories capture the very essence of Christmas as it was meant to be… a
joyous celebration of family and friends.
§2. The
differential features between Dickens’ and Irving’s Christmas stories.
Dickens,
Charles is fairly considered as the first writer who invented this genre in
England. Christmas stories appeared not accidentally in Dickens’ creative
activity. They rose completely naturally, so these stories corresponded to his
inner logics of the artistic method. This condition was marked by such a
penetrating historian of literature – Lois Cazamian, who subtitled the chapter
about Charles Dickens as “La Philosophie de Noel”, in his book of
English socialistic novel.
However, it
does not mean that the genre of Christmas stories did not exist until
Dickens in other countries, even in little bit different form. The existence
and appearance of this genre in the epoch of Romanticism in literature is so
natural and possible, because Christmas story appear due to national
beliefs spread in different countries, some kind of magic happening at
Christmas night. For romanticists, as it is known, orientating in using
folklore for material; decorated with mystic, dark, “ballad” tones, Christmas
national fantastic had to be quite comprehendible.
That is why it
is necessary that writers of one nation have to create Christmas stories under
the direct influence of literature of another nation. Difference of styles, an
approach to the theme and its development, make us to suppose that there is no
interdependence between them.
For this
reason, we can talk about the realistic type of Christmas stories, close to
Charles Dickens, - on the book of sketches of a great American writer,
Washington Irving.
Firstly,
however, it is important to note that the elucidating basis of Christmas
ideology, the talk is not about the concept “Christmas of church”, but about
the “religion of the heart”, the cult of home preached by Irving and Dickens,
true, with sentimental philistine-religious elements, however, not composed
integral element of his genre.[27]
The book of
Washington Irving was written, mainly, about England and became famous due to
its London publication in 1820.
Five sketches
were dedicated to Christmas theme in his book. Irving concerns to England, as
many romanticist writers concerns to the past of their countries. That is why,
we will not find the descriptions of cities and mode of life in the cities.
That city romanticism, which brought up Dickens Charles and formed his character
and manners as a writer, was not mentioned by Washington Irving. The city for
Irving is a world of “business”, assemblage of businessmen, always busy, always
hurrying to somewhere, completely indifferent to each other. We know that
Charles Dickens in his urban landscape can find people from another mode of
life, from different level of society. They are equally unusual, ekzotic, and
more archaic than middle townsman. Irving acts in different way. He searches
for archaism out of cities, for example, conservative romanticists in rural
regions, in the villages.
Rural life
appeals Washington Irving not only by its beautiful parks and gardens, by its
ancient castles and picturesque churches and cottages, but also by that social
advantage which villages could save despite to cities.
Here, in
peaceful rural silence there is not that social contrast, yet, which is typical
for big modern cities. From Irving’s point of view, every inhabitant of the
villages is satisfied with their place in society and treatment between various
estates is built in harmony.
This
conservative social-political tendency of Washington Irving we have to remember
in analyzing of his Christmas stories.
Describing
Christmas holiday in England, Irving shows happy rural life. Christmas, Irving
considers, puts into people’s hearts peace and love. Christmas is a time when
everybody restores old relationships with family and friends, which is weakened
with the course of time. Sons and daughters who left their homes return to
their family to remember nostalgic memories of childhood, by the fire. Everyone
become younger and loves each other at Christmas. This period of year gives
great enjoyment, because of warm and comfortable family atmosphere at the
fireplace. Short cloudy days, and dark nights, empty landscape covered with
snow make people to gather tighter at homes and evaluate simple joys of family
members much more than usually. Bright red flames illuminating room, - this is
like the artificial sun, lit up faces and making them to smile to everybody who
newly came. Christmas – is the time of hearty hospitality for everyone, it is
time of secular games and entertainment. As if, all the doors and hearts are
widely opened to the most sincere fun. At this universal holiday unity, says
Irving, disappear all boundaries between different social levels, so peasant
and peer approach to one another attacked by the similar joy.
The sweet
noise of songs come from old nobiliary manors, tables are served, decorated
with different meals, sweets, and so on. But peasant’s cabin is also decorated
with evergreen branches, they invite the passer-by to in their homes to warm
themselves, and to shorten long winter nights, listening old legends and
Christmas stories.
Washington
Irving describes the ideal influence of Christmas holiday to the society.
Charles Dickens wholly accepts this ideology of Christmas, changing it into
complete world outlook in his Pickwick Papers. But here, the differences
between them appear over again: Washington Irving, with the strict accuracy of
ethnographer, shows the Christmas holiday in villages, pedantically restoring
ancient patriarchal traditions, but Dickens finds his Christmas idyll in any
place and in any family, he is not interested in the form of holiday and its
historical meaning. Describing his freak, Washington Irving’s mood changes,
because his freak and his customs now in modern England – are occasional saved
fragments of past, condemned to be forgotten, to die.
In the meaning
of historical contradiction and in a concrete direction of his sympathies,
Washington Irving is older than Dickens, Charles for one generation. Many
things, here, have not lost its utopian elements of the XVIII century, and
there is much influence of artificial archaic of conservative romanticism.
Typical that
Irving describes old knights’ armour in old house or under the vault of
Westminster Abbey, in more natural atmosphere for it, but in Charles Dickens
creative activity we will find them already in the Old Curiosity Shop,
where they are adapted to new form of life and turned from the objects of
superior honor to the objects of the purchase and sale.
Both of these
writers are connected by the moral-hedonistic aim of their creative activity.
Washington Irving is not purposed to show the right way by the sermon, but just
to entertain and cheer up. Moral value of his stories arises naturally. He ends
his Christmas series with these words:
“Significantly
more pleasant to be appreciated than to teach, to be in a role of the companion
than to be a teacher… if I accidentally succeed to smooth just a wrinkle on
somebody’s anxious face and to make one’s aggravated with sadness heart to
forget all the evil and sufferings just for a time; if I can disseminate the
hatred of people to each other, help them to look at the world and human nature
with happy sight and to inspire people with more optimistic treatment to
themselves and to their relatives and family, so, it means that I writings were
not vain.”
