Sensation Novels

Sensation Novels English (American-born) Author 843-1916 Recalling an after-dinner visit to Charles Eliot Norton's house in Boston of 1867 (68?), Henry James had this to say of Dickens: "I saw the master -- nothing could be more evident -- in the light of an intense emotion, and I trembled, I remember, in every limb, while at the same time, by a blest fortune, emotion produced no luminous blur, but left him shining indeed, only shining with august particulars. It was to be remarked that those of his dress, which managed to be splendid even while remaining the general spare uniform of the diner-out, had the effect of higher refinements, of accents stronger and better placed, than we had ever in such a connection seen so much as hinted. But the offered inscrutable mask was the great thing, the extremely handsome face, the face of symmetry yet of formidable character, as I at once recognised, and which met my dumb homage with a straight inscrutability, a merciless military eye, I might have prounounced it, an automatic hardness, in fine, which at once indicated to me, and in the most interesting way in the world, a kind of economy of apprehension. Wonderful was it thus to see, and thrilling inwardly to note, that since the question was of personal values so great no faintest fraction of the whole could succeed in not counting for interest. The confrontation was but of a

  • Word count: 9747
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

Gulliver's Travels, Original Sin and the imagery of size

The diminutive insect Gulliver's Travels, Original Sin and the imagery of size SWIFT HAS SOMETIMES BEEN seen as a champion of liberty. In his essay 'Politics vs Literature', however, George Orwell took a different view. 'Swift,' he wrote, 'was one of those people who are driven into a sort of perverse Toryism by the follies of the progressive party of the moment.' At best Swift was 'a Tory Anarchist, despising authority while disbelieving in liberty.' At worst he was a reactionary, opposed not simply to sham science, but to all science, and even to intellectual curiosity itself. Orwell also portrays Swift as a hater of the human body and an authoritarian. 'In a political and moral sense,' writes Orwell, 'I am against him, so far as I understand him.' Yet no sooner has he written these words than he goes on to declare that Swift 'is one of the writers I admire with least reserve' Orwell presents his riven view of Swift as an example of his own sound judgment. His assessment of Swift's political outlook is, I believe, in some respects just. Yet if we consider Orwell's essay sceptically it begins to seem as though he is in a great muddle about Swift. He writes that he is against Swift 'so far as I understand him'. But does he understand him? There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that he does not, and that his difficulty in understanding Swift has been shared by a large

  • Word count: 6653
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

Bakhtin claims that chronotopes "are the organising centres for the fundamental narrative events of a novel ... It can be said without qualification that to them belongs the meaning that shapes the narrative" how accurate an assessment is this?

Bakhtin claims that chronotopes "are the organising centres for the fundamental narrative events of a novel ... It can be said without qualification that to them belongs the meaning that shapes the narrative" how accurate an assessment is this? Throughout this essay I am going to be selective in Bakhtin's theory, not because it isn't beneficial but because it is so detailed and compact. I intend to compare the chronotopes to the structure of Dickens's novels, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. Throughout I will extract quotations from the text but oftern I will make detail references as more than one quotation is needed. Bakhtin uses examples from Greek Romance novels to focus the theory on in order that I will have to drawn comparisons between the Greek romance and Dickens's texts. The chronotope is imperative in a text as it defines the genre. Bakhtin uses the term Chronotope to describe the 'inseparability of space and time'1. It is the connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships which, in literature, are inseparable from each other and are continuously shape by emotions and morals. Constantly we structure our lives around times we have to be located in places, what time we are meeting and where. Time to us is order and something which subconsciously controls us, pushing us to meet its hours. This is the unchanged within a novel and Dickens's narratives are

