DICKENS AND SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSEHOLD WORDS

Though Dickens' Shakespearean qualities have often been noted, less attention has been paid to the way that Dickens constructed the terms of his comparison to Shakespeare, scripting the response he received from critics from the nineteenth century to the present and shaping Shakespeare's r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ELH 2011-10, Vol.78 (3), p.533-556
Main Author: POLLACK-PELZNER, DANIEL
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bards
British & Irish literature
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
English literature
Homes
Households
Imagery
Linguistics
Narratives
Narrators
Novelists
Novels
Phrases
Proverbs
Shakespeare plays
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Spouses
Theater
Titles
Wellerisms
Words
Writers
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Summary:Though Dickens' Shakespearean qualities have often been noted, less attention has been paid to the way that Dickens constructed the terms of his comparison to Shakespeare, scripting the response he received from critics from the nineteenth century to the present and shaping Shakespeare's reception as well. Focusing on The Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield in the context of their Victorian reception, this essay shows how Dickens used Shakespearean quotation to market his characters' quotability, turning them into household words and popularizing Shakespeare's sayings in turn, even as he challenged the universality of quotable phrases.
ISSN:0013-8304
1080-6547
1080-6547
DOI:10.1353/elh.2011.0026