Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

The 19th Century
Presentation 8 of 13

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
The Greatest English Novelist and His Portrait of Man’s Life
Presented by Roger Weir
Tuesday, January 24, 1984

Transcript:
(00:00:00):
The date is January 24th, 1984. This is the eighth lecture in a series of lectures by Roger, where on a 19th century, tonight's lecture is entitled Dickens who lived 18, 12, 1870, the greatest thing like Novelis and his portrait of man's life. After tonight, we have just five more lectures in this series, and then I'm going to take a break from Tuesday nights. I won't be lecturing Tuesday nights anymore for awhile, the update ruling Tuesday nights, the library will be open until nine in the evening. So you'll be able to come there and read if you like, but I'll be there writing. I had, uh, several books that were finished sometime ago and, uh, had left them to be corrected by better minds than my own. And, uh, it is time for me to finish those up. So we have just five more Tuesday night lectures, and then I'll be at, uh, 2029 high period, and you're quite welcome to come.
(00:01:15):
And, uh, they'll always be some food there. And about 7,500 books, um, a lot of records and cassettes, and you're welcome just to be there. And with the summer months coming, there'll be a very nice garden, uh, the size of a football field. So there's plenty of things to do, and you're welcome to come. There's no charge whatsoever. This series for those who've been coming, I think has proved invigorating in the sense that the 19th century in this refresh forum looks in fact like the germinal field, which it really is. We have progressively discovered that the great minds that we have singled out and they are called from a list that could easily be double or larger, I could have for instance. So, uh, chosen, uh, bod layer rather than Telequah. I could have included Madame Blavatsky. There are many other, uh, authors who could have been treated Stendhal instead of Balzac and so forth.
(00:02:29):
But the authors, the figures, the writers, the thinkers, the philosophers, the artists that I've chosen each share, they basic concern, which this series has sought to put before us. The concern was that in the 19th century, that somehow man's matured mind. He has faith in his reason, in his capacity to, at last organize societies, even empires on a powerful enough basis so that they could span the world. In fact, and, uh, intact that man at that pinnacle of capacity should be able to organize his life in terms that most satisfy. He has material. Once he has pursuit of happiness, he has quest for the good life. He has believed that at any cost, the depths plumb by the human spirit should be able to be dredged by his capacity to manifest his deepest thoughts into some material form. And that society by and large should profit civilization by and large should materialize, uh, his best capacities. The belief was widespread. We have chosen examples largely from Germany and England and France. Uh, we will have Russia towards the end. We could just as well have extended it, um, more generally across the face of, of Europe at this time. But in fact, with each thinker, with each artist, with each individual that we have come to the depths reached,
(00:04:38):
Have
(00:04:39):
Exceeded the capacity to translate what was discovered into the phenomenal world. That is to say they material basis, which was the origins of the confidence leading the individual forth were finally, uh, exceeded and the confidence, uh, evaporated. And we were left increasingly with the proverbial hands full of dust.
(00:05:17):
The questions that were raised were progressively of deeper, uh, scope so that the qualitative complications for man in the 19th century, as it progressed from decade to decade, increasingly seemed like a nightmare. There were individuals and we are going to have one of them tonight who initially seemed to have all of the capacities, all of the opportunities that human talent could confer upon one individual with Charles Dickens, he could have had a half a dozen, various careers. He was totally capable. He was a, uh, a young man with such vivacity that, uh, uh, he was often, uh, uh, looked to as, as being, uh, the Victorian, uh, version of an Orpheus, someone who could simply by his, uh, wet and his talent, uh, charmed the very best Joe Powers of man into some lyrical Glenn of English countryside. And they are one could make true. The Victorian observation, they alone of all humanity had happened, crawl to shore from the seas of evolution and had taken on a final permanent form of the mature human being.
(00:06:57):
And yet, as we will see tonight, Dickens himself in a short span of 30 years, exhausted the competence outpaced the talent, which he had opened up issues, which became more and more a stark absurdity for the end of the 19th century. And I will try and give you a brief selection from five of Dickens' works to show you progressively the de materialization of his confidence and the change of syntax in his writing from that of a witty young man intent on portraying characters who could transcend even social tragedies to the kind of diction that one would run across, perhaps at the beginning of an Epson play. And so Dickens in a way, uh, exceeds the childish estimation that he has received, uh, for the a hundred years or so since his death, uh, there has been a movement, of course, since the second world war to take Dickens a little more seriously. And, um, there was a poll taken. Uh, I am not sure whether it was the modern language Institute, uh, but a poll taken recently in the 1970s and Dickens influence in English. Literature was second only to Shakespeare. So he has come into his own as a form of the forest.