Charles
Dickens in his “Sketches by Boz”, he continues an idyll line of
Christmas stories started by Washington Irving.
As like as
Irving, in Charles Dickens’ stories the theme is not about the religious
ideology, but only specifics which found for itself special symbolics of social
philosophy.
However,
Dickens had the same gentle feelings to Christmas, as Irving, and similarly
considering this holiday as source of spiritual reconciliation, have strength
fighting to each other, and possibility of their conciliation in other
conditions, in a condition of modern bourgeois society: transferring the
contradictions seen by him to the real class circumstances, he orientates to
the truly existing struggle and sympathizes forces that really takes forward.[28]
True, real,
democratic Dickensian views to life creates realistic and progressive basis of
his creative activity even in his Christmas stories.
This clear
social orientation of Christmas theme was absent in Dickens’ early creative works.
It became
possible in that stage of development of Dickens as a writer, when the
realistic nuances of his creative activity began to prevail on the utopian
ones.
Three
Christmas stories in 1843, 1844 and 1845 (Christmas Carol in prose, The Chimes,
and The Cricket on the Hearth) testifies of a mature mastership and quite
determined views of an author to the bourgeois reality.
These
sentimental stories about involving of all people to the world of fair and
mutual support are the basic differentiating character of the poor man in a
contrast with the rich man, as to the philosophy of Dickens.
Christmas
evening – is the time when the unexpected miracle, changes, and reconciliations
are possible in the world of social inequality and “steady” injustice. In this
evening, relentless rules of class struggle and economic inequality suddenly
stop operating with complete strength and its result – mutual hatred of people
to each other – yield its place to love and brotherly feelings. This is evening
(it can be not only Christmas evening, but also the New Year Evening as in “The
Chimes”), when cruelty of the modern world get eliminated, and humanity for
a moment becomes the happy society in Telem Abbey.
“From the
childhood till present day, - says idyll nephew of the non-idyll uncle Scrooge,
- Christmas holiday appears to me as the day of joy, forgiving, goodwill,
enjoyment, - only one day on the calendar when I deeply believe that all
people, men and women, as if hide the closed hearts of themselves and accept
the people from lower society, and even only for a day became friends with
them, walking across to the “grave”, but not another type of men who move
opposite ways”. (“Christmas Carol in prose”)
These happy
transformations, sure, can not happen as ordinary reality, because Charles
Dickens is not so great realist. Dickens needs whole arsenal of fantastic
tales, and many spirits come down from the skies to make miracles. Christmas
utopia of Dickens wholly consists of fantastic, and reveals its fragility and shortness.
Despite this sounds like paradox, the degree of the fantastic of his Christmas
stories is criterion of realness of Dickens’ outlook.
In the
literature of XVIII century people changed, became better, sympathized and
became noble as the result of mental influence of good example, confluence of
circumstances.
As the example
to such “happy” fortune, following hero in spite of his will and conscious,
taking him to the condition of harmony, and despite to the apparent difficulty
and obstacles, can be given as “Wilhelm Maister” by Goethe. But this moral
regeneration of people in other novels of XVIII century is significantly
simpler, not so high-principled and philosophical form.
Villains
repent just for “happy” logics of the creative work, plot brings them
eventually, to the optimistic climax, and for this purpose there is no need to
other extraneous characters (“Tom Johns”).
The novel of
the XVIII century aims to show that society is able to isolate, to neutralize
the villain with the help of their own strength, depriving him from any
opportunity to counteract against good even if he has not repented, or has not
repented definitely.
Such satisfactory
plot reflects deep belief of the writer to the positive, vital opportunity of
bourgeois society, where despite of the existence of defects and injustice, he
tries to find the power and humans, who would be able to take the depressed
virtue under his protection.
The novel of
Goldsmith “Wakefield priest” has similar theme. Even if the priest’s
family is poor, beginning from the prison and finishing by imaginary death of
priest’s lovely daughter Olivia, “revived” at the end of the novel, nevertheless,
the happy-ending organically follows from the here expressed philosophy of
life. Thus, author does not express his villain Tornguil as the originator of
all misfortune of the family, quite repented. And, nevertheless, this goes
right due to that among the oppressed people but also among the strong people,
there are men who care for the “law and justice”. Uncle of villain, Sir William
Tornquil, appears to be a kind personality, whose purpose is to make happy
suffered man and to punish the criminal.
Similar cases
are less and less in the novels of Charles Dickens. Villains as Kvilp,
Riderhood, Rigo-Blandoir, Uri Gip or Ralph Nickleby need to be punished
cruelly, relentlessly. They perish not being forgiven by the author, who does
not believe that they can radically change to the better in the frame of
reality. Only Scrooge can change because it happens to him in the Christmas
night. Christmas stories of Charles Dickens about good villains – are the most
fantastic fantasies about the impossibility, realized exactly as impossibility.
These sensibleness inventions, impossible in reality, are rather significant.
And not without reason, common joy and vitality of their color constantly are
accompanied by the shade of sentimental sadness, concerning to that this is
only a tale. To the order with the funny inventions, author constantly shows
also unfunny inventions, which always exist in the world, contrary to one
fantastic night composed by the writer himself, which he himself half believe.
