Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickens

by Gordon, John

• ISBN13: 9780230110885
• ISBN10: 0230110886
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

To what extent did Charles Dickens see himself as a medium of forces beyond his conscious control? What did he think such subconscious mechanisms might be, and how did his thoughts on the subject play out in his writings? Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickenstraces these questions through three Dickens novels: Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son, and Bleak House. It is the first book-length study to approach Dickensian psychology from the vantage point of what the speculations of Dickens'srather than of our ownhad to say about mental phenomena, both normal and abnormal.

Author Biography

John Gordon is a Professor of English at Connecticut College. He is the author of four books of literary analysis and over fifty articles and monographs, primarily on modern literature and culture. His most recent books are Physiology and the Literary Imagination: Romantic to Modern and Joyce and Reality: The Empirical Strikes Back.

Table of Contents

“With the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth imminent, we can expect a flood of books on Charles Dickens. I suspect, however, that few of them will display as much critical intelligence as Sensation and Sublimation in Charles Dickens, and I doubt that any will match the positively Dickensian energy, wit, and gusto that Gordon brings to his subject.”--Austin Briggs, Tompkins Professor of English Emeritus, Hamilton College

"This astonishingly alert reading explores the tension between surface narrative and covert allusion. Its many new insights strengthen our sense of Dickens's creative brilliance and deepen our understanding of three of his novels."--Robert Lapides, Professor of English, City University of New York