(00:08:39):
When Dickins was born in 1809, he came from a family that was struggling to enter into the middle class on the lower reaches he was born in, but they moved when he was still in his infancy to chat Chaffin Ms. On the, uh, Tim's estuary, uh, to the East of London, some distance, and later on, when he would become successful, financially deacons would, uh, by God's Hill and a return to the roots of his, uh, happy childhood. The father was unable to maintain his social and culinary ambitions. And, uh, finally was put into a debtor's prison, the Dickens family with the children having to move to less and less substantial apartments until finally young Charles Dickens was put to work as a child in a factory very much like a Dickens character Oliver twist. For instance, although David Copperfield is perhaps closer autobiographically to the actual conditions of the land.
(00:10:06):
When the father came out of debtor's prison, it was Dickens mother who wished to keep him working at the factory. And this realization of the lack of confidence in his mother, in the naturally supposed protection of the female of the species of the mother, of the family, of the woman of the house, uh, produce some problems for Dickens later on with women, especially, uh, in view of his marriage to Catherine, but Dickens' character was essentially that of an adventurer. He also could have been quite easily a consummate actor. He was, uh, even considering at the age of 20, if being a professional actor and many actors, uh, who were quite famous in their day were lifelong friends of, um, of Dickens. But, um, they, the young man was given schooling only up to the age of 15. He found himself, in fact, um, finally, and a journalistic career, and this set the stage for Dickens Swift emergence as an author.
(00:11:34):
In those days, there were many, um, publications in London, quite a few more newspapers than there are today. And we'll see that Dickens found some of the best newspapers in the 19th century. The daily news for instance, was founded by Dickens. It was the belief by wealthy individuals that these publications made available avenues of social interchange, the social intercourse, which was necessary for an urban metropolitan civilized society. London increasingly the hub of the British empire so that the eyes of the world were progressively upon London. Thus, the movement of society in London took on the character of one vast ballroom under the crystal chandelier's of excellent manners and deep complications having significance far in a way beyond just the observable actions. Even the most mundane actions were seen to be, uh, significant to the whole world Dickens. Well, for instance, how I character a reprehensible, a female character wanly holding her hand up with her fan and, uh, making, uh, gestures so that she can appreciate the beauty of her hand.
(00:13:11):
And this all comes from the mentality that she was on center stage for the world, because she was the hostess in London society. And of course, everyone should be watching her Dickins as a young journalists, having these, uh, sparkling eyes, they were always described by, um, COVID fairs as penetrating live late jovial, uh, disposition, all coming out through his eyes, the ability to discern in himself, a number of talents. Dickens finally sat down using his journalistic, uh, prowess and wrote some short sketches of London life and without signing them, posited them in a, um, uh, London mailbox addressed to a publication called monthly magazine, which had been, uh, purchased, uh, recently by a retired, uh, uh, captain Holland who did not pay the authors, but who gave young unknown writers, perhaps even anonymous writers in the case of, uh, the first Dickens submissions, a chance to be published, the wonderful biography of Dickens in two volumes by Edward Johnson published about 30 years ago, records the, uh, incident quite poignantly under the chapter.
(00:14:52):
The career takes shape Johnson records with fear and trembling. One Twilight evening towards winter and stealthily dropped the sketch into a dark letter box in a dark office, up a dark court in fleet street. This was the office of the monthly magazine, sup entitled the Bridger British registry of literature, science and bell left-handers. It was an old established periodical with a circulation of about 600 and was published by a bookseller named Andrew Robertson who had a shop at 84 federal lane. Just that October had, had been sold by Charles tilt his former owner to a captain Holland who had fought with Boulevard in South America. And who was now editing the magazine to voice his own Arden liberalism on a December evening, shortly thereafter, just before closing time, Dickens stepped into a bookshop on the strand and asked for the new number of the monthly magazine. He held the issue close to him. He paid for it. Um, what did it cost? Two and six, I think, and nervously paging through came upon the content lest there, it was quote a dinner at Poplar
(00:16:22):
Walk. He last,
(00:16:27):
His first taste of the glory of print is a well-chosen words. The glory of Prince
(00:16:37):
Dickens, personal energy
(00:16:41):
By dent of his
(00:16:44):
Personal capacity
(00:16:48):
Had moved from, in him to the external world. And he was able finally to recognize a sense of triumph glory as it is. He was in fact, so overcome. He was unable to read any further his eyes misting, not only with tears, but with something more welling up in him. And as Edgar Johnson records here, he took refuge in Westminster hall, down the block and there for half an hour paced the stone floor under the dark rafters and timeless time, stain carvings, chickens wrote, and Johnson quotes him my eyes. So dimmed with pride and joy that he could not bear the street. And they were not
(00:17:43):
To be seen this taste of glory. This taste of triumph was the epitome of the self-made man and liberal London. We are somewhat able in the United States at this time, even in the 1980s to appreciate the tremendous, uh, push of the self-made man self-educated man in the London of this time technologies that were coming out were profoundly for that individual who took his own destiny in his hands and by dent of, uh, application and perseverance was able to make his way. For instance, one of the most reprinted books in the 19th century in London was the lives of the, uh, engineers by Samuel smiles and the publication that came out later on self-help by smiles, it went through something like 137 additions, the whole notion of an individual man, quite distinctly different from everyone else on his own isolated, as it were through his own capacities to manipulate and maneuver his destiny through talent and perseverance to make a world of his own.