And as the
joyful flames of the fireplace seems to be brighter because of the darkness in
the rooms, darkness in the streets, similar in the Christmas stories of Charles
Dickens holiday night is fantastic and full of kindness, because only this
night of the year is able to bring changes to better. And if the poor man
celebrates a joyful holiday in this evening and if the rich men join to them,
then in the future there will be many gloomy everyday life and severe tests,
where this magic clocks of the human unification will disappear. This
hopelessness of “merry Christmas”, its fictitiousness constantly felt in
Charles Dickens’ Christmas stories and add to them original melancholic color.[29]
Charles
Dickens trying to save the idyll should limit its scale; leave the great
social-philosophical questions, so idyll is powerless contrast to the bourgeois
society. Dickens finds idyllic symbiosis of poor with the rich, about what he
dreams in his sentimental stories, not in the world where openly happens class
struggle, but in the “small world” of intimate family life. Idyll of Dickens,
expelled from the sphere of big social laws, appears too correlated with the
insignificant events of family life, getting meaning and sense by the
subjective perception of the participants of this event. Miracles of this idyll
is the miracles of the “small world” with its dissolution about daily life
cares and psychological microscopis Dickens such a realist that he describes
that the manufacturer is not able to feel sorry for the working man’s
misfortune, when he acts as the businessman on official reason. And some
operator, coming to the poor man’s home for “personal reason”, and feeling
atmosphere of love, mutual understanding and support dominating there, can
suddenly be moved, and change even for a time, even for a night refuse his
operational essence.
The author
attributes to this “domestic” ideology special, all-conquering authority. He
searches for the means among the oppressors of the modern capitalism, which
could unite poor men with the rich man, serving as the bridge to them from the
other, gloomy world.
Some
characters of the human Dickens wanted to announce as common for all people, as
the humanist of the last century. Dickens can not do this in the field of the
wide social question, because in the XIX century it was already appeared and
formed as class ideology. The questions of common outlook, life philosophy,
conscience or honour of bourgeois or poor man will be defined completely
differently in Dickens, and author will emphasize that differentiation. But
some nuances of similarity, some of the opportunity of rapprochement he will
try to find in all people. This is secondary for society, but nevertheless,
Dickens uses it as the basis of his utopia of the human unification. This basis
is sentimental ideology of the family. Abstracted “family” feelings can be
unifying power for all the people. Rich father can understand his poor father,
because they both are fathers. The rich person in due time, probably was little
badgered boy, and that is why he is able suddenly to be touched, when he meets
as little badgered boy as he himself.
Characterizing
avidity and callousness of English bourgeois, Engels wrote:
“Of course,
these English bourgeois – are good husbands and fathers…”
In the
ideology of Dickens and Haskell, “domesticity” (because it is understood as the
abstract category, as the nobility of any “human generally”) is equivalent to
the ability of exploitator to leave his class limits to the wide sphere human
commonwealth. In the limited form XVIII century’s ideology had great
ideological influence.
In his three
main Christmas stories Dickens produced not only the principles of “domestic”,
Christmas world outlook”, but also he set steady form to express it.
Christmas
Carol in prose, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth are unified by
their mood and similarity of the compositions.
They are
related also by the unity of the narrative intonation. In all three stories,
more and less, appear the figure of the story-teller sitting by the fireplace and
addressing to his listeners also sitting there, too. He as if continues
conversation, which then gradually develop to the related narration, and thus,
by its presence emphasizes Christmas spirit.
“The cattle
started the first. Do not object that Mrs. Pirinbingle thinks differently. I
know better. Let her repeat endlessly that she can not tell who began the
first; but I say the cattle. I guess I should know? For the Holland clocks
standing at the corner, the cattle began five minutes earlier than the cricket
started its song”.
The Cricket
on the Hearth begins as this.
The
Christmas Carol in prose begins with the establishment of the fact, that Marley was as
dead as the door nail.
“Let me, - go
on. – it does not mean that I certainly know that there is nothing more dead
than the door nail” – etc., with the sound of the friendly conversation with
the listeners.
The Chimes
begins
with description of the night wind, howling on the walls of an old empty
church:
“Oh, Lord!
Save us from it, - us, sitting around the fire. It has horrible sound, - of the
midnight wind, howling in the church.
Oh! On the campanile!
That is where he whistles and growls with the anger! – etc. “And so I am going
to tell the story about such bells in such an old church”.
Gradually, the
voice of the story-teller weakens and disappears, conceding its place to the
narration, and, however, in order to appear in the end of the story. Thus, the
impression of the story by the fire keep presenting till the end of the
narration.
In many
stories story teller reminds us about his presence, interfering into the story:
“As to my
mind, I do not agree with Toby’s opinion about the bells, so I do not doubt
that he had much time to think deeply about it and also develop it. I will
stand for Toby, but I doubt that he stood at the doors of the church any day or
any week. The matter is that Toby was messenger, and he was waiting for the
order.”
In The
Cricket on the Hearth, when the talk begins about Tekleton, the
story-teller appears again:
“Did I tell
you that one eye of him is always widely opened and another almost closed; and
the almost closed one was just more expressive? I suppose I did not”.
And not only
story-teller’s personality, but also fiction of the listener, whom he
addresses, appears in the narration from time to time:
“But as to the
stuffing tobacco, Dot was the master of it; how dexterously she fired the
rolled scrap of the paper when he needed to light the grape stalk, - that was
an art, sir, real art”.
However, the
appearance of the fiction “story-teller on the fire” sometimes interrupted by
the real story-teller, an author, Charles Dickens.
This is one of
the not numerous examples:
“Bright light
spread all over the room, and curtains in the Scrooge’s room moved.
Curtains of
his room, I say, were moved by the invisible hand. Not those curtains what was
hung near his legs, and nor at his head, but the curtains before his face. The
curtains of his bed were moved, and waking up Scrooge came to be face to face
with the supernatural visitor, who moved the curtains: as close to him as I am
close to you now, and me, near your elbow as the ghost!”
That person
who told that the curtains were moved – is fiction author of the story,
story-teller by the fire”. The man who appears near the reader’s elbow as the
ghost is – Charles Dickens himself.
Both
story-tellers do not bother one another and all these interlacing of
intonations develop newer lyric-humorous shade.
However, that
is not all. Fiction of the story-teller means also another thing: with the help
of the fiction is emphasized that the told accidents are just a tale, not more.
Despite of there area lot of sad and even horrible things, as the same the
story is false, or the story with the happy-ending should not be taken so close
to heart, too serious.
Because of
that, story-teller before beginning to tell the story makes some joke that will
not offend anybody.