  • Word count: 4483
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

A literary and linguistic comparative study of three treatments

A literary and linguistic comparative study of three treatments of the theme of the dichotomy that exists between country and city life, especially with regards relationships. Texts used for this study: Charles Dickens's Great Expectations T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City Word Count 3601 INTRODUCTION The dichotomy that exists between city and country life is a theme that many writers have been drawn towards across the centuries, not least since the Industrial Revolution. Typically, the country is associated with idyllic life, a place with a strong sense of community, where relationships are wholesome and meaningful and life ambles past at a leisurely pace, uncomplicated and relatively trouble free. In contrast, city life is most often portrayed as being full of complexities, where individuals work hard and play hard, and where life is self-orientated and relationships are often futile. Through a literary and linguistic comparative study of their works, Great Expectations, The Waste Land, and Tales of the City, respectively, I will attempt to show how Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, and Armistead Maupin deal with this theme, showing to what extent the depiction of city and country life within these texts corresponds or contrasts with the stereotype. In so doing, I will concentrate most fully on the relationships hat exist between the

  • Word count: 3802
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandand What Was Found There.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and What Was Found There "'Curiouser and curiouser!'cried Alice" (Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 9). At the time she was speaking of the fact that her body seemed to be growing to immense proportions before her very eyes; however, she could instead have been speaking about the entire nature of Lewis Carroll's classic works Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. At first glance, the novels seem easy enough to understand. They are simple children's stories filled with fantastical language and wonderful worlds. They follow the basic genre of nearly all children's work, they are written in simple and clear language, feature a young hero and an amazing, unbelievable cast of characters, are set in places of mystery and illusion, and seem far too nonsensical and unusual for adults to enjoy. Even their author, Lewis Carroll, believed them to be children's stories. Yet Carroll and generations of parents and children have been wrong. While these stories may seem typical children's fare, they are distinctly different. Their symbolism, content, and message make the Alice books uniquely intended for adults. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born in 1832 in Victorian England. He was a mathematics professor, but he had a very peculiar dual identity. "Most of the time he was C. L. Dodgson, the shy,

  • Word count: 3438
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

The world of Pope's satires

The world of Pope's satires Despite the fact that Pope made most of his money from subscriptions to his Classical translations, it is for his sharp and gritty satires that he is best remembered and justly revered. It is these that proved most entertaining and that, in literature, remained pertinent personal accounts of social history. During the Restoration and 18th Century satire was a popular generic choice for those writers who wanted to pass comment on some issue of contemporary life whilst still practicing their art. By definition satire is Œthe use of ridicule, irony, sarcasm etc. in speech or writing for the ostensible purpose of exposing and discouraging vice or folly¹. Satire is then necessarily didactic because its aim is to realign its target with a particular ideal from which the satirist believes it to have strayed. This definition alone though is not enough to help us define and examine why Pope delighted in this particular genre and why he used it as a vehicle for his political and moral beliefs. Satire is distinct from pure didacticism because of its ability to entertain; Complaint and teaching alone...do not themselves make satire...satire at all levels must entertain as well as try to influence conduct... (by) the joy of hearing a travesty, a fantastic inversion of the real world. An inversion such as the realm of the Queen of Dullness in the Dunciad.

  • Word count: 3279
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

The importance of the Fens as a surrounding context in Graham Swift's Waterland

The importance of the Fens as a surrounding context in Graham Swift's Waterland In Waterland the Fens play a vital role, they become an insular environment that appears to have little connection with the real world. They introduce many themes and motifs that recur throughout the novel, illustrating emotions and psychological states, and because they act less as a geographical setting than as an active force, their status is enhanced to that of a character in the novel. The majority of the novel is set in the Fens. I believe the Fens as a surrounding context are crucial in the novel, their importance is illustrated by the immediacy with which Tom Crick introduces the reader to the location of the story, just seven lines in he says ' we lived in a fairy-tale place. In a lock-keeper's cottage, by a river, in the middle of the Fens.' The juxtaposition of imprecision, 'a fairy-tale place', and exactness, 'in a lock keeper's cottage...' immediately establishes the setting as both a place of imaginative freedom, and a place of historical investigation, again illustrated a few pages later by the phrase, 'a fairy-tale must have a setting, a setting which, like the settings of all good fairy-tales, must be both palpable and unreal.' The juxtaposition introduces the reader to two different literary styles that Swift interweaves throughout the novel, the first being the lyrical,