(00:19:19):
This was the Olympia. This was the drawing, a vision Dickens at age 20, found himself at last and the threshold of being able to do just this. He sent in several more anonymous, uh, contributions, which were printed and finally sent in a contribution, which he signed by the pen name of VODs BAAs, uh, comes through several different derivations from Moses. Uh, there had been, uh, someone in his family who had had a nickname of, uh, Moses and the child had mispronounced it, as Bose's said, come down to bars and Dickens chose the name, uh, boss, because it was a childlike transposition of, of Moses and a very secret secret colloquial way. Uh, one of the great characters of his first work, uh, Samuel Weller spoke with this kind of childlike, uh, lisping Deakins sketches by boss was an immediate success.
(00:20:34):
The sketches were pirated by several other publications. And within weeks, the young Charles Jenkins was happily reporting to friends that he was being pirated all over town. People were reading him out loud and from having an audience of a supposed 600, he was now in the thousands. So he came out of the woodwork. He in fact, decided to sign a contract, to collect the sketches for bars, to put into a publishable volume. He made some kind of an arrangement with a publisher for about 200 pounds for the doing a publication. And this publication was to appear in 20 monthly installments and a magazine. And there would be, um, sections of about 25 or 30 pages. And these were to be collected at the end in the publication. This first cereal was the Pickwick papers and Dickens, uh, forced his enormous, almost Titanic energy into producing these monthly installments and the Pickwick papers.
(00:21:54):
And as soon as they came out, uh, they wrote the talk of London. They were all the rage. Now, the Pickwick papers themselves, um, extraordinary when we first began reading them in our time and our day and age were somewhat, uh, I missed to find where the great attraction is. And it's only after reading through several hundred pages that we come to see the love ability of the characters. There was a men's club with about 13 or 14 characters founded by and headed by a certain Mr. Pickwick who, uh, nicely, uh, pump late fills his britches and West coat. And in order to be heard at the club, meetings stands on Windsor chairs and has his say he has the pick her us character who carries the triumph of this men's club with its humorous conviviality safely through all the trials and tribulations of the episodes of life.
(00:23:08):
One of the great episodes in the Pickwick papers, uh, uh, is when, uh, Mr. Pickwick is taken to cart and at his trial, he has landlady who has imagined that he has made overtures to marry her, has in fact accepted all kinds of, uh, little, uh, favors. Uh, she has mended his socks. He has accepted food at her hand. There've been many conversations. He's been seemed to Pat the head of her little boy and say, wouldn't you like to have a father? And all this is reported by various, uh, servants and, uh, passers by, and all this is brought up by two, uh, shyster lawyers. Uh, one of them named, uh, uh, fog, of course, during the trial, it was apparent that this is a complete farce. And, uh, as the trial comes to a conclusion, pick rec is fine, 750 pounds. He tells the opposing lowers that they will never get a half penny from him.
(00:24:24):
And he leaves, they have a meeting of the club the next day, and they decide that they're going to move to bath England. So chapter 34 seven titled in which Mr. Pickwick thinks he had better go to path and goes accordingly, uh, ran something like this for a page, not one half penny, Mr. Pickwick said fairly, not one half penny, her love for the principal as the money lender said that he wouldn't renew the bill observed Mr. Weller, who was clearing away the breakfast things. Sam said, Mr. Pickwick have the goodness to step downstairs. Certainly sir replied Mr. Weller and acting on Mr. Pickwick's gentle hint, Sam retired, and then was discussion goes on that there are going to move to bath. None of them have ever been there. So the next morning, the next was a very unpropitious morning for a journey McGee damp and drizzly, the horses and the stages that were going out had come through the city and were smoking so that the outside passengers were invisible.
(00:25:39):
You see, this is the mid 1830s industrial revolution is going on, but the streets are filled with horse carriages. London's cold miserable. The newspaper sellers look moist and smelled mostly moldy the wet run off the hats of the orange vendors as they thrust their heads in the coach windows and diluted the insides and the refreshing manner. And the men with the pocketbooks made pocket books of them watch guards and toasting forks were like at a discount and pencil cases and sponge where a drug in the market. And so they climb in, take themselves to bath. And when they come to bath, which is an old Roman resort in old Charles Syrian, uh, resort, and now a London health spa, they find the father fathering, uh, situation and kinds of people. They have moved from the London of observed lawsuits and law cards. And they've moved to the upper class resorts like bath at precisely 20 minutes before eight o'clock that night, Angelo Cyrus Benton Esquire.
