1、The World of Charles Dickens,Were on the move,Weve been in the Renaissance (1500 1650) Next is the Neo-Classical Period (1660 1798) Dryden Defoe Pope Johnson Boswell,On to,The Romantic Period (1798 1837) Burns Blake Wordsworth Coleridge Byron,And then into,The Victorian Period (1837 1901) Dickens Ho
2、usman Hardy Thackery Tennyson Browning (both) Brontes (both),Dickens Biography,Born February 7, 1812 1824 - Dickens worked at Warrens Blacking Warehouse 1824 - Mr. Dickens (Charles father) taken to debtors prison; family joins him Imprisoned from February - May,More Bio,1827 - Dickens family evicted
3、 from home for not paying rent Charles is pulled out of private school Charles, now 15, becomes law clerk and free-lance writer 1834 - Charles takes Boz as pen name 1834 - Charles Dad re-arrested for debts,Dickens starts Publishing!,1836 - Sketches by Boz 1837 - The Pickwick Papersand on a personal
4、note.,“Here Comes the Bride”,1836 (Dickens is 24) he and Catherine Hogarth get marriedandone year later, the first “little Dickens” is born and one year after that, baby # 2 is born.,but, back to business!,1837- Oliver Twist is serially published,What was happening in 1837?,King William IV of Englan
5、d diesVictoria becomes queen of EnglandBenjamin Disraeli delivers his first speech in the House of Commons,And in the arts?,Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes Twice Told Tales it becomes a best seller William H. Prescott publishes The History of the Reign of Isabella and Ferdinand John Constable died (En
6、glish landscape painter) Berlioz completes “Grande Messe des Morts,” Opus 5,Two Constables,“Flatford Lock and Mill” 1812“The White Horse” 1819,In the sciences,Industrialist August Borsig opens iron foundry and engine-building factory in Berlin Wheatstone and Cooke patent electric telegraph Samuel Mo
7、rse exhibits his electric telegraph Dutchman Johannes Diderik born (Nobel Prize in physics in 1910),And then,1838 - Nicholas Nickleby 1840 - The Old Curiosity Shop 1841 - Barnaby Rudge 1842 - American Notes,Back to Dickens “And the beat goes on”,1843 - A Christmas Carol 1844 - Martin Chuzzlewit 1844
8、 - The Chimes 1845 - The Cricket on the Hearth 1846 - The Battle of Life 1846 - Dombey and Son,And so it goes.,1850 - David Copperfield 1853 - Bleak House 1853 - A Childs History of England and. a near nervous breakdown 1854 - Hard Times 1857 - Little Dorrit,Is he done yet?,1859 - A Tale of Two Citi
9、es 1861 - Great Expectations 1865 - Our Mutual Friends 1869 - The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished),Whats the Point?,Dickens wrote 15 major novels in a career spanning 33 years. His peak of creativity and literary prowess was in mid - late career from 1848 - 1865.,Dickens Best,Bleak House Little D
10、orrit Great Expectations Our Mutual Friend,And in the meantime,He fathered 10 children. His wife left him (in 1856). He gave numerous talks across Europe and in America. He developed heart trouble.,He exercised his social conscience,He crusaded for childrens rights. He was an advocate of child labor
11、 laws to protect children. He opposed cruelty, deprivation, and corporal punishment of children. He believed in and lobbied for just treatment of criminals.,In addition,He protested a greedy, uncaring, materialistic society through such works as A Christmas Carol, which Dickens called “a sledgehamme
12、r” he used figuratively to wake up the reading public He repeatedly used satire to highlight problems in his society,More good works,He gave 16 public readings in 1858 to raise money for the Hospital for Sick Children,And in 1865 a key year,He published a novel (Our Mutual Friends), got frostbite, a
13、nd survived a terrible train crash,A sad ending,1870 - Dickens, who had been in declining health since 1866, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey in London,Westminster Abbey,Poets Corner,Dickens epitaph: “He was a sympathizer to the poor, the suffering
14、, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of Englands greatest writers is lost to the world.”,What about Oliver Twist?,Dickens wrote, “I wished to show in little Oliver, the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance and triumphing at last.”,Themes,The powerlessness of children
15、Goods ability to triumph over evil Mans humanity to man Mans inhumanity to man The outcasts search for status and identity The heinous nature of crime and criminals,What to watch (out) for.,Use of ironyUse of coincidenceUse of humor,Definitions, please,Situational irony = a discrepancy between what the reader expects and what actually happens,Dickens Belief:,“To be thoroughly earnest is everything, and to be anything short of it is nothing.”,