This little
domestic joke, yet little bit concerning to the context of the narration, gives
people safety and presentiment about the happy-ending.
For example,
in Christmas Carol it happens as follows:
Mention about
the funeral of Marley makes me return back to the beginning of my story. There
was no doubt that Marley is dead. It should be comprehended because there will
be no extraordinary thing in the occasion which I am going to tell. If we
doubted that Hamlet’s father was dead until the raising of the curtains, then
his night walks under the burst of the eastern wind would not amaze us such as
appearing of any other gentleman in the dark empty place, - for example in the
cemetery of St. Peter.
Or it can be
said also about Toby in The Chimes, when author describes his
inconveniences in his work as messenger, and poor Toby’s struggle with the
northern wind:
“The wind,
especially northern, was striking him with frenzy from the corner, as if
purposely came from nowhere to slap in his face… his cane was vainly taken by
him to fight with the bad weather. Soon, his weak legs began horribly shake, he
was turning to the right, then to the left, he shivered, he bent but nothing
helped him. He was terribly exhausted, tormented, hackneyed, he hardly stood on
his legs that fortunately was not taken up and thrown down by the wind hundred
times like the frogs, snails or other ugly creatures.
The hero, who
is described with jokes by the author, can not be tragic hero, and if only
unhappiness follows him, it reminds us about the happy outcome of the story.
But not only
the narrative intonation gives especially comfortable, “domestic” mood to the
Charles Dickens’ stories. The attitude to the phenomena of the world, to the
life is full conformity with this intonation. Here it is described special form
of the myth of the home, where the action and dead subordinated God’s will of
the “little world”. [30]
All the
accidents are valued by the listeners sitting around the fireplace. There is
nothing worse to them than the cold winter night, sharp wind, the fog or the
slush. Idyll of Christmas consists of idolized dot of the light in the darkness
of the night. That is why the description of the city moving from one source of
the light to the other: brightened shops, the windows of the houses, lantern.
The reality is divided into two visual and sharply limited spheres – lightened
and darkened, that some kind of treatment of the light settled down concordant
to this principle. However, even “big nature” is lowered to the domestic
environment by the corresponded methods.
The
description of the fog in the streets of London is as follows:
“Watching
these dark clouds, coming down and enveloping the surrounding everything with
the deep darkness, it seems that the Nature is settled somewhere so near.”
Thus, Dickens
creates a world of original artificial, idyll reality in his Christmas stories
which attracts to its sphere only what is taken from the darkness of the “big
world” and what can be brighten the family life with the reconciliatory fire.
In this
domestication” of any theme, even more horrible and serious, the main thing is
Charles Dickens’ humor. This is special holiday relation to the life, reducing
all everyday disturbances to the absence of the fun and fried turkeys, and all
happiness of the life – to their presence.
The special
kind of “culinary” humor of Charles Dickens is created to soften, dissolve the
comic, and “domesticate” any theme, even the horrible or traditionally severe
theme.
The most
horrible things in Dickens creative activity can seem very comfortable,
family” thanks to his humor.[31]
In “Master
Humphrey’s Clock”, in the introductory chapters, where we again meet the
heroes of “Pickwick Papers” – with Mr. Pickwick and his servant
described the story about middle-ages prosecutions, burning and drowning of the
old women who were suspected in diablerie. This is typical sample for Dickens
to outplay the history humorously and also characteristic example of his
culinary” aspect of humor at all.
That is what
we read about the prosecution of the witches in this story:
“Windsor was
very little town in that time, but it was possible to guess that this town also
did not avoid the general infection, raged in all over the England. In the
birthday of a king, Windsor people welded one witch in a boiler and sent one
bottle of this broth to the king with the congratulation addressing. The king,
little bit scared of this gift, submissively gave it to the archbishop of Canterbury
and answered to the congratulation with the message, where he explained golden
rules of catching the witches…” and so on.
In the
absolute grotesque-“culinary” aspect treated the theme of the suicide (here we
can not talk about the serious treatment of the suicide, but about the
anecdotic meaning in the history), told to Pickwick by Sam Weller. This story
is about a gentleman, owner of the sausage factory, whose wife tormented him,
and he ran into melancholy and throws himself into the sausage machine and was
made to the sausages. His wife had no idea about this accident and though that
he went away to America, for this reason she published newspaper advertisements
addressing to his husband to make him come back and that she “forgave” him
everything. But when suddenly one unfamiliar gentleman came to her and told
that he found the button in the sausage and when she recognized that this is
button of her husband’s trousers, she understood the “frightening truth”.
And that time,
the grotesque humor of Charles Dickens does not destroy plausibility of the
happenings. Emphasized, naked fantastic of the Christmas stories (both humorous
and pathetic) nevertheless, maintains in Dickens’ visibility of realism.
§3. Critic views of the
stories “Somebody’s Luggage” and “Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings”.
The power of
Dickens is shown even in the scraps of Dickens, just as the virtue of a saint
is said to be shown in fragments of his property or rags from his robe. It is
with such fragments that we are chiefly concerned in the Christmas stories.
Many of them are fragments in the literal sense; Dickens began them and then
allowed someone else to carry them on; they are almost rejected notes. In all
the other cases we have been considering the books he wrote; here we have
rather to consider the books that he might have written. And here we find the
final evidence and the unconscious stamp of greatness, as we might find it in
some broken bust or some rejected moulding in the studio of Michael Angelo.
These sketches
or parts of sketches all belong to that period in his later life when he had
undertaken the duties of an editor, the very heavy duties of a very popular
editor. He was not by any means naturally fitted for that position. He was the
best man in the world for founding papers; but many people wished that he could
have been buried under the foundations, like the first builder in some pagan
and prehistoric pile. He called the Daily News into existence, but when once he
existed, he objected to him strongly. It is not easy, and perhaps it is not
important, to state truly his cause of his incapacity. It was not in the least
what is called the ordinary fault or weakness of the artist. It was not that he
was careless; rather it was that he was too conscientious. It was not that he
had the irresponsibility of genius; rather it was that he had the irritating
the responsibility of genius; he wanted everybody to see things as he saw them.
