Product Description

This is the first major study of Dickens's villains. They embody, John argues, the crucial fusion between the 'deviant' and 'theatrical' aspects of his writing. Though there have been many studies of both the macabre and the dramatic Dickens, this book sets up a dialogue between these two main strands. John's wider reappraisal of Dickensian character stems from a belief that post-Romantic criticism and theory has been permeated by an anti-theatrical privileging of the mind. Dickens's characters, by contrast, are commonly modelled on passional prototypes from nineteenth-century melodrama. Her- interdisciplinary study locates the rationale for Dickens's melodramatic characters in his political commitment to the principle of cultural inclusivity and his related resistance to 'psychology'. Melodramatic villains function as the key site of Dickens's responses to theatricality, psychology, and cultural inclusiveness. Dickens's Villains suggests a new way of understanding the cultural and political implications of his melodramatic aesthetics

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #447511 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"This book has many virtues...It is admirably well informed about Dickens's whole oeuvre...The exposition is clear and 'reader friendly, '...And all praise to Oxford University Press for setting the notes, often substantive, at the bottom of the page. The entire production declares, justly, that John's book is a major, original, and potentially long-lasting reconsideration of undervalued dimensions of Dickens's ideology and aesthetics...Dickens's Villains is one of the freshest interpretations of Dickens in a generation...It is John's signal achievement to demonstrate in this book, both theoretically and historically, the vitalizing theatrical roots of Dickens's popular art and the ways that his characters bring the scattered parts and readers together." --Nineteenth Century Literature
"The most exciting study of Dickens for years, brilliantly drawing together approaches from psychology and from popular theatre, and leading to a major revaluation of Dickens's conception of character.... Dickens studies will never be quite the same as this book makes its impact."--Dickens Forum
"One of the freshest interpretations of Dickens in a generation."--Nineteenth-Century Literature
"[A] shrewd investigation.... [John has] capacity to see the point of Dickens's anti-intellectualism without for a moment compromising her own scholarly rigour."--Times Literary Supplement
"Dickens's Villains is a rich book...and one full of suggestive insights."--Victorian Studies

Review
This is a strong, provocative contribution to Dickens studies, to our deeper understanding of his debt to the complex protean creature that is 'popular culture' - and his contribution to it. (The Review of English Studies )

John's book is a major, original, and potentially long-lasting reconsideration of undervalued dimensions of Dicken's ideology and aesthetics. (Robert L. Patten )

It is cause for celebration indeed to know that even now Juliet John is at work developing implications of this splendid book in a further study of Dicken's cultural politics. (Paul Schlicke )

icken's Villains is one of the freshest interpretations of Dickens in a generation. The reframing of the conditions for Dickensian characterization is a signal accomplishment, responsibly formulated and challengingly presented as an alternative to the critical traditions of the post-war era. (Robert L. Patten )

Dickens studies and critics of popular culture will owe an enormous debt to Dickens's Villains for so expertly tracing the causes and consequences of the desire to recuperate Dickens for 'literature'. However, this book is not just a ground breaking study of Dickens's villains in relation to popular cultural forms ... This book is important because it rethinks Dickens's identity as a novelist, a cultural critic and within the disciplines of literary and cultural studies. It enables Dickens to be thought about in entirely new cultural and philosophical contexts. At the end of the book, John looks forward to a 'definitive' book on Dickens and popular culture. She herself is uniquely placed to offer the world such an invaluable work. (Susan Rowland, Newsletter of the Association for Research in Popular Fictions )

Customer Reviews

brilliant
This is the most exciting study of Dickens for years, brilliantly drawing together approaches from psychology and from popular theatre, and leading to a major revaluation of Dickens's conception of character. I confidently predict that Dickens studies will never be quite the same as this book makes its impact.