Active Vocabulary

power to expose to seem

to criticize to compare to confront

to fill point of view adventure

sympathy fate inspiration

Exercises

I. Find English equivalents of the following Russian words and word combinations:

билль о реформе; взойти на трон; передать политическую власть; глубоко переживать социальные проблемы; с исторической точки зрения; заставляет слепую судьбу казаться ещё более жестокой; страстная мольба о сочувствии; подчёркивать различие; противостоять злу; обратиться за вдохновением к средним векам; только в последние два десятилетия.

II. Answer the questions:

1. When did the Victorian period begin?

2. What is characteristic of that period?

3. Why is Dickens one of the best loved English novelists?

4. What did Dickens expose in his novels?

5. What did other novelists of the time write about?

6. Who were the leading poets of the Victorian age?

7. Who were Pre-Raphaelites?

8. How was drama developed in the 19th century?

III. Analyze the following words and translate them into Russian:

injustice, naturalized, comparable, inescapable, unforgettably.

IV. Use the words of active vocabulary in sentences of your own.

V. Make up a plan of the text.

VI. Retell the text according to your plan.

Charles dickens (1812-1870) Questions and tasks.

I. Pay attention to the pronunciation of the proper and geographical names:

Charles Dickens [tSRlz 'dIkInz]

Haffam ['hxfqm] Portsmouth ['pPtsmqT]

Hampshire ['hxmpSIq] Chatham ['tSxthqm]

Boz ['bPz] Pickwick ['pIkwIk]

Oliver Twist ['PlIvq twIst]

Nickolas Nickleby ['nIkqlqs 'nIklbI]

Barnaby Rudge ['bRnqbI 'rAdZ]

Martin Chuzzlewit ['mRtIn 'tSAlzwIt]

Bill Sikes ['bIl sQIks] Nancy ['nxnsI]

Fagin ['feIgIn] Newgate ['njHgeIt]

Yorkshire ['jLkSIq] Victorian [vIk'tLrIqn]

Dombey and Son ['dPmbI qnd sAn]

David Copperfield ['deIvId 'kPpqfJld]

Dorrit ['dPrIt] Edwin Drood ['edwIn 'drHd]

Dante ['dRnteI] Cervantes [sE:'vxntIz]

John Milton ['GPn 'mIltqn]

II. Read the text:

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), generally regarded as the greatest English novelist, enjoyed a wider popularity than any previous author had done during his lifetime. His long career saw changes in the reception of his novels, but none of them was disregarded. The range, compassion, and intelligence of his apprehension of his society and its shortcomings enriched his novels and made him both one of the great forces in 19th-century literature and an influential spokesman of the conscience of his age.

Early years. Charles John Haffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, but left it in infancy. His happiest childhood years were spent in Chatham (1817-22), an area that he often showed in his novels. From 1822 he lived in London, until, in 1860, he moved to Chatham, where he had a country house. His origins were middle class. His father, a clerk in the navy office, was well paid, but his strange actions often brought the family to financial disaster. In 1824 the family reached bottom. Charles, the eldest son, had been withdrawn from school and began to work in a factory, and his father went to prison for debt. These shocks deeply affected Charles. And later in his novels he showed the prison, the lost children, the poor mothers and described them with sympathy. His schooling ended at 15. He became a clerk in a solicitor’s office, then a shorthand reporter in the law courts (thus gaining a knowledge of the legal world often used in the novels), and finally a parliamentary and newspaper reporter. These years left him with a lasting affection for journalism and contempt both for the law and for the Parliament.

Beginning of literary career. Much drawn to the theatre, Dickens nearly became a professional actor in 1832. In 1833 he began contributing stories and descriptive essays to magazines and newspapers. In February 1836 his “Sketches by Boz” appeared. The same month he was invited to provide a comic serial narrative to accompany engravings by a well-known artist. Seven weeks later the first installment of “The Pickwick Papers” appeared. Within a few months Dickens was the most popular author of the day.

During these years he wrote “Oliver Twist” (1837-39), “Nickolas Nickleby” (1838-39), “The Old Curiosity Shop” (1840-41) and “Barnaby Rudge” (1841). Exhausted at last, he then took a five-month vacation in America, receiving great honours as a literary celebrity. A radical critic of British institutions, he had expected more from “the republic of my imagination”, but he had nothing to admire. Some of his feelings appeared in “American Notes” (1842) and “Martin Chuzzlewit” (1843-44).

“The Pickwick Papers” began as high-spirited farce and contained many traditional jokes. But it displayed many of the features that were to be blended in different proportions throughout his fiction: satirical attacks on social evils; an encyclopedic knowledge of London; pathos; great powers of character creation; a wonderful ear for characteristic speech; a strong narrative impulse; and a prose style which was highly individual and creative. What is remarkable of his first novel is that it created a new tradition of popular literature, but is one of his best known novels in the world.