(00:27:01):
The master of the ceremonies emerged from his chariot at the door of the assembly rooms in the same way, the same teeth, the same eyeglass, the same watch and seals the same rings, the same shirt pen, and the same cane. The only observant role alterations in his appearance were that he wore a brighter blue coat with a white silk lining, black tights, black silk stockings, and pumps, and the white Westcott. It was if possible, just a thought more scented, thus attire, the master of ceremonies and strict just charge of the important duties of his all important office planted himself in the rooms to receive the company bath, being full, uh, the company and the six pencils for tea poured in, in Shoals, in the ballroom, but long card room, the octagonal card room, the staircases and the passages, the harm of many voices and the sound of many feet were perfectly bewildering.
(00:28:13):
And so on and on. It goes to this portrayal of, uh, the ritual taking of the waters at that, excuse me, when the Pickwick papers were finished, Greek, by the way, Dickens had received more and more, uh, congratulations. The offers poured in, and he finally signed a contract with a publisher named Bentley, two novels as yet unwritten as yet. I'm tired on entitled on any subject Dickens wish to write for 400 pounds, a piece Dickens and conferring with friends decided that he would test his new found metal a little bit. And he asked for 500 a piece and Bentley gave it Dickens. Now was well into it. As the English used to say, he had the bit between his teeth. He sat about ready to produce a series of novels in cereal at fat. In fact, at one time he had several serials going on at the same time, he was able through [inaudible] application of energy to write his daily and weekly quarters meeting these deadlines in just this way.
(00:29:46):
He was able to produce finally, a whole series of novels in the 1830s. He produced all of her twist, of course at this time, which was sightly autobiographical. And, um, he was able to write Nicholas Nickleby as well as the Pickwick papers. At this time, they were all published and do through the 1830s Dickens reputation sword. He was in demand in society. He was able to relinquish his journalistic, uh, uh, job. He was in fact able to finally in 1836 to take a wife, uh, Katherine or Kate Dickens is a very interesting character, uh, difficult for us at this, uh, time to form an accurate estimate of, but I think some of the correspondence between Dickinson herself, he has a last truth. Uh, illustrious of a fact, an observation, Catherine did not share the literary taste. The Nickens had.
(00:31:12):
She was the sort of woman who looked to him to look to her. And when he did not, she would lapse into baby talk. And with this kind of pouting, hope to draw him back to her Dickens a month before they were married, had to reprimand her several times in print that she must understand that the projected house and the marriage and everything depended upon him being able to do his work and that if this caused her concentration, then she would just have to bear the inconvenience. She and deacons were married for about 22 years, Dickens himself fascinated with the triumph that he had poured all of the money, all of the acclaim, all of the talent that he had into founding his family in liberal 19th century London, the pillar of respectability was the family, your origins, where you had come from, what kind of people you were, they conditions, which you've made for your passing respectability down to them.
(00:32:44):
So that the well-run Victorian household wise, didn't had South. They paradigm for the health of the individual and what could a man produce, but a great household and a state within what she was the King. The man is the King of his own house as the King, as the head of the empire, et cetera. So that this paradigm became for decades, the center, quantum of success and the chalice, and to which all of his energy was challenge a channel. But the challenge for him was the increasing perception on his part, that the central bond of the household, the man and his wife and his case was problematic. A ticket as was young in the 1830s. He was experienced triumph after triumph. And in fact, at the beginning of the 1840s, he realized that his great capacity to read out loud, convinced him to take on an extensive lecture tour, which included the United States.
(00:34:14):
Now, one of the reasons for coming to America at this time, the early 1840s was to explore the possibility of international copyright. That was estimated by one researcher that 19th century British fiction brought in revenues in the middle of the 19th century of some 27 million pounds. And this covered roughly 160,000 different, uh, publications that came up the novel was having its heyday. It was becoming the secular family reading along with the sacred family, reading the Bible. So that one would have a large family Bible, which Papa would read out of front of the fireplace on Sundays. And the other days of the week novel reading would be had for the family so that there was a correlation to this, almost a religious ritual Dickens found himself responsible as the major spokesman, the best selling novelist of his day to maintain the, of this whole ecology of family unity.
