Content. Introduction

Content.
Introduction……………..
Chapter I. Charles Dickens and his biography.
I.1 Biography….
I.2 Literary style of Charles Dickens
I.3 Literary techniques and Dickens’ Critical Realism….
Chapter II. Charles Dickens as a founder of Christmas Genre in British literature.

II.1 Why Dickens Wrote 'A Christmas Carol

II.2 Charles Dickens, Father of Modern Christmas

Conclusion………………
Glossary………
References…………

Introduction
The early years of the Victorian England was a time of rapid economic development as well as serious social problems. For a time England was the “workshop of the world.” Toward the mid-century, England had reached its highest point of development as a world power. And yet beneath the great prosperity and richness, there existed widespread poverty and wretchedness among the working class. Ideologically, the Victorians experienced fundamental changes. The rapid development of science and technology, new inventions and discoveries in geology, astronomy, biology and anthropology drastically shook people’s religious convictions. The religious collision that started from the early nineteenth century continued and was intensified by the disputes over evolutionary science. In this period, the novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. Among the famous novelists of the time were the critical realists like Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell and Anthony Trollope. While sticking to the principle of faithful representation of the 18^th-century realist novel, they carried their duty forward to the criticism of the society and the defence of the mass. Although writing from different points of view and with different techniques, they shared one thing in common, that is, they were all concerned about the fate of the common people. They were angry with the inhuman social institutions, the decaying social morality as represented by the money-worship and Utilitarianism, and the widespread misery, poverty and injustice. Their truthful picture of people’s life and bitter and strong criticism of the society had done much in awakening the public consciousness to the social problems and in the actual improvement of the society. And in the last few decades there were also George Eliot, the pioneering woman who, according to D.H. Lawrence, was the first novelist that “started putting all the actions inside,” and Thomas Hardy, that Wessex man who not only continued to expose and criticize all sorts of social iniquities, but finally came to question and attack the Victorian convention and morals. The Victorian age also produced a host of great prose writers: Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Babington Cacaulay, Matthew Arnold, John Henry Newman, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin and Thomas Henry Huxley. The poetry of this period was mainly characterized by experiments with new styles and new ways of expression. Among those famous experimental poets was Robert Browning who created the verse novel by adopting the novelistic presentation of characters. Other poets like Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Edward Fitzgerald, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his talented sister Christina, Gerald Manley Hopkins and Algernon Charles Swinburne all made their respective attempts at poetic innovations and helped open up new ways for the twentieth-century modern poetry. Victorian literature, in general, truthfully represents the reality and spirit of the age. The high-spirited vitality, the down-to-earth earnestness, the good-natured humor and unbounded imagination are all unprecedented. In almost every genre it paved the way for the coming century, where its spirits, values and experiments are to witness their bumper harvest.GENERAL CHARASTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE 1. - Prose: The beginning of a new kind of prose, the lyric prose, is a prose that not only communicate ideas, it express it beautifully. In this time the readers wanted for advice from authority and some writers provided advise, people needed a guide. E.g. Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman, Mathew Arnold. It's full of prepositions because of this didactic style and parallelisms.2. - Poetry: It was considered superior than prose, novel theatre. They said that the writing of a genius must be poetry. There were two main romantic inheritances in poetry:1.- the use of retrospective forms: archaic language. They revived many old forms (particularly the mixture of lyric and elegy which influenced others forms like epigram).2.