Steven Marcus (1928-2018): A Tribute

Marcus was claiming that Dickens had to be read as art, and that critical appreciation had suffered from his being treated as either only a great 'entertainer' (Leavis in his earlier writings), or as 'only' a social historian or creator of an idealised Victorian 'Dickens wor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDickensian Vol. 114; no. 505; pp. 157 - 116
Main Author Tambling, Jeremy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London The Dickens Fellowship 01.07.2018
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Summary:Marcus was claiming that Dickens had to be read as art, and that critical appreciation had suffered from his being treated as either only a great 'entertainer' (Leavis in his earlier writings), or as 'only' a social historian or creator of an idealised Victorian 'Dickens world' -the Humphry House tradition, which also underrated Dickens's novels as art. Yet while Marcus's Freudianism has inspired much good criticism, it is interesting to see Michel Foucault's objection in the opening of his The History of Sexuality (1976) to the emphasis Marcus gives to social repression, particularly on the place the Victorians gave to pornography (in his book The Other Victorians'). JEREMY TAMBLING's most recent book on Dickens is Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby and the Dance of Death (forthcoming from Routledge).
ISSN:0012-2440