(00:35:42):
He became therefore a self appointed and accepted the appointment the night out of family fiction. He would, for instance, uh, when he came back from the United States, uh, he took it upon himself to produce a Christmas Carol in 1843. He came back in 1842. Uh that's when American notes was published and in 1843, he wrote a Christmas Carol specifically to be decent family reading at Christmas time and thereafter, almost every year for the rest of his life, except for one year, I think 1867, he produced a Christmas story or a Christmas poem poem. So that Dickens in his lifetime was associated with Christmas, Christmas being the great family holiday in Victoria in England. In fact, uh, throughout the world that has the heritage of the British empire. Christmas is a family time. What does one do when one has the family together, one reads the latest Dickens offering or one, uh, does this, we still do in our time, uh, redo the tale of Scrooge. When a Christmas Carol came out, the wonderful magazine illustrations, uh, almost all of Dickens' works were illustrated by great, uh, uh, character trust, George Cruickshank, uh, fears, uh, Daniels and Sephora. It says, uh, it reads here. I have none to give the ghost replied. It comes from other regions, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers to others.
(00:37:42):
Yeah, it was, uh, that happened, but of Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful to put his hands in his britches pockets, pondering on what the ghost had said he did. So now, but without lifting up his eyes or getting off his knees, you must've been very slow about it. Jacob scourge observed in his business like matters though with humility and deference slow, that goes through repeated seven years, dad, muses, Scrooge, I'm traveling all the time. The whole time said the ghost, no rest, no peace in fencing, torture of remorse. You travel fast and Scrooge on the wings of the wind replied the ghost. You might have gotten over a great quantity of ground in seven years since Scrooge the ghost on hearing this set up another cry quite it's changed. So hideously in the dead silence, the night that the word would have been justified and then tidying up for a nuisance.
(00:38:41):
So Dickens associated with the family associated with Christmas had gone to the United States on his great reading tour, not only to meet the American authors, but to assure them that they had their stake in international copyright, the American publishers took great umbrage at this kind of interference. One of the major complaints on their part was that if there is international copyright, the American publishers could not alter, but publications to suit an American audience. And this was just the sort of thing that Crusader Dickens said, that's exactly right. You cannot tamper with these works of art. You cannot just change them and edit them according to your own wins.
(00:39:32):
Longfellow Prescott Emerson, a number of great American authors were absolutely entranced by Dickens his by velocity as an individual, the quality of his literature, which he could lift off the page with his great acting ability, the poignancy of his liberal political outlet. They insistence that family literature had a definite unifying place in civilization, which was acquainted with the empire at that time, which was acquainted with the English speaking world. And that everyone should pay homage to this idea of integrity. Throughout the 1840s, Dickens would grow in stature, almost everything he did, uh, brought in incredible sums of money. He was able finally to move to very luxurious, uh, uh, habitations in 1844. He took his family for six months to Italy and then Genoa. They lived in a palace, uh, photographs of the rooms there show, uh, 30 foot ceilings and marble columns and a huge, vast vistas of Marma with just a few antique chairs and room upon row Dickens.
(00:41:05):
I'm a long way from the days when his father was in the debtors prison in the center of this was the nagging suspicion that the car of the Apple was rocking, that something was wrong and Dickens as the 1840s went by, he became more and more susceptible to periods of overwhelming depression. He would write to friends that went quiet moments that come to him. He involuntarily would sink into the most, uh, primeval depths of gloom for no apparent reason. Everything on the surface seemed the best that it could possibly be. And this of course is exactly what one looks to in terms of a modern psychoanalytic practice. The surface was so picture perfect. The responsibility was so enormous. He had a commitment to his readers. Someone observed in the study that Dickens' most faithful marriage was between himself and his readers. The capacity for Dickens to assume the mantle of kingship over the world of literature, he was compared in his time to Shakespeare, the Shakespeare of the novel, the man who brought the drama of human character in all of its vicissitudes, shelling, the eventual triumph of good into the living rooms and drawing rooms of all civilized persons found in his own house, an incapacity to effectively share this vision with his wife, the estrangement of Kate and Charles grew.
(00:43:20):
It would not issue into a separation until the late 1850s, but already in the late 1840s. We begin to find a little bit of a change in Dickens in order to take stock of himself in order to use his art to unify Dickens turned to an autobiographical novel, which used up all the notes that he had taken for a life of himself. And he wrote David Copperfield,
(00:44:01):
Uh, 1850 1851, listen to the tone of the beginning of David Copperfield and how markedly different it is from the tone from Pickwick papers, which we had just a few minutes ago, entitled the personal history and experience of David Copperfield. The younger,
(00:44:27):
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life
(00:44:32):
Or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show to begin my life with the beginning of my life. I record that I was born as I have been informed and believe on a Friday at 12 o'clock at night, it was remarked that the clock began to strike. And I began to cry simultaneously this synchronicity, the midnight chime and the birth of the light, the first striking image in David Copperfield, that Dickens is reaching out away from the banter of the Pickwick papers to something larger, something more inclusive. And in fact, David's Copperfield is one of the world's great novels. The portrayal of character had a David Copperfield. So transcends that Pickwick papers that, uh, we can easily imagine Dickens being quite confident that he had achieved his aim with the writing and the publication of David Copperfield with this under his belt Dickens now entered into a phase of trying his hand at starting all kinds of publications.
