The development of the novel of upbringing in the English literature.

Seminar 2. The Novel of Upbringing in the Creative

Oeuvre of Charles Dickens (based on the analysis of David Copperfield)

The development of the novel of upbringing in the English literature.

The emergence of the literary genre of the novel of upbringing (Germ. Bildungsroman) in the English literature was greatly influenced by the translation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship in 1823 [5, 7]. However, the origins of it may be traced as far back as Enlightment novels of Richardson, Fielding and Smollett, and perhaps even Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Following the ideas of John Locke (1632-1704), the English philosopher to whom we owe the theory of sensible experience, the representatives of the Enlightment period entertained the belief that only an all-rounded education, harmonious with nature, could inscript on that “tabula rasa” of man his future role as a worthy citizen of a society governed by reason. The genre continued its development in the 19^th century in the works of Ch. Dickens, W. Thackeray, G. Meredith, Th. Hardy, and S. Butler in the frame of the realistic novel and well into the 20^th century where its traces can be found in Realism as well as in Modernism in the works of J. Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and J. Galsworthy, A. Bennett.

Among the main reasons for the flourishment of the novel of upbringing in the English literature X puts the interest to the ways in which man’s character is formed under the influence of the society. The researcher lists the following genre-constituting features of the novel of upbringing:

· Biographical time prevails over historical time, which is the result of a more general tendency of the lyric mode prevailing over the epic one;

· Textual time and place are governed by the idea of learning by experience, which can only be exercised in a certain spatio-temporal continuity. This results in the marked periods or cycles in the description of the character’s coming-of-age, until his self-identification and socialization can take place and his “spiritual development somehow stabilizes” [5, 5].

Among these periods the researcher distinguishes three main structure-forming constituents of the classical novel of upbringing: childhood and teenage years, the first major conflict caused by the character leaving their home, years of learning and travel, when the character is “tried” by life and forms his unique experience and, finally, the self-identification phase. The character’s spiritual movement can be conducted upwards (the positive model) as well as downwards (“career novel” [5, 7]). And if the upward movement is characterized by the attainment of the merging with the existing historical society and undertaking a self-fulfilling social role, the downward movement often results in the inevitable spiritual or even physical death of the character reflecting the individual’s personal upheaval against traditional society’s values and roles in an attempt to come to terms with his unique existential needs. In English literature the first type can be retrieved in the classical realistic 19^th century novel, the second – in the literature of the end of the 19^th – beginning of the 20^th centuries [5, 7-8].

2. The novel of upbringing in the creative work of Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) has been pronounced by E. Wilson “A Novelist for All Seasons”. The peculiarity of his complex and vast creative heritage springs from the combination of the esthetic principles of critical (or high) Realism and Romantic, sentimental, didactic and fantastic elements and motives in which his work is abundant. According to Ivasheva, who supports in this case E. Johnson’s opinion, Dickens’s work is distinguished by the tremendous “intensiveness of feeling”, the same intensiveness which manifested itself both in the writer’s personal life and social position. Dickens’s critical and democratic art was directed at those features of historical time and society which prevented an individual of any social rank from attaining personal happiness. Thus the novelist’s attention to the genre of the novel of upbringing that gave him a possibility to depict how the structure and laws of society can work upon an individual’s spiritual development.

Charles Dickens’s oeuvre is traditionally divided into four periods:

I. The works written between 1833-1841 include: essays Sketches by Boz (1836),novels The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1838), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839), Barnaby Rudge (1840), The Old Curiousity Shop (1841). This first period is characterized by the domination of mild humour over irony and satire, by the peculiar style of characterization based on the grotesque amplification/repetition of one detail of appearance or character of the hero and general humanistic optimism.

Dickens addresses the problems of the society’s influence upon a formation of personality in the novels Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. In Nicholas Nickleby, which was devised to criticize social injustice and evil caused by improper upbringing, one finds a satirical account of the state of the British education in the image of the Dawboys Hall. Oliver Twist, despite its structure, can not be strictly defined as the novel of upbringing. Throughout Oliver’s intercourse with the harsh reality of the labour house or the London slums he does not undergo any spiritual transformation and remains a static character unaffected by the communication with classical villains Feigin or Sykes. The polar division of the main characters according to the principle of morale and the unrealistic happy ending of this novel allows critics to account for the Romantic influence evident in this period.

II. Among the works written between 1842-1848 one can name collections of publicist essays American Notes for General Circulation (1842) and Pictures from Italy (1846), short prose series Christmas Tales (1843-1845), novels The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) and Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation (1848).

This period is characterized by the growing force of Dickens’s satire and controversial social views upon his return from the United States. Although Dickens touches upon the problem of the possibility of a young person’s “career” and fulfillment of the “American dream” in Martin Chuzzlewit, the most important text of this period due to its critical force being Dombey and Son.

III. The third period roughly encompasses the fifties and includes novels The Personal History of David Copperfield (1850), Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1853), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859). The general tendency towards democratization and deep understanding of social indiscrepancies of his literature reaches its climax in this period. The writer shows interest in the intriguing situations and complicated plot, as well as psychological characterization.

David Copperfield occupies a unique place among the realistic novels of this period, it being a classical example of the novel of upbringing in the work of Dickens.

IV.In the sixties Dickens created two major novels: Great Expectations (1861) and Our Mutual Friend (1864). They are characterized by the overal mood of disillusionment and pre-occupation with psychological detail with reference to character, which often turns out to be pathological.

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