  • Word count: 3167
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

Epic storytelling in Disney's universe - Carl Barks and Duckburg

Solveig Kleiveland LLT 4 3.12.2002 EAS-F2F45 James Russel Epic storytelling in Disney's universe: Carl Barks and Duckburg "Duckburg was sort of figured to be near Burbank, but obviously it had to be moved around to fit the requirements of whatever story I was writing. So it became a place of fantasy, like a fairy-tale locale. It had a desert, a lake, a sea, snow, tropical hurricanes, anything that was needed." Carl Barks 1 "Carl Barks is The Comic Book King!" Roy E. Disney2 Duckburg is a 'typically' American town where everything is possible. Situated on the West Coast of Calisota it exists in the hearts and minds of every child who has ever read one of Carl Bark's stories. On a visit to this town you can find Donald Duck trying to raise his nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey, working (for pitiful wages) for his 'umpty-squazillionaire' uncle Scrooge McDuck, and fighting with Gladstone Gander over the affections of Daisy Duck. Gyro Gearloose will be inventing something amazing to prevent the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell from robbing Scrooge, and on the outskirts of town Grandma Duck will be inviting the whole family to a proper country feast. Who was the man who created all this? Carl Barks was born to German parents in 1901. Drawing occupied his time from an early age, but he tried a number of different jobs before he applied successfully to work for Disney in

  • Word count: 3087
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

How Does "Through The Looking Glass" Compare To The Usual Children's Stories Acceptable in The Victorian Era And How Lewis Carroll's Children's Novels May Have Influenced 20th Century Authors.

Julian Coxell 10H 10-2-03 How Does "Through The Looking Glass" Compare To The Usual Children's Stories Acceptable in The Victorian Era And How Lewis Carroll's Children's Novels May Have Influenced 20th Century Authors. "Through The Looking Glass was written by Lewis Carroll in 1872. The story is about a little girl called Alice, a character based on Alice Liddell, one of the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. The book is very different from other stories written at the time; Lewis Carroll takes his heroine, Alice, into a world of fantasy to be found behind her lounge mirror. Alice is made into a very independent little girl, making many of her own decisions and at times being quite rude. This would not have been how a child would have behaved in Victorian Society; they were seen and not heard! Once through the looking glass Alice finds herself in a world where everything is back to front: she has to walk towards the house to walk in the garden and events are felt before they happen: the White Queen puts a bandage on her finger, then screams with pain and then pricks her finger. All the animals and flowers in the book are given human characteristics and can talk. "she spoke again, in a timid voice-almost in a whisper. "And can all the flowers talk?" "As well as you can," said the Tiger-Lily. "And a great deal louder." She also meets nursery rhyme

  • Word count: 3052
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay

Discuss the figure of the 'gentleman' in Dickens' 'Great Expectations', contextualising the novel as much as possible.

Discuss the figure of the 'gentleman' in Dickens' 'Great Expectations', contextualising the novel as much as possible The concept of the nineteenth century gentleman was always somewhat confused. Whilst members of the aristocracy immediately qualified, in the age of industrial progression and with people outside the upper class coming into great amounts of wealth, there seemed to be a need to define who did or didn't qualify. To be considered a gentleman meant you had to have a certain social status; to simply behave with dignity, manners and respect was nothing if you weren't projecting the right social image, because only then would you be seen as an individual worthy of recognition. The focus of 'Great Expectations' is upon Philip Pirrip, or 'Pip'. As the novel is told from his perspective as he recounts the events of his youth, he takes the role of two characters; Pip the protagonist, whose activities make up the bulk of the book and Pip the narrator, who provides an older and wiser perspective on the actions of his youth. The two characters are made distinguishable from one another with great care by Dickens, as he makes sure to give them each an individual voice; the older narrator has perspective and maturity, whilst the younger protagonist gives his immediate thoughts and feelings on what happens to him as it happens. This is most evident in the novel's early

  • Word count: 2890
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
Access this essay