(00:46:03):
He wanted to make liberal middle-class family London ring with the pleasures of intellectual, uh, uh, debate with the pleasures of great literary revival and almost single-handedly, uh, began to invest in normous sums of money in most of the publications, which did not last. He founded, uh, the, uh, uh, daily news, as I have said, and many other publications at this time, but it seemed to him as if somehow there were other aspects to life, which had not been properly attended to and Dickens being the kind of man he was having leaned on his literature, having gone back to his public in his most capacious mode of integration, brought himself back in a series of poignant novels, uh, bleak house, great expectations, and one which I will, uh, quote from in just a minute or so called little jar. It, which I think one of Dickens' greatest works, but he had set this up by writing a book called Dombey and son, and then Dombey and son, this is how the beginning occurs.
(00:47:40):
Now, compare this to what we just had with David Copperfield, where the first person in a synchronistic mode was the narration Dom being son chapter one, Dom being son Dom be sat in the corner of the darkened room and the great armchair by the bedside and son lay tucked up warm in a little basket. Bedstead carefully just those. Then the low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin. And it was essential to toast Tim Brown while he was very new Dom be about eight and 40 years of age son, about eight and 40 minutes, Sally forth again in Dom being sung to complications much more extensive the integration as a novel, much more intense. Whereas David Copperfield is a, a great, uh, autobiographical tour de force. Dom being son is an attempt of a novelist.
(00:48:54):
Who's largely been called an entertainer to bring his work into focus in such a powerful, uh, structural way that he is able to disclose through this micro sculpt intensity, a deeper inner core of motivation beyond the personal chapter, 26 called shadows of the past and future listen to the kind of dialogue. No that Dickens puts into the mouth of the people, uh, where we're now coming to a dialogue that has a clipped kind of a syntax, a resonance of a tougher mind. Your most obedient sir said the major Demi's sir, a friend of my friend, Don Bayes is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you. I am infinitely obliged car cur replied, Mr. Dombey to major bag stock for his company and conversation major backstock is rented me great service canker Parker, Mr. Carter, the manager hat and hand just derived at Leamington and just introduced to the major, showed the major, his whole double range of teeth and trusted that he might take the Liberty of thanking him with all his heart, for having effected so great and improvement.
(00:50:22):
And Mr. Dom B's looks and spirits by GAD. Sarah said the major reply. There are no things due to me for it's a give and take affair, a great creature like our friend dumb. The sir said the major lowering his voice, but not lowering it so much as to render it in audible to that, gentlemen cannot help improving and exalting his friends. He strengthens and invigorates a man. Sir does Dombey and his moral nature. Mr. Parker is snapped at the expression in his moral nature. Exactly the very words he had been on the point of suggestion, the complications go on. I was going to give you a whole precis of this chapter as a, um, uh, indication, but I'll just give you this and then go on a portrait of a woman. What insupportable creature is this coming in and said, Mrs. Skelton, I cannot bear it. Go away. Whoever you are, you have knocked to the heart to banish. JB man said the major halting midway to remonstrate with his cane over his shoulder. Oh, does you, is it on second thoughts? You may enter observed Cleopatra, the major injuries accordingly and advanced the sofa pressed her charming hand to his lips.
(00:51:56):
Sit down, said Cleopatra. Listlessly waving her fan along way off. Don't come to near me for I'm frightfully paint, faint and sensitive this morning. And you smell of the sun. You are absolutely tropical by George [inaudible] said the major. The time has been when Joseph beg stock has been grilled and blistered by the sun. The time was when he was forest mom and to such full blow by high, hot host heat in the West Indies that he was known as the flower man. I'd never heard of backstock ma'am in those days, he heard of the flower, the flower of hours, the flower may have faded more or less. Ma'am observed the major dropping into a much near her chair and had been indicated by his cool divinity, but it is a tough plant. Yeah. And constant as the evergreen here are the major undercover of the dark room. Shut up one eye rolls his head like a Harlequin. And then his great self satisfaction perhaps went nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone before. Whereas Mrs. Granger inquired Cleopatra of her page, where there's believed that she was in her own room very well said, Mrs. [inaudible] go away and shut the door. I am engaged as weather's disappeared. Mrs. [inaudible] turned her head languidly towards the major without otherwise moving and ask him how his friend was when the conversation goes on and Mrs. [inaudible]
(00:53:40):
calls. And Edith notice that quick way that, uh, Dickens is able to portray these upper class English people who have come a long way from the adventure newness of Pickwick from the personal poignancy and warmth of David Copperfield to this portrait of Edith, as she comes in the room, hush said Quip Patra. Suddenly it is the loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid and effected air. When she made this exclamation where she had never cast it off, nor was it likely that she ever would or could, and any other place than in the gray, but hardly dismissing whatever shadow of earnestness or faint confession of a purpose, lot of bowl or wicked that her face or voice or manner had for the moment betrayed. She lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and most language self, again, as Edith entered the room, eat is so beautiful and stately, but so cold and repelling who slightly acknowledging the presence of major stock and directing a keen glance as her mother drew back the curtain from a window and sat down there, looking out my dearest, Edith said, Mrs.