But in spite of all this he certainly ran two great popular periodicals – Household
Words and All the Year Round – the enormous popular success. And he
certainly so far succeeded in throwing himself into the communism of
journalism, into the nameless brotherhood of a big paper, that many earnest
Dickensians are still engaged in picking out pieces of Dickens from the
anonymous pages of Household Words and All the Year Round, and
those parts which have been already beyond the question picked out and proved
are often fragmentary. The genuine writing of Dickens breaks off; I fancy that
we know it.[32]
The singular
thing that some of the best work that Dickens ever did, better than the works
in his best novels can be found in these slight and composite scraps of
journalism. For instance, the solemn and self-satisfied account of the duty and
dignity of a waiter given in the opening chapter of Somebody’s Luggage
is quite as full and fine as anything done anywhere by its author in the same
vein of sumptuous satire. It is as good as the account which Mr. Bumble gives
of out-door relief, which “properly understood, is the parochial safeguard. The
great thing is to give the paupers what they don’t want, and then they never
come again.” It is as good as Mr. Podsnap’s description of the British
Constitution, which was bestowed on him by Providence. None of these celebrated
passages in more obviously Dickens at his best than this, the admirable
description of “the true principles of waitering”, or the accounts of how the
waiter’s father came back to his mother in broad daylight, “in itself an act of
madness on the part of a waiter,” and how he expired repeating continually “two
and six is three and four is nine.” That waiter’s explanatory soliloquy might easily
have opened an excellent novel, as Martin Chuzzlewit is opened by the
clever nonsense about the genealogy of the Chuzzlewit’s or as Bleak House
opened by a satiric account of the damp, dim life of a law court. Yet Dickens
practically abandoned the scheme of Somebody’s Luggage; he only wrote
two sketches out of those obviously intended. He may almost be said to have
only written a brilliant introduction to another man’s book.
Yet it is
exactly in such broken outbreaks that his greatness appears. If a man has flung
away bad ideas he has shown his sense, but he has flung away good ideas he has
shown his genius. He has proved that he actually has that over-pressure of pure
creativeness which we see in nature itself, “that of a hundred seeds, she often
brings but one to bear.” Dickens had to be Malthusian about his spiritual
children. Critics have called Keats and other who died young “the great
Might-have-beens of literary history.” Dickens certainly was not merely a great
Might-have-been. Dickens, to say the least of him, was a great Was. Yet this
fails fully to express the richness of his talent; for the truth is that he was
a great Was and also a great Might-have-been. He said what he had to say. Wild
pictures, possible stories, tantalizing and attractive trains of thought,
perspectives of adventure, crowded so continually upon his mind that at the end
there was a vast mass of them left over, ideas that he literally had not the
opportunity to develop, tales that he literally had not the time to tell. This is
shown clearly in his private notes and letters, which are full of schemes
singularly striking and suggestive, schemes which he never carried out. It is
indicated even more clearly by these Christmas stories, collected out of a
chaotic opulence of Household Words and All the Year Round. He
wrote short stories actually because he had no time to write long story; many
of his long stories, so to speak, broke off short. This is where he differs
from most who are called the Might-have-beens of literature. Marlowe and
Chatterton failed because of their weakness. Dickens failed because of his
force. Examine for example this case of the waiter in Somebody’s Luggage.
Dickens obviously knew enough about that waiter to have made him a running
spring to joy throughout a whole novel; as a beadle in Oliver Twist, or the
undertaker in Martin Chuzzlewit. Every touch of him tingles with truth,
from the vague gallantry with which he asks, “Would’st thou know, fair reader
(if of the adorable female sex)” to the official severity with which he takes
the chambermaid down, “as many pegs as is desirable for the future comfort to
all parties.” If Dickens has developed this character at full length in a book
he would have preserved for ever in literature a type of great humour and great value, and a
type which may only too soon be disappearing from English history. He would
have eternalized the English waiter. He still exists in some sounds old taverns
and decent country inns, but there is no one left really capable of singing his
praises. I know that Mr. Bernard Shaw has done something of the sort in the
delightfully whimsical account of William in You Never Can Tell.
But nothing will persuade me that Mr. Bernard Shaw can really understand the
English waiter. He can never have ordered wine from his for instance. And
though the English waiter is by the nature of things solemn about everything,
he can never reach the true height and ecstasy of his solemnity except about
wine. What the real English waiter would do or say if Mr. Shaw asked him for a
vegetarian meal it can not be predicted. We can guess that for the first time
in his life he would laugh – a horrible sight. Dickens’ waiter is described by
one who is not merely witty, truthful, and observant, like Mr. Bernard Shaw,
but one who really knew the atmosphere of inns, one who knew and even liked the
smell of beef, and beer, and brandy. Hence there is richness in Dickens
portrait which doesn’t exist in Mr. Shaw’s. Mr. Shaw’s waiter is an opportunist
in politics. Dickens’ waiter is ready to stand up seriously for “the true
principle of waitering,” just as Dickens was ready to stand up for the true
principles pf Liberalism. Shaw’s waiter is agnostic; his motto is “You never
can tell.” Dickens’ waiter is dogmatist; his motto is “You can tell; I will
tell you.” And the true old-fashioned English waiter had really this grave and
even moral attitude; he was the servant of the customers as the priest is the
servant of the faithful, but scarcely in any less dignified sense. Surely it is
not mere patriotic partially that makes one lament the disappearance of this
careful and honorable figure crowded out by meaner men at meaner wages, by the
German waiter who has learnt five languages in the course of running away from
his own, or the Italian waiter who regards those he serves with a darkling
contempt which must certainly be that either of a dynamiter or an exiled
prince. The human and hospitable English waiter is vanishing. Dickens might
perhaps have saved him, as he saved Christmas.[33]
It is taken
this case of waiter in Dickens and equally important counterpart in England as
an example of the sincere and genial sketches scattered about these short
stories. But there are many others, and one at least demands special mention;
this is Mrs. Lirriper, the London landlady. Not only did Dickens never do
anything better in a literary sense, but he never performed more perfectly his
main moral function, that of insisting through laughter and flippancy upon the
virtue of Christian charity. There has been much broad farce against the
lodging-house keeper: he alone could have written broad farce in her favor. Ti
is fashionable to represent the landlady as a tyrant; it is too much forgotten
that if she is one if the oppressors she is at least as much one of the
oppressed. If she is bad-tempered it is often for the same reasons that make
all women bad-tempered; if she is grasping it is often because when a husband
makes generosity a vice it is often necessary that a wife should make avarice a
virtue. This entire Dickens suggested very soundly and in a few strokes in the
more remote character Miss Wozenham. But in Mrs. Lirriper he went further and
did not fare worse. In Mrs., Lirriper he suggested quite truly how huge a mass
of real good humor, of grand unconscious patience, of unfailing courtesy and
constant and difficult benevolence is concealed behind many a lodging-house
door and compact in the red-faced person of many a preposterous landlady. Any one
could easily excuse the ill-humor of the poor. But great masses of the poor
have not even any ill-humor to be excused. Their cheeriness is startling enough
to be the foundation of a miracle play; and certainly is startling enough to be
foundation of a romance. Yet there is no any romance in which it is expressed
except this one. “Mrs. Lirriper `s Lodgings” is one of the Christmas stories
written by Charles Dickens. The main character of the story is Mrs. Lirriper,
an old lady, gives the furnished rooms of her house for rent. She furnished her
old house as good as she could to make it more comfortable for inhabitants and
for herself. This is how he earns for living. Every person living in her house
is kind to her because of her behavior with them. Story begins with the Mrs.
