In Trollope’s novels, we get the feeling that he is describing everyday life and everyday people. Because no one now living was alive during Victorian times, it is difficult for us, even for those among us who have studied the Victorian era, to know for certain what everyday life was like then. Since no one is known to have ascended to heaven while hanging laundry, and since the possibility of such an even seems remote, we can say that Garcia-Marquez does not use realism (or that he uses “magic realism”). If Gabriel Garcia-Marquez decides that one of his characters, Remedios the Beautiful, should ascend to heaven while she is hanging out the laundry, then in the context of 100 Years of Solitude, that is what is real but when we talk about literary realism, we are usually talking about how closely the world of the novel corresponds to the world we inhabit. Of course, any literary realism is an illusion, since the only reality in a literary work is the words on the page. Dickens’ novels seem realistic, but his realism is an illusion.
Trollope’s novels have a far greater level of realism, of verisimilitude. These are fine works, enjoyable to read, with good plots and interesting characters but for me, at least, they lack the magic of Dickens’ works. Perhaps a better portrait of the period can be found in the many novels of Anthony Trollope. While Dickens does, indeed, describe certain aspects of nineteenth-century England, his portrait of the period should not be regarded as all-inclusive.
I mention this point because the present chapter concerns one of my favorite writers, a writer remote from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Charles Dickens.ĭickens, who lived through the middle of the nineteenth century, has come to represent Victorian England for many readers. Theoretically, however, my areas of specialization are the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. As an academic, I am supposed to have an area of specialization, though I have always had trouble focusing on a single area of literature to the exclusion of others. In the Introduction, I wrote that the works I have covered in this book were chosen purely on the basis of my preferences.
0 kommentar(er)