(00:55:18):
Cutin where on earth have you been? I have wanted you my love. Most sadly, you said you were engaged. And I stayed away. She answered without turning her head. It was cruel to old. Joe mama said the major and his gallantry. It was very cruel. I know she said still looking out. And she said with such calm to stain, that the major was just competent and could think of nothing in reply major. Backstock my darling, Edith drawled her mother who is generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world. As you know, it is surely not worthwhile. Mama said Edith looking round to observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each other, the quiet score on that sat upon her handsome face. The scorn that evidently lighted on herself no less than them was so intense and deep that her mother is simpler for the instant thought of the Hardy troop before it, my darling girl, she began again, not woman yet said Edith with a smile.
(00:56:33):
How very odd you are today. My dear pray. Let me say my love that major backstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr. Gumby proposing that we should breakfast with him tomorrow and drive to Warwick and Kenilworth. Will you go eat his, will I go? She repeated turning very red breathing quickly. As she looked around at her mother, I knew you would my own observed a ladder carelessly. It is, as you say, quite a forum to ask here's Mr. Don letter, Edith. Thank you. I have no desire to read. It was her answer. The family reading, which was a sacred task to Jenkins has produced an interest skew away from the adventures of Pickwick, from the warmth of David Copperfield, even from the artistic wranglings and all of her twists, and then Dombey and son, we began to find Dickens settling in producing for the family, reading a juncture of what was bothering him personally, what he could see was wrong with the society at large.
(00:58:05):
And these two great concerns were meeting and taking apart, the comfortable homey literature, which he was supposed to be so famous for producing. And in fact, after Don Bian son, most of the Dickens novels are misread intentionally. Even today, high school seniors are given Blake house or college freshmen are given great expectations. They encouraged to read in terms of the jovial English novelas Dickens, what a wonderful, uh, style he has, what great comedy he has. I wish I would not presume that Dickens is a novelist of ideas, but in fact, the ideas become more and more poignant. And the idea of personally is the unsettled just ease that Dickens has about the nature of beings and the fact that this is reflected quite accurately in a society that is increasingly shallow, increasingly manipulated by conventions, which themselves are third hand misrepresentations of any true sense of social order.
(00:59:47):
That they're in fact, he has no polarity between the individual and society, but that one has exactly the kinds of conditions that are called forth by the kind of individuals who actually exist out of the shallowness of the letter has produced the vacuous Snus as a former. And that in this rude spiral man has achieved the crawl sure from the seas of change and evolution is becoming Dickens. Try not to think of it. Fossilized in this back shoe frozen in this comfortable shallowness, no longer to be challenged by a nature, which he couldn't control no longer to be driven by expectations, which he could not found them and that he would be cast for sure, like so much Carl petrified in its nothingness. And this was a horrific vision that began to Dawn on Charles Dickens in the 1860s. He began to suffer from headaches.
(01:01:22):
He has depressive States no longer occurred in isolation, but coalesced and became long months of anxiety. He couldn't find a place to sit and write. He began to devote himself more and more to the kinds of brooding that when he was younger would have led him to, uh, undertake social reforms. He had brought in, uh, um, many wealthy people into, uh, setting up orphanages and, and uh, care houses, uh, Mrs. Cooper. So for instance was, uh, uh, one of his great companions in setting up, uh, a home for, uh, unfortunate young women, but this energy no longer float out.
(01:02:20):
Yeah. And its deepest response, taking the form of, of writing a tighter, integrated novel to bring to his readers, the poignancy of the moments, the portrayal of characters, uh, caught in this web, but in the 1860s, increasingly it was difficult for Dickens to address himself today. Little door. It is a classic little door is not read in the high schools or universities, but you read little Dora little doors and two rather large volumes. The first is called poverty. The second is called riches, but there is a truthfulness in the poverty. There is at least a challenge from that internally and externally in poverty. There is a sudden chilling vacuous newness in the riches, both inside and out, and then little Dorrit Dickens comes very, very close to the kinds of quandaries that would say be portrayed by Epson and Strindberg. Not much later. Here's how little Dora begins. Compare this now with David Copperfield and dumbbell. Yeah.
