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An Uneasy Relationship?: Different Features of Social Criticism in Four Victorian Novels by Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell. Hrafnhildur Haldorsen. The Spark. Gendered perspectives. Researching historical novels by Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell.
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An Uneasy Relationship?:Different Features of Social Criticism in Four Victorian Novels by Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell Hrafnhildur Haldorsen
The Spark • Gendered perspectives. • Researching historical novels by Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell. • An article by Annette B. Hopkins titled “Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell.”
The Article – 1 • Explores their relationship as editor and contributor through correspondence. • Lasted from 1850-1863. • Spanned two magazines: • Household Words • All the Year Round • Gaskell’s letters of response missing.
The Article – 2 • Mutual interest in social conditions. • Dickens eager to secure Gaskell as contributor. • Suggesting “a frank interchange of critical opinion” between them (Hopkins 359). • His involvement in her works visible from the start.
The Article – 3 • 1852: Dickens suggests an alteration to “The Old Nurse’s Story” – Gaskell refuses. • Gaskell shows increased concern for how her works were presented in Dickens’ journal. • North and South: practicality at the expense of artistic freedom.
The Article – 4 • “[A] contest of wills” (Hopkins 372). • Gaskell becomes her own editor. • North and South was Gaskell’s only novel to be published in a magazine under Dickens’ rule. • The Cornhill from 1860, free from “Dickens’ Procrustean bed of serialization” (Hopkins 375).
Aspects Worth Looking Into • The relationship between editor and contributor, esp. in the male dominant publishing business of the Victorian age. • Critical accounts from Dickens and Gaskell’s contemporaries concerning male influences on female writers. • Second wave feminism, esp. Elaine Showalter: • Women’s literature as a literary subculture showing signs of “imitation” and “internalization” (11).
Research Topics • Compare and contrast the authors as writers of social novels: • Bleak House and Hard Times by Dickens • North and South and Mary Barton by Gaskell • Gaskell influenced by Dickens? Imitation? • Further feminist ground for the comparison of ‘androtexts’ and ‘gynotexts’? • Any ideas?