His self-assurance and artistic ambitiousness had appeared in “Oliver Twist”, where he rejected the temptation to repeat the successful “Pickwick” formula. Though containing much comedy still, “Oliver Twist” is more concerned with social and moral evil (the workhouse and the criminal world); it culminates in Bill Sikes’s murdering Nancy and Fagin’s last night in the condemned cell at Newgate. The novel “Nicholas Nickleby” reverted to the “Pickwick”’s shape and atmosphere, though the indictment of the brutal Yorkshire schools continued the important innovation in England fiction seen in “Oliver Twist” - the spectacle of the lost or oppressed child as an occasion for pathos and social criticism. This was amplified in “The Old Curiosity Shop”, where the death of Little Nell was found overwhelmingly powerful, though a few decades later it became a byword for “Victorian sentimentality”. In “Barnaby Rudge” he attempted another genre, the historical novel, which presented with great vigour and understanding the spectacle of large-scale mob violence.

“A Christmas Carol” (1843), written in a few weeks after “Martin Chuzzlewit”, was the first of his Christmas books (a new literary genre thus created incidentally). It was one great Christmas myth of modern literature. He wanted the Christmas spirit to prevail throughout the year in every family.

At that time he was the best shorthand reporter on the London press and the best amateur actor on the stage. Later he became one of the most successful periodical editors in London. “Domby and Son” (1846-48) was a crucial novel in his development, a product of more thorough planning and maturer thought and the first in which great uneasiness about contemporary society took the place of an important concern with specific social wrongs. “David Coppefield” (1849-50) has been described as a “holiday” from these larger social concerns and most notable for its childhood chapters. Largely for this reason and for its autobiographical interest, it has always been among his most popular novels and was Dickens’ own “favourite child”. It was written in the first person, a new technique for Dickens.

Middle Years. [From 1850 Dickens began to work for “Household Words” (1850-59) and for its successor “All the Year Round” (1859-88). Dickens contributed some serials - “Hard Times” (1854), “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859), and “Great Expectations” (1860-61) - and essays, some of which were collected in “Reprinted Pieces” (1858) and “The Uncommercial Traveller” (1861). He also contributed many items on current political and social affairs. The novels of these years “Bleak House” (1852-53), “Hard Times” (1854), and “Little Dorrit” (1855-57) were much “darker” than their predecessors. They presented a remarkable inclusive and increasingly sombre picture of contemporary society. The satire war harsher, the humour less abundant, and “the happy endings” more subdued than in the early fiction. Technically, the later novels were more coherent, plots being more fully related to themes, and themes being often expressed through a more insistent use of symbols (e.g. the fog in “Bleak House” or the prison in “Little Dorrit”.)]

Last Years. Even in his final novels, Dickens remained inventive and adventurous. “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859) was an experiment, relying less than before on characterization, dialogue, and humour. An exciting and compact narrative, it lacks too many of his strengths to count among his major works. “Great Expectations” (1860-61) resembles “Copperfield” in being a first-person narration and in drawing on parts of Dickens’ personality and experience. Compact like his predecessor, it is Dickens’ most finely achieved novel. “Our Mutual Friend” (1864-65), a large inclusive novel, continues his critique of monetary and class values. Many new elements are introduced into Dickens’ fictional world, but his handling of the old comic-excentries is sometimes mechanical. The last novel of Dickens is “Edwin Drood” (1870) which has not been finished. In April 1869 he gave a short farewell season of readings in London, ending with his famous speech “From these garish lights I vanish now for evermore …” - words repeated on his funeral. He died suddenly on June 9, 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Assessment. Dickens was being compared to Shakespeare for imaginative range and energy. He and Shakespeare are the two unique popular classics that England has given to the world, and they are alike in being remembered not for one masterpiece (as is in case with Dante, Cervantes, or John Milton) but for a creative world, a plurality of works populated by a great variety of figures, in situations ranging from the sombre to the farcical. For the common reader, both Shakespeare and Dickens survive through their characterization, though they offer much else.

III. Answer the questions to discuss the text in detail. Use the text for reference.

1. What were the origins of Dickens? Was his childhood happy? Did it influence his literary works later? How?

2. How did Dickens become the popular author of the day? What works made him famous?

3. What features were blended in many of his novels? What did he criticize and attack in them? What is typical of the main characters in these novels?

4. What new literary genre did Dickens create? How did it happen?

5. Prove the fact that “David Copperfield” was “the favourite child” of Dickens. What new technique did he employ in it?

6. Why did he begin to work for magazines? What serials did he contribute to them?

7. Prove that the novels of this period were “darker” and the satire was harsher.

8. What novels were created in the last years? Did he remain inventive and adventurous in them?

9. Why was Dickens being compared to Shakespeare? Are they being remembered for one masterpiece or for a creative world?

10. Comment on the idea that Ch.Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity than any other previous person had done.

IV. Translate in writing the passage in brackets.

V. Speak on the life and creative work of Ch. Dickens.