R. C. CHURCHILL'S ESSAY
 

    "The criticism he met with in his own time stressed the melodramatic rather than the dramatic nature of his genius; the admiring Ruskin regretted that he 'chooses to speak in a circle of stage-fire'. It would be idle to pretend that the melodramatic side of Dickens is not very obvious, though it could vary from the crudeness of  Nicklebyto the comparative delicacy of  Barnaby Rudge , A Tale of Two Cities , Bleak House , and Edwin Drood . Dickens did not progress in his art in quite the straightforward way of Shakespeareand many lesser writers. His great things are scattered throughout his work, and he has no masterpiece without serious weakness [...]"
    "[...] The other novels that Dickens worte in the  late forties and fifties are not normaly read in childhood at all (though some of them are now frequently read in school as set-texts for O and A levels); only a modern Young Bailey, an abstract of all the literary reviewing of our time, could hope to make much of them at such a tender age. Their common feature is a criticism of Victorian society which, like that in the workhouse chapters of Oliver Twist , goes deep enough to be a universal criticism of human nature. Like  Oliver [Twist] , they thus have for us today a twofold interest: they can be interpreted historycally, or as examples of Dickens's mature art. For though his development as a literary artist was very uneven it would de idle to deny that in these novels of the fifties - Bleak House (1853-3), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855-7)- he reached at once his most penetrating criticism of his age and his most assured grasp of his material. The novel which immediately preceded [David] Copperfield -  Dombey and Son (1846-8)- is in the same category as these three, but here Dickens's grasp was much less sure. There are some fine things in  Dombey [and Son] , but in general the novel leaves an impression of sentimentality which the author possibly never intended. In comparison with  Bleak House and  Little Dorrit , its criticism of Victorian life - money is the chief character - seems altogether too obvious to be convincing, though   Kathleen Tillotson  and F. R. Leavis have certainly found the novel powerfully successful. I see in  Dombey [and Son] , on the whole, a brave attempt at what Dickens more successfully achieved in the later novels.
    Chestertonthought Bleak House the best of Dickens[click here to see Chesterton's essay], and it must be added that it is, at any rate, among the best by reason of some most un-Chestertonian qualities. In general, Chesterton was an early Dickensian, a critic who found Dickens's greatest genius in the more exuberant early novels, in particular in [The] Pickwick [Papers] . Not that Bleak House is gloomy; its strength lies in its combination of diverse qualities, which are all given to us in the first twenty chapters, the first third of the novel. Never before had Dickens commanded so surely such a wide range: the comedy of Bleak House is only inferior to that of  Chuzzlewit, and its social criticism strikes a good deal deeper; its sentiment and its melodrama are so under control that they cease to become weaknesses of any serious order; and its symbolism is of a subtlety never before attempted.
    The book opens with fog, both actual in the London streets and symbolic in the Court of Chancery. Before long we meet Krook, 'called among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor', and his junkshop symbolizes the Court. The drama of Chesney world is connected with the criticism of fashionable society - not so well done as in Little Dorrit and  Our Mutual Friend , but of an edge sufficiently cutting to save the drama from being merely melodramatic. The first-person narration of Esther Summerson is a remarkable tour de force for a male novelist, and its sentiment, compared with that of most of the early novels, is severely under control. The comedy of Guppy and Snagsby and Mr Chadband is very well done; and Mrs Jellyby with her 'telescopic philanthropy', and even more Mr Skimpole, are examples of selfish behaviour of a sublety quite beyond that of Chuzzlewit.
    The portrait of Skimpole is one of the best things in Dickens. The eloquence of such characters as Chadband had been given us before; but Skimpole strikes a new note, a note to be struck again in Little Dorrit's father. Chapter VI, where Skimpole is arrested for debt and has 'the epicure-like feeling' that he 'would prefer a novelty in help... develop generosity in a new soil', is comedy in its highest level. His treatment of the man who comes to arrest him is too long to quote in full, but here is the gist:

                 'Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!' Mr Skimpole gently reasoned
             with him, as he made a little drawing of his head on the fly-leaf of a book. 'Don't be ruffled by
             your occupation. We can separate you from your office... We are not so prejudiced as to suppose
             that in private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal of poetry in your
             nature, of which you may not be conscious...
                        'But when you came down here... it was a fine day. The sun was shining, the wind was
             blowing, the lights and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing.'
                        'Nobody said they warn't, in my hearing...'
                        '...you didn't think... to this effect. ?? Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to
             hear the wind blow; loves to watch the changing lights and shadows; loves to hear the birds, those
             choristers in Nature's great cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold
             Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only birthright!'' You thought nothing to
             that effect?'
                        'I - certainly- did- NOT,' said Coavinses... utterly renouncing the idea...'
                        'Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of business!' said Mr
             Skimpole thoughtfully."

        "[...]Gradgrind and Bounderby [Hard Times] are more credible figures than Bumble (or Mr Murdstone), as Sissy Jupe is more human than Oliver (or Little Net). There is Dickensian comedy in the relations between Bounderby and Mrs Sparsit(whose husband eas a Powler) and between Gradgring and the circus people; there is no melodrama at all; and the sentimentality is even more severely controlled than in Bleak House. These are impressive excallences. On the other side, we have the relative failure of Stephen Blackpool, bound up to some extent, we must presume, with Dickens's comparative ignorance of the North. He knew London through and through, and no novel shows this more than Bleak House[...]"

    "[...]One of the signs of Dickens's greatness is taht, having reached perfection in one field of his art, he turned to other fields and won new triumphs. There are great things in all the novels; Chuzzlewit, Bleak House and Little Dorrit seem to me the major achivements; anumber of others seem to me masterpieces, if of a lesser order; and some of the novels in which we can most easily see weak points will probanly remain among our favourite reading. In this sense, but in no other, Dickens is one of those rare writers whom criticism cannot affect."
 

CHURCHILL, R. C. The new Pelican Guide to English Literature, edited by Boris Ford. Volume 6 (p. 121, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135). Penguin Books, 1982.
 
 
 

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