The Uneasy Balance between Political Involvement and Literary Status for Charles Dickens in His Social Novels

狄更斯社會小說中的政治牽連與文學地位之失衡

10.7060/KNUJ-HA.200712.0039

白思明(Si-Mon White)

狄更斯 ； 濟貧法 ； 功利主義 ； 政治經濟學 ； Charles Dickens ； poor law ； utilitarianism ； political economy

高雄師大學報：人文與藝術類

23期（2007 / 12 / 01）

39 - 56

英文

由於狄更斯寫作中涉入社會與政治議題，使其文學聲譽不論於其生前或過世之後都遭到質疑。本文檢視狄更斯描寫這些政治與社會議題時，如何改變方法以解決文學牽扯時政的問題。 本文以《孤雛淚》和《艱難時世》為例，說明狄更斯如何處理文學和政治這兩個相反的需求。一八三○年代寫成的《孤雛淚》是狄更斯的早期作品，當中因文學與政治動機相互牴觸，損及作品的一致性；到了一八五○年代《艱難時世》完成時，已經是狄更斯的寫作中期，這本作品是他的社會政治小說已臻至名家巨作的典範，一方面避開了文字中相互牴觸的敘述，另一方面卻未落入二十世紀社會寫實主義的枯燥乏味。 狄更斯廣受讀者喜愛，而後現代主義評論家也回頭推崇他的小說，兩者或許都歸功於他在一八三○年代末期所寫的那些「龐雜怪物」，然而若非後來發展出結合藝術與社會政治元素的世故文風，進而創造出天衣無縫的完整作品，狄更斯的典範地位也不可能崛起，更遑論持續至今。

This paper traces the challenges to Charles Dickens's literary status posed by his career-long engagement with the social and political problems largely of the working- and lower middle-class segments of British society, challenges which plagued the author during his lifetime as well as in his literary posterity. The paper follows the progress made by the author in integrating the often contradictory and intractable demands of the political and literary spheres between the 1830s and the 1850s. It begins with a general discussion of the uncomfortable jostling between literary and political elements of the writer's work, and moves on to more specific examples of the conflict over utilitarianism and political economy, as shown in Oliver Twist and Hard Times, which serve as examples of his early- and middle-period work. Where the work of the earlier decade is fractured by opposing motivations, the work of Dickens's middle period is a masterful example of the socio-political novel, avoiding a clash of narratives within the text without resorting to the dry twentieth-century measure of social realism. Dickens's popular reputation, as well as his postmodernist resuscitation, may rely upon the 'loose baggy monsters' that emerged from the late 1830s, but his canonical status could not have arisen or endured without the sophistication he developed in the marriage of artistic and sociopolitical elements to produce a seamless whole.

1. Trevelyan, George M. English Social History. London, The Reprint Society, 1948
2. Altick, Richard D.(1973).Victorian People and Ideas.New York:Norton.
3. Cannon, John(ed.)(1997).The Oxford Companion to British History.Oxford:Oxford University Press.
4. Dickens, Charles(1983).Oliver Twist.London:Macmillan Education.
5. Dickens, Charles(2001).Hard Times.New York:Norton.
6. Eagleton, Terry(2005).The English Novel.Oxford:Blackwell Publishing.
7. Eastman, Arthur(Ed.)(1992).The Norton Reader.New York:Norton.
8. Jordan, John O.(Ed.)(2001).The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
9. Lerner, Robert,Meacham, Standish,Burns, Edward McNall(1988).Western Civilisations.New York:Norton.
10. Slater, Michael (Ed.)(1996).Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers.London:Phoenix.
11. Williams, Raymond(1963).Culture and Society 1780-1950.London:Pelican.