Lirriper`s description of her daily life, her neighbors, her relatives and the
lodgers. She talks about the persons one by one, tells of the good and bad
sides of their characters. She calls Jamie her grand-son. But in reality he is
not. His mother died of sickness and Jamie was left by his father too, and was
grown up by Mrs. Lirriper having no idea that she is not his real grandmother.
Here we recognize the inner goodness of this lady, her kind heart and nobility.
She hates
Mrs.Wozenham who lives in the same street and who also gives for rent her
furnished rooms. They have disliking to each other. But, in spite of that, Mrs.
Lirriper helps her in Miss.Wozenham `s hard situation and discovers her real
internal life, that she is not negative person at all and even shy for bad
behavior of herself. In general, main hero of this story is not rude,
bad-tempered. She is always ready to be useful at any moment to men even she
can not agree with or she does not like them. For example, her late husband `s
brother always make troubles, disturbs her, asks money, but despite all that,
when he was caught by policemen Mrs. Lirriper was even crying and doing her
best to make policemen to let him out. Or another example can prove what is
said above, that Mrs. Lirriper met her neighbors, whom she completely disliked,
with great hospitality when their house fired. They all were very grateful to
Mrs. Lirriper for saving their lives and accepting them with kindness and pity.
Charles
Dickens describing Mrs. Lirriper shows us the ideal picture of simple,
pleasant, kind-hearted person. She always finds good characters in everyone
whether she likes him or not. Her geniality takes her even out of borders, to
France. Mrs. Lirriper goes there to recognize the dying person who is going to
leave his heritage to her. But when she finds out that this man - at death – is
little Jamie `s father, who left him, she forgives him seeing his regret in his
mirrowlike eyes, and leaves him to be judged by God.
The entire
story long, Charles Dickens opens all good nature of that woman – Mrs.
Lirriper. The idea of the story “Mrs. Lirriper `s Lodgings” is kindness,
goodness, nobility etc. It has very deep meaning in itself, and reading this
story you can learn so much useful things for yourself. The story has one
simple plot. It is told by Mrs. Lirriper `s own words, and the comprehendible
speech makes the story more interesting and entertaining.
Of the
landlady as the waiter it may be said that Dickens left in a slight sketch what
might have developed through a long and strong novel. For Dickens had hold of
one great truth, the neglect of which has , as it were, truncated and made
meager the work of many brilliant modern novelists. Modern novelists try to
make long novels out of subtle characters. But a subtle character soon comes to
an end, because it works in and in to its own centre and dies there. But a
simple character goes on for ever in a fresh interest and energy, because it
works out and out into the infinite universe. Mr. George Moore in France is not
by any means as interesting as Mrs. Lirriper in France; for she is trying to
find France and he is only trying to find George Moore. Mrs. Lirriper is the
female equivalent of Mr. Pickwick. Unlike Mrs. Bardell she was fully worthy to
be Mrs. Pickwick. For in both cases the essential truth is the same; that
original innocence which alone deserves adventures and because it alone can
appreciate them. We have had Mr. Pickwick in England and we can imagine him in
France. We have had Mrs. Lirriper in France and we can imagine her in
Mesopotamia or in heaven. The subtle character in the modern novels we cannot
really imagine anywhere except in the suburbs or in Limbo.[34]
Conclusion
The vitality
of Dickens’ works is singularly great. They are all a-throb, as it were, with
hot human blood. They are popular in the highest sense because their appeal is
universal, to the as well as the educated. The humor is superb, and most of it,
so far as one can judge, of no ephemeral kind. The pathos is more questionable,
but that too, at its simplest and best; and especially when the humour is shot
with it – is worthy of a better epithet than excellent. It is supremely
touching. Imagination, fancy, wit, eloquence, the keenest observation, the most
strenuous endeavor to reach the highest artistic excellence, the largest
kindliness, - all these he brought to his life-work. And that work, as I think,
will live, it can be prophecy for ever. Of course fashions change. Of course no
writer of fiction, writing for his own little day, can permanently meet the
needs of all after times. Some loss of immediate vital interest is inevitable.