(01:04:03):
30 years ago, Mars say lay burning in the sun one day, a blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in Southern France then than any other other time before or since everything in Marsay and about Marsay had stared at the fervent sky and Ben stared at, in return until a staring habit had become universal. There. Strangers were stared out of con countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracks of arid road, staring Hills from which reverter was burnt away. The only things to be seen, not fix it. The staring and glaring where the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little as the hot air, barely moved there. Faintly, you would have thought this is Albert Kimu writing in 1946. This is Charles Dickens' writing in the 1860s. Something had set in hard on the man and he'd had enough genius to see it.
(01:05:35):
And he was discovering reluctantly that he had enough genius to portray it. And so the family literature took another dive deeper into the kind of depths that tickings had never once. And he has heyday as a young novelist ever suppose he would have had to take chapter 10 of little jarred is called containing the whole science of government. It starts the circum location office, as everybody knows, without being told the most important department under Gar government, the circumlocution office, no public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time with the out the acquiescence of the circumlocution office. It's like Kafka its finger was in the largest public pie. And then the smallest public tart, it was equally impossible to do the plaintiff's right, and to undo the plaintiff's wrong without the express authority of the circumlocution office. If another gunpowder plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a store on boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda and a family vault full of ungrammatical correspondence on the part of the circumlocution office, getting there, getting there and skipping over the title of the chapter is on the containing the whole science of government.
(01:07:33):
Just two more short paragraphs, the whole chapters like this is in music called pianissimo Dickens, a very great writer. And he now he had the bit between his teeth. He had a vision of what had happened to himself as a prime candidate of the number one subject of the British empire. He didn't know what to do about it. And there wasn't anything about it. He liked it all.
(01:08:07):
How not to do it. This true that the Royal speech at the close of each session virtually said my Lords and 10 full men, you have through several laborious months, been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, how not to do it. And you have found out added with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest, natural, not political. I now dismiss you all. This is true, but the circumlocution office went beyond it because the circumlocution office went on mechanically every day, keeping this wonderful all sufficient wheel of statesmanship. How not to do it in motion because the circle bloke location office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident and remote danger of doing it with a minute and a memorandum and a letter of instructions that extinguished him.
(01:09:26):
It was this spirit of national efficiency in the circumlocution office that had gradually left, led to us, having something to do with everything mechanicians natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners member, moralists people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances. People who wanted to redress, grievances, jobbing people, jobs, people, people who couldn't get rewarded for merit and people who couldn't get punished for demerit were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the circumlocution office. Foolscap is large folio size sheets, know Elizabeth, some time they used a watermark of a gesture with an account. And that's why they come with full scale. Large. We call it legal size in this country, but in Victoria in England, it was large sheets that could be shook out in front of you. And many things could be enumerated to you without having to shift the page. Dickins once he had begun this way, once he had seen his capacity, once he had seen the quandary began to almost resent the fact that he could write, he tried not to write because his great talent and expressing exactly what was wrong, pulled him closer and closer to the brink of having to realize the full implications beyond little Dora is our mutual friend.
(01:11:18):
I won't even read to you from it. I just don't have the time and beyond our mutual friend, which we're really doing. If you read it, it begins with a little girl in her father, rowing a boat down the Thames, and they're selling a body that's in it beyond that the very end of his life, Dickens suffering very greatly, even though he was in his late fifties, almost continuously now filled with anxiety, got to by the pressures, began writing his last words. The mystery of Edwin Drood and the mystery of Edwin Truett was left unfinished at his desk and is a real tour de force. I'm sorry, I don't have a copy of my copy was, uh, taken from me and I was unable to find another one, but the murder of Edwin Drood shows Dickens finally grappling with what he had come to understand was the condition of man in truth, that we are murdering ourselves through an entity, which we think is civilization, that we have come to an impasse having left behind our capacities for redoing our lines because we have plugged ourselves in totally to the society and have given our all to that creation so that we no longer move individually, but only in consonance with the patterns already set up.
(01:13:25):
And that the patterns already set up already made through the ingenuity of thousands of years, condensed together into an intensified sophisticated machine to dehydrate man permanently, ultimately, and completely to coincide in 1871 wonders. Where could you go from there? Well, there was one great last hope. There was an attempt by the poet Laureate of the British empire to reach back into the fabled mythic origins of the British race and of the Royal situation. And by bringing back the great, our theory and Misa was to re stimulate the growth of the psyche in the British empire and Alfred Lord Tennyson and writing the idols of the King thought that this was the one great hope left for a man to reach back into his original sacred grail, like triumphal, psyche, and pull those energies back before it was too light before he no longer was able to remember that he even could do such a thing. And we'll see next week, how Tennyson handled that situation.

END OF RECORDING