英语专业英国文学课件23 Charles Dickens.ppt

Victorian Period(Critical Realism) Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Background the greatest representative of English Critical Realism of the Victorian Age 1. Born into a poor family; at age of ten, forced to leave school to work because his father had been taken into prison for debt. 2. In 1827, entered a lawyer’s office; in 1829, became a Parliamentary reporter for newspaper; the journalistic experience enabled him to know both some inside knowledge of the British legal and political system and gave him a chance to meet people of all kinds, which laid a good foundation for his coming literary career 3. In 1833, Dickens began to write novels altogether 17 novels published; also editor or owner of several newspapers and magazines 4. In 1870, died of overwork, leaving his last novel unfinished. Literary Ideas 1. As a critical realist, Dickens exposes and criticizes in his works all the poverty, injustice, hypocrisy and corruptness in the society in his time. 2. He hates the state apparatus,esp.the Parliament, but as a bourgeois writer, he can not find a fundamental solution to the social plights.. 3. The best he can do seems to retain an optimism with wishful thinking, as in his early works, or to express a helpless indignant protest, as an his later novels. 4. He hopes to call people’s attention to the social problems, thus effecting some reform or amelioration. 5. He has a heart which is ready to love and sympathize. Works The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club(1837) Oliver Twist (1838) The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) American Notes (1842) Dombey and Son (1848)(money-worship that dominates people’s life, corrupts the young and brings tragedy) David Copperfield (1850)(debtor’s prison) Hard Times (1854)(Utilitarian principle that rule over education and destroy young minds) A Tale of Two Cities (1859)(criticism of social institutions and morals of the Victorian England) Great Expectation(1860-1861)(moral degeneration) Writing Style