Nevertheless, in Dickens’ case, all will not die. Half a century, a century
hence, he will still be read; not perhaps as he was read when his words flashed
upon the world in their first glory and freshness, nor as he is read now in the
noon of his fame. But he will be read much more than we read the novelists of
the last century – be read as much, shall I say, as we still read Walter Scott.
And so long as he is read, there will be one gentle and humanizing influence
the more at work among men.[35]
Though Charles
Dickens’ novels continued to be read by large numbers of readers, his literary
reputation was an eclipse. There was a tendency to see his novels as
appropriate for children and young adults. Russian writers came into vogue and
were generally regarded as superior to Dickens from 1880 through the early part
of the twentieth century. This preference is ironic because the Russian
novelists both admired Dickens and learned from him. Turgenev praised Dickens
work and even wrote for Dickens’ magazine, Household Words, during the Crimean
War. Tolstoy wrote of Dickens, “All his characters are my personal friends – I
am constantly comparing them with living persons, and living persons with them,
and what a spirit there was in all he wrote.” Dostoevsky was so impressed that
he imitated the death of Little Nell, including the sentimentality, in
describing the death of Nelli Valkovsky in The Insulted and the Injured (1862).
Supposedly, during his exile in Siberia, he read only Pickwick Papers
and David Copperfield. Even if this story is apocryphal, Dickens
influence on Uncle’s Dream and The Friend of the Family (1859),
written while Dostoevsky was in Siberia, is unmistakable. Ironically, English
critics in the 1880s were puzzled by Dostoevsky’s similarities to Dickens.
Dickens
literary standing was transformed in the 1940s and 1950s because of essays
written by George Orwell and Edmund Wilson, who called him “the greatest
writers of his time,” and full-length study by Humphrey House, The Dickens
World. Critics discovered complexity, darkness, and even bitterness in his
novels, and by the 1960s some critics felt that, like Shakespeare. Dickens
could not be classified into existing literary categories. This view of Dickens
as incomparable continues to the present day. Edgar Johnson expresses the
prevailing modern view in his assessments of Dickens: “Far more than a great
entertainer, a great comic writer, he looks into the abyss. He is one of the
great poets of the novel, a genius of his art.” This is not to say that every
critic or reader accepts Johnson’s view; F.R. Leavis could not take Dickens so
seriously: “The adult mind doesn’t as a rule find in Dickens a challenge to an
unusual and sustained seriousness.” In the resurgence of Dickens’ reputation,
his essays, sketches, and articles have received attention and praise. K.J.
Fielding believes, “If he were not so well known as a novelist, he might have
been recognized as a great essayist.”[36]
Dickens as a
modern novelist and all his books are modern novels. Dickens didn’t know at
what really point he became a novelist. The novel being a modern product is one
of the few things to which we really can apply that disgusting method of
thought – the method of evolution. His Christmas stories publishing in the Household
Words and All the Year Round had great fame in his time, but it
doesn’t mean that it is forgotten nowadays. The Christmas theme always
attracted people, and the warmth, loveliness, kindliness of these stories fills
everybody’s heart with joy and happiness. They are translated into many
languages and are read present days and I hope they will be loved by the readers
many centuries. There was painful moment (somewhere about the eighties) when we
watched anxiously to see whether Dickens was fading form the modern world. We
have watched a little longer, and with a great relief we begin to realize that
it is the modern world that is fading.
Now Dickens
must definitely be considered in the light of the changes which his soul
foresaw. Dickens has done much; he belongs to Queen Victoria as much as Addison
belongs to Queen Anne, and it is not only Queen Anne dead. But Dickens, in a
dark prophetic kind of way, belongs to the developments. His name comes to the
tongue when we are talking of Christian Socialists or Mr. Roosevelt or Country
Council Steam Boats or Guilds of Play. Charles Dickens was a very great man,
and there are many ways of testing and stating the fact. But one permissible
way is to say this, that he was an ignorant man, ill-read in the past, and
often confused about the present. Yet he remains great and true, and even
essentially reliable, if we suppose him to have known not only all that went
before his lifetime, but also all that was to come after.[37]
He was simple
man; he loved ordinary people from lower classes. He did not evaluate them by
their education, job or economic situation. That is why many of his heroes of
his novels and especially of Christmas stories were poor, pity men who earned
for living hardly but honestly. He believed in better future. This optimism is
mentionable in most of his creative works. Capitalist society did not appeal
him because he wanted people from lower classes to live less unhappy, less
hungry, less insulted. Reading the Christmas stories of Charles Dickens we meet
such problems, sentimental nuances. He was realistic writer and showed real
picture of life with all of its good and bad sides, however, humor, high mood
of these stories make us to believe in happy, joyful future.
“My trust in
people, who rule, is insignificant. My trust in people, who are being ruled, is
boundless.”
Charles Dickens
Bibliography
The sources in Azerbaijan
1)
Əhmədoğlu
B. - Çarlz Dikkens. Kommunist qəz. Bakı, 1962, 7 fevral
2)
Ədəbiyyat
və incəsənət” qəz. - Çarlz Dikkens. Bakı,
1970, 10 fevral
The sources in Russian
1) À.À. Àíèêñò è Â.Â. Èâàøåâ - ×àðëüç Äèêêåíñ: Ñîáðàíèå ñî÷èíåíèé â 30-òè òîìàõ.
Ò.12, Ìîñêâà, 1959
2) À.À. Àíèêñò - Äèêêåíñ ×àðëüç.
Ò.1. Ìîñêâà, 1957
3)
Êàòàðñêèé Èãîðü
Ìàêñèìèëèàíîâè÷ - Äèêêåíñ â Ðîññèè: Ñåðåäèíà XIX âåêà. Ìîñêâà, 1966
4)
Ìàäçèãîí Ì.Â. - Ðåàëèçì
ðàííåãî òâîð÷åñòâà ×àðëüçà Äèêêåíñà. Òáèëèñè, 1962
5)
Ñêóðàòîâñêàÿ Ë. -
Òâîð÷åñòâî Äèêêåíñà. Ìîñêâà, 1969
6)
Óèëñîí Ýíãóñ - Ìèð
×àðëüçà Äèêêåíñà. Ìîñêâà, 1975
7)
Óðíîâ Ì.Â. - Íåïîäðàæàåìûé
×àðëüç Äèêêåíñ. Ìîñêâà, 1990. ñòð. 204-257
The sources in English
1)
Ackroyd, Peter - Dickens.
