The Companion to Martin ChuzzlewitHelm Information Limited, 2001 - 554 sivua "Critical responses to Martin Chuzzlewit (1943-44) have varied. His sixth novel has been recognised as Dickens's first mature work and as an achievement of less certain status. By examining the overlapping contexts within which Dickens wrote, The Companion to 'Martin Chuzzlewit' makes original contributions to our understanding of Martin Chuzzlewit and its critical reception. The notes revise and expand the conventional wisdom regarding the sources for the American chapters, demonstrating that Dickens drew on a much wider field of writings about America than has been traditionally acknowledged. A more complete context provides insight into Dickens's composing process, allows us to read more accurately the ideological ground on which he constructed his view of America, and sheds light on the plot anomalies surrounding young Martin's emigration. The notes show how in fictionalising his own firsthand experiences, Dickens simultaneously engaged in a quite specific process of revising other travel accounts. Dickens, the rhetorician, emerges as his characters engage the claims and counterclaims of other travel writers in order to make the best case for the novelist's increasingly negative and cynical view of America. By reading Martin Chuzzlewit in the light of contemporary professional journals, Nancy Aycock Metz also exposes in a more finely nuanced way issues of that period which underlay Dickens's portrayal of Pecksniff, young Martin and the architectural scene. In particular, Martin's helplessness and escapism, his naive reliance on winning a prize or making his fortune against all odds are shown to be not merely personal failings but professional pitfalls particularly affecting young architects.Finally, the notes point to previously unidentified influences on the plot and characters of Martin Chuzzlewit. They also illuminate the impact on Dickens's thinking of a wide range of texts, from the Bridgewater Treatises to the Bible, from popular songs and newspaper advertisements to medical treatises and parliamentary reports"--Unedited summary from book jacket. |
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