Charles Dickens as an Agent of Change

by Joachim Frenk (Editor), Lena Steveker (Editor)

Overview

Sixteen scholars from across the globe come together in Charles Dickens as an Agent of Change to show how Dickens was (and still is) the consummate change agent. His works, bursting with restless energy in the Inimitable's protean style, registered and commented on the ongoing changes in the Victorian world while the Victorians' fictional and factional worlds kept (and keep) changing. The essays from notable Dickens scholars—Malcolm Andrews, Matthias Bauer, Joel J. Brattin, Doris Feldmann, Herbert Foltinek, Robert Heaman, Michael Hollington, Bert Hornback, Norbert Lennartz, Chris Louttit, Jerome Meckier, Nancy Aycock Metz, David Paroissien, Christopher Pittard, and Robert Tracy—suggest the many ways in which the notion of change has found entry into and is negotiated in Dickens' works through four aspects: social change, political and ideological change, literary change, and cultural change. An afterword by the late Edgar Rosenberg adds a personal account of how Dickens changed the life of one eminent Dickensian.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501736308
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Joachim Frenk is Professor of British Literary and Cultural Studies at Saarland University. Lena Steveker is Assistant Professor of British Literary and Cultural Studies at Saarland University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Changing Dickens
I. Dickens and Social Change
Repetitions and Reversals: Patterns for Social Change in Pickwick Papers
Three Revolutions: Alternate Routes to Social Change in Bleak House
Dickens, Society, and Art: Change in Dickens's View of Effecting Social Reform
The World Changing Dickens, Dickens Changing the World
II. Dickens and Changes of Power
Parrots, Birds of Prey, and Snorting Cattle: Dickens's Whig Agenda
"The Tremendous Potency of the Small": Dickens, the Individual, and Social Change in a Post-America, Post-Catastrophist Age
Money, Power, and Appearance in Dombey and Son
III. Dickens and Literary Change
The Passing of the Pickwick Moment
The Chimes and the Rhythm of Life
Radical Dickens: Dickens and the Tradition of Romantic Radicalism
Modern Characters in the Late Novels of Charles Dickens
IV. Dickens and Changes in Popular Culture and in the Theater
The Cultural Politics of Dickens's Hard Times
Conjuring Dickens: Magic, Intellectual Property, and The Old Curiosity Shop
Popular Dickens: Changing Bleak House for the East End Stage
The Frozen Deep: Gad's Hill, June-July 1857
How to Read Dickens in English: A Last Retrospect
Index

Editorial Reviews

This book will delight Dickens scholars and prove an asset to any university library.... It is one that will inspire readers to consider the changes the great writer has wrought in them, and that they, in their turn, may bring to Dickens scholarship.

Modern Language Review

This collection proves Dickens to have been a keen student of change throughout his life. Its contributors... consider how Dickens promotes social change, how he presents changes of power, how he changes his own techniques, and finally how his presentation of change has inspired others.... As this impressively kaleidoscopic collection attests, Dickens's discussions of change remain a stimulating topic well over a century later.

Dickens Quarterly

Excellent discussions of condition-of-England novels.

Choice

An enjoyable and wide-ranging collection of articles exploring Dickens and change.

English Studies

An enjoyable and wide-ranging collection of articles exploring Dickens and change.

-- "English Studies"

Excellent discussions of condition-of-England novels.

-- "Choice"

This book will delight Dickens scholars and prove an asset to any university library.... It is one that will inspire readers to consider the changes the great writer has wrought in them, and that they, in their turn, may bring to Dickens scholarship.

-- "Modern Language Review"

This collection proves Dickens to have been a keen student of change throughout his life. Its contributors... consider how Dickens promotes social change, how he presents changes of power, how he changes his own techniques, and finally how his presentation of change has inspired others.... As this impressively kaleidoscopic collection attests, Dickens's discussions of change remain a stimulating topic well over a century later.

-- "Dickens Quarterly"

From the Publisher

"This book will delight Dickens scholars and prove an asset to any university library.... It is one that will inspire readers to consider the changes the great writer has wrought in them, and that they, in their turn, may bring to Dickens scholarship."

The Modern Language Review

"Excellent discussions of condition-of-England novels."

CHOICE