Charles Dickens is a famous representative of critical realism

Not much of Dickens will live, because it has so little correspondence to life. He was the incarnation of cockneydom, a caricaturist who aped the moralist; he should have kept to short stories. If his novels are read at all in the future, people will wonder what we saw in them.

Though Dickens's novels continued to be read by large numbers of readers, his literary reputation was in eclipse. There was a tendency to see his novels as appropriate for children and young adults. From 1880 through the early part of the twentieth century, Russian writers came into vogue and were generally regarded as superior to Dickens. This preference is ironic because the Russian novelists both admired Dickens and learned from him. Turgenev praised Dickens's work and even wrote for Dickens's magazine,Household Words, during the Crimean War. Tolstoi 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. In yet another irony, 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 writer of his time," and a 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 through the twentieth century. Edgar Johnson expresses the prevailing twentieth-century view in his assessment 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's 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 English essayist."

Notable works

Charles Dickens published over a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including a number of Christmas-themed stories), a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.Dickens created a series of novels, specially notable for critical and for comic talent, for critical treatment of Victorian England. All Dickens's great works – Oliver Twist (1837–38), Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1843–44), Mar-tin Chuzzlewit (1843–44), Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son (1846–48), The Personal History of David Copperfield (1849–50), Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times for These Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855–57), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860–61) – carry a profound moral message. At the same time Dickens is bent on Correcting public grievances, like the defects of the new outrageous Poor Law and the workhouse system, the miseries of the debtors' prisons, the clumsiness and injustice of the governmental and legal systems. Dickens-is at his best at depicting low and middle-class life and at inventing unforgettable striking characters. A great many of them have become recognized types in English fiction.

Dickens also tried his hand at the historical novel, as in Barnaby Radge (1840–41) and A Tale of Two Cities, at a vast number of short stories and also at writing for the stage. His last novels include Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) and the unfinished detective story of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870) Among the most popular and productive novelist as Charles Dickens, whose combined social Critism with comedy and sentiment to create a tone that the world identifies as Victorian lake chancer and Shakespeare before him. Dickens enjoyed inviting or vast array of memorable character in novels such as «Olive Twist (1837 -39), «A Tale of Two Cities» (1899) and «Great expectative (1860–61) His heart felt Critism helped to change British institution that badly needed reform, especially prisons and schools Charles Dickens was the most popular British author of the Victorian Age, the more than a hundred years after his death his work is still popular both in print and in dramatic and musical versions. The magic that millions still find in Dickens novels can be traced at least in part to the eccentric, colorful array of characters that he created, the gullible Rickwick of «The Rickwick Papers». (1836–37) the villainous Fagin of «Oliver Twist» (1837–39) the pathetic little Nell of «The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) the misetly zeroage of «A Christmas Card» (1843) the Shiffles Micarofer of «David Copperfield» (1849–50), the bite Miss Havisham of «Great Expectations» (1860–1861).

Conclusion

 I love Charles Dickens' language and style. Whoever is reading this may have little or no respect for my opinions, thinking that I am to young to comprehend the greatness of the plot and language, and I admit that I probably do not completely appreciate this classic piece of literature.

In my opinion, Charles Dickens has a very interesting relationship with the visual arts.  Not only did he work with some of the most well-known illustrators of his day (George Cruikshank, John Leech), he inspired other incredible illustrators like Arthur Rackham as well as authors and illustrators to this day.  When we say something is “Dickensian,” we don’t just mean it is like something from his time period.  I don’t think the terms Victorian and Dickensian are interchangeable.  With all thingsDickens there is this wonderful combination of naive enthusiasm tempered with horrible and dark tragedy.  Draw someone in a top hat and stiff shirt collar and you might say he is a Victorian.  Place a slightly over-sized top hat on a bright-eyed youth and then in the background place a dark and disheveled man lurking and eyeing the youth, and now you have drawn something Dickensian.  Dickens evoked a feeling of narrative and you can picture it with your mind’s eye. Dickens novels were episodic and lent themselves perfectly to illustrators who wanted to use a vignette to capture the mood and moment of a scene in his works. Try illustrating a moment in a James Joyce novel.  Good luck! Even fellow writers like Anthony Trollope and George Eliot could not quite come to the level of a captured moment in writing (in my opinion).  For a really wonderful resource and archive of Dickens’ illustrators and illustrations, you can visit the link below. I was trying to think of how Dickens had influences the visual arts and popular culture, and of course, it usually comes back to A Christmas Carol.  Would I have watched every single episode of Disney’s Duck Tales if there weren’t a Scrooge McDuck from A Christmas Carol?  I think there is something about the way Dickens wrote characters and character types, that when combined with our impressions and visual memory of things from the Victorian Era, create a motif and an imagery that is uniquely Dickensian and something that authors and illustrators have drawn from ever since.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary

 

aldermen - local government official

articled clerks - young men who were apprenticed to lawyers for 5 years.

beadle - a minor parish official whose duties include ushering and preserving order at services and sometimes civil functions. Some parishes hired them to run the workhouse after the 1834 New Poor Law was passed as was the case with Bumble, the beadle in Oliver Twist.

beerhouse - a place where one could sell beer for payment of an annual fee of two guineas, promoted by the government in the 1830s to divert the poor from gin.

blind man's buff - popular parlor game in which the contestant is blindfolded and then must catch another player and then guess who he had caught. The game dates from ancient times. Blind man's buff is played by Samuel Pickwick and friends at the Christmas party at Dingley Dell in The Pickwick Papers, and at Christmas parties in A Christmas Carol.

Bow Street Runners - detective force organized by novelist Henry Fielding and his brother John in 1750. The Runners worked for fees and rewards. They went out of existence in 1829 when Robert Peel organized London's first police force.

Candlemas - church festival, observed February 2, celebrating the purification of the Blessed Virgin and the feast of the presentation of Christ in the Temple.

Chancery - English court of equity law, merged with common law courts in 1873. Dickens pointed out the absurdity of chancery cases in Bleak House. He had gained first hand experience when he won chancery cases against those who pirated editions of A Christmas Carol, and then lost more money in court costs than he was realizing from the book's sales.

charity boy - a student in a private charitable school for the very poor. Noah Claypool is a charity boy in Oliver Twist.

Chartism - working class movement that advocated reforms that went beyond the Reform act of 1832 including universal suffrage for men and eliminating property qualification for Parliament

. City - term referring to the old portion of London within the medieval city walls. Later became the financial district as Londoners moved to the suburbs and commuted.

Claret - a dry red wine from Bordeaux France.

Cockney - resident of east London; more specifically, to be a true Cockney you had to be born within hearing distance of the bells of St. Mary Le Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London. Style of speech used by a Cockney. The best known Cockney in Dickens is Samuel Pickwick's servant Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers.

courier - a traveler's paid attendant, traveling ahead to make arrangements. Dickens employs a French courier for his travels in Pictures from Italy.

Dickensian - relating or similar to something described in the books of the 19th century British writer, Charles Dickens, especially living or working conditions that are below an acceptable standard.

Doctors Commons - area south of St. Paul's Cathedral where the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts were located. Dickens, in Sketches by Boz called Doctors' Commons "the place where they grant marriage-licenses to love-sick couples, and divorces to unfaithful ones; register the wills of people who have any property to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen who call ladies by unpleasant names."

Great Exhibition - 1851 celebration of technology housed at the Crystal Palace built in Hyde Park by Joseph Paxton. The exhibition was the idea of Prince Albert, who conceived it to celebrate the Industrial Revolution. Dickens visited the Exhibition in 1851. The Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham, in south London, in 1854 and accidentally burned down in 1936.

Great Fire - fire which destroyed much of central London in September 1666. (Read contemporary account in the London Gazette)

Inimitable - nickname given to Dickens by his early schoolmaster, Mr. Giles. The term means 'impossible to imitate, unique'. Dickens later referred to himself as 'The Inimitable'.

L.L. - Literary LadiesLowestoft - seaside town in Suffolk. David Copperfield goes to Lowestoft with Mr. Murdstone to meet Mr. Quinion.

maid-of-all-work - maid, usually a young girl, hired as the only servant in the house. Charlotte is maid-of-all-work for Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver Twist.

N.B. - nota bene - note well, take notice

Newgate Calendar - stories about sensational crimes committed by inmates of Newgate Prison. The first edition came out in 1773 and the last in 1826. Dickens used the term "Newgate Calendar" to refer to crimes of every sort.

Walker - an expression that expressed disbelief. In A Christmas Carol, when the reformed Scrooge asks the boy in the street to go and buy the prize turkey, the boy exclaims "Walk-er."

workhouses - also known as the union, poorhouse, or simply "the house." Publicly supported institutions to which the sick, destitute, aged, and otherwise impoverished went for food and shelter. After the New Poor Law was passed in 1834 the workhouse became little more than a prison for the poor. Civil liberties were denied, families were separated, and human dignity was destroyed. The meager diet instituted in the workhouse prompted Dickens to quip that the poor were offered the choice of "being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Used literature and sources.

 

1. http://www. allbest.ru
2. http://www. ziyonet.uz
3. http://www.victorianweb.org
4. http://www.gradesaver.com
5. http://www.dickens-online.info
6. An  anthology  of  English literature XIX.