- experimentation with genres. Some poets continued the movement of colloquial diction into poetry (Robert Browning)3. - Novel: The main theme is man in society (family, business, friends...). they don't speak abut the past, speak about things that were happening in that time. (Dickens, Brontës).4. - Drama: Theatre had a little importance (Oscar Wilde, George Bernal Shawn)THE BRONTËS - Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)- Emily Brontë (1818-1848)- Anne Brontë (1820-1849) “The present brilliant school of novelists in England, whose graphic and eloquent descriptions have revealed more political and social truths to the world than have all the politicians, publicists and moralists added together, has pictured all sections of the middle class, beginning with the “respectable” rentier and owner of government stocks, who looks down on all kinds of “business” as being vulgar, amd finishing with the small shopkeeper and lawyer’s clerk. How have they been described by Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte and Mrs. Gaskell? As full as self-conceit, prudishness, petty tyranny and ignorance. And the cvivilized world confirmed their verdict in a damning epigram which it has pinned on that class, that it was servile to ots social superiors and despotic to its social inferiors.”In the thirties of the XIX century English capitalism entered a new stage of developmnet. England became a classical capitalist country. At the same time England was experiencing an aggravation of contradictions both at home and abroad. In India and Ireland national-liberation movements were developing while the metropolies itself witnessed a powerful upsurge of labour movement known as Chartism. The period of this tense struggles was attanded by the appearance of a new literary current – critical realism. The critical realism of the 198^th century flourished inj the fourties and in the beginning of the fifties.The greatness of the English realists lies not only in their satirical portrayal of the bougeosie and in the exposure of the greed and hypocrysy of the ruling classes but also in their profound humanism which is revealed in their sympathy for the labouring people. These writers create posirive characters who are quite alien to the vices of the rich and who are chiefly common people. In the best works of the realist writers, the world of greed andf cruelty is contrasted to a world where all the unwritten laws of humanism rule in defiance of all the sorrows and inflections that befall the heroes.The critical realists of the XIX century didn’t and due to their world outlook couldn’t find a way to eradicate social evils. They strive for no more than improving it by means of reforms which brings them to a futle attempt of trying to reconcile the antagonistic class forces – the bourgeosie and proletariat. The english working class can be, in full justice, called the Chartistr literature, for it developed among the participants of the chartist movement before and after the revolutionary evenys of 1848. The cvhartist writers introduced a new theme into Englishg literature – the struggle of the proletariat for its rights. The second half of ther XIX century in England produced a number of outstanding poets such as Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Charles Algernon Swinburne (1809-1909) and others.Durung the Chartist movement numerous Chartist organizations published various newspapers and magazines which, besides articlesd on political and economical issues, contained poems, short stories and novels written by the Chartists themselves. They strove at describing the world as it was seen by the revolutionary workers.The Chartist poets’ work includes lyrical songs and satires, epical poems ans short epigrams. Heroic and revolutionary in its character, the chartis poetry played an important role in the development of English democratic literature.Thomas Hood (1799-1845) wrote “Song of the Shirt” (1844), “The brudge of Sighs”.Ernest Jones (1819-1869), the most gifted of them all, wrote “The Song pf the Lower Classes”, “The Song of the Workingman”. His verses became the anthems of the chartists. Jones is in full justice considered the founder of the revolutionary proletarian literature inngland.Jerald Massey (1828-1907) created collections “Voices of Freedom” and “Lyrics of Love”.Among the most popular and productive novelists as Charles Dickens, whose work combined social criticism with comedy and sentiment to create a tone that the world identifies as Victorian. Like Chancer and Shakespeare before him, Dickens enjoyed inventing a vast array of memorable characters in novels such as “Oliver Twist” (1837 - 1839), “A Tale of two Cities” (1859), and “Great Expectations” (1860 - 1861). His heartfelt criticism helped to change British institutions that badly needed reform, especially prisons and schools.Charles Dickens was the most popular British author of the Victorian AGE, his work is still popular both in print and in dramatic and musical versions. The magic that millions still find in Dickens novels can be traced, at least in part, to the eccentric, colorful array of characters that he created: the gullible Pickwick of “The Pickwic Papers” (1836 - 1837), the villainous Fagin of “Oliver Twist” (1837 - 1839), the pathetic Little Nell of “The Old Curiosity Shop” (1840 - 1841), the miserly Scrooge of “A Christmas Carol” (1843), the shiftless Micawber of “David Copperfield” (1849 - 1850), the honorable Sydney Carton of “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859), the bitter Miss Havisham of “Great Expectations” (1860 - 1861).