London, 1990
2)
Butt,
John E. and Kathleen Tillotson - Dickens at Work. 1957, reprinted 1982
3)
Chesterton
G.K. - Charles Dickens. London, 1903, reprinted 1977
4)
Churchill,
Reginald C. - Bibliography of Dickensian Criticism. London: Routledge
(1836-1974-75)
5)
Collins,
Philip - Dickens and Crime. New York, 1962
6)
Collins,
Philip (ed.) - Dickens, the Critical Heritage. New York, 1971, on his
critical reception in 1836-82
7)
Collins,
Philip - A Dickens Bibliography. 1970, offprinted from George Watson/
New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, 1969, vol.3, pp. 779-850
8)
Dexter,
Walter - The Letters by Charles Dickens. 3 vol., London, 1938
9)
Fielding,
K.J. – Speeches. London, 1960, pp. 124-127
10)
Fielding,
K.J. - A Critical Introduction. London, revised edition 1966
11)
Ford,
George H. - A Second Guide to Research. London, 1978, pp. 34-113
12)
Ford,
George H. - Dickens and His Readers. London, 1955, reprinted 1976
13)
Ford,
George H. and L. Lane (eds.) - The Dickens Critics. London, 1961,
reprinted 1976
14)
Garis,
Robert - The Dickens Theatre. London, 1965
15)
Gissing,
George R. - Charles Dickens.A Critical Study. London, 1898, reissued
1976
16)
Gissing,
George R., abr. - Forster's Life of Dickens London: Chapman & Hall,
1903.
17)
Johson,
Edgar - Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph 3 vol., Manchester,
1952
18)
Johnson,
Edgar - The Heart Of Charles Dickens, As Revealed in His Letters to Angela
Burdett-Coutts. New York, 1952, reprinted 1976
19)
Kaplan,
Fred - Dickens: A Biograph. London, 1988
20)
Kitton,
Frederic G. - Charles Dickens: His Life, Writings and Personality.
London, 1956
21)
Miller,
J. Hillis - Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels. London, 1958,
reissued 1969
22)
Orwell,
George – Dickens:In Critical Essays. Boston, 1946, pp. 7-56
23)
Rice,
C. M. - The Story of Our Mutual Friend: Transcribed into Phonetic Notation
from the Work of Charles Dickens. Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1920.
24)
Wall,
Stephen (ed.) - Charles Dickens: A Critical Anthology. London, 1970
25)
Wilson,
Angus - The World of Charles Dickens. New York, 1970
26)
Wilson,
Edmund - Dickens: The Two Scrooges in “The Wound and the Bow”. London,
1941, pp. 1-104
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Ward, Henry S. - The
Real Dickens Land. London: Chapman & Hall, 1904.
28)
Welsh,
Charles - Character Portraits from Dickens. London: Chatto & Windus,
1908.
[1] À.À. Àíèêñò Äèêêåíñ
×àðëüç. Ò 1. Ìîñêâà, 1957. ñòð. 7-12
[2] Philip
Collins - A Dickens
Bibliography, 1970, offprinted from George Watson,
New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, 1969, vol.3, pp. 779-182
[3] Ìàäçèãîí Ì.Â. - Ðåàëèçì
ðàííåãî òâîð÷åñòâà ×àðëüçà Äèêêåíñà, Òáèëèñè, 1962. ñòð. 24-37
[4] George
R. Gissing – Charles Dickens/ A Critical Study, London, 1947, reissued
1976. pp. 105-116
[5] George
Orwell – Dickens / In Critical Essays, Boston, 1946. pp. 7-20
[6] John E.
Butt and Kathleen Tillotson – Dickens at Work, New York, 1957, reprinted
1982. pp.203-212
[7] George
H. Ford – Dickens and His Readers, London, 1955, reprinted 1974.
pp.46-48
[8] Fred
Kaplan – A Biography, London, 1988. pp.138
[9] Óðíîâ Ì.Â. – Íåïîäðàæàåìûé
×àðëüç Äèêêåíñ, Ìîñêâà, 1990. ñòð.204-257
[10] Philip
Collins – Dickens, the Critical Heritage, New York, 1971, on his
critical reception in 1836-1882. pp.68-81
[11] Reginald
C. Churchill – Bibliography of Dickensian Criticism. London: Routledge
(1836-1974-75), a selective, partly annotated bibliography. pp.98-123
[12] Angus
Wilson – The World of Charles Dickens, New York, 1970. pp.58-64
[13] Ackroyd
Peter – Dickens, London, 1990. p.85
[14] Ədəbiyyat
və incəsənət qəz. Çarlz Dikkens, Baki,
1970, 10 fevral
[15] Ñêóðàòîâñêàÿ Ë. – Òâîð÷åñòâî
Äèêêåíñà, Ìîñêâà, 1969. ñòð.92-96
[16] George
H. Ford and L. Lane (eds.), - The Dickens Critics, London, 1961,
reprinted 1976. pp. 148-158
[17] J.
Hillis Miller – Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels, London, 1958, reissued 1969. pp. 62-69
[18] Stephen
Wall (ed.) – Charles Dickens: A Critical Anthology, London, 1970. pp.
70-92
[19] Óèëñîí Ýíãóñ – Ìèð
×àðëüçà Äèêêåíñà, Ìîñêâà, 1975. ñòð.48-52
[20] G.K.
Chesterton – Charles Dickens, London, 1903, reprinted 1977. pp. 114-127
[21] George
H. Ford – A Second Guide to Research, London, 1978. pp.34-113
[22] Êàòàðñêèé Èãîðü
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1Henry Ward – The Real Dickens Land. London, 1954, pp.26-28
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