PHIZ'S BLACK DOLL: INTEGRATING TEXT AND ETCHING INBLEAK HOUSE

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-433
Author(s):  
Emily Madsen

Three black dolls appear in the etchingsby H. K. Browne (Phiz) that accompany Charles Dickens'sBleak House(1853). They hang, strange fruit, from strings on walls and in shop windows, and their purpose as commentary on the text remains unclear because it is also initially unclear what they might represent. The dolls are never mentioned in the text of the novel, nor do they receive any substantial criticism in readings ofBleak House's illustrations. This article plumbs the archive for evidence of the dolls, and uses the resulting range of associations, from the American cotton trade to Victorian advertising techniques, to argue for a greater integration of the analysis of text and illustrations in serialized, illustrated novels such asBleak House. Material culture readings of the novel to this date have overlooked elements of the illustrations (which are themselves material objects), or have focused on illustrations as print culture, and not conversations with the written text. Examining the dolls in this context not only enrichesBleak House, but also attests to the value of observing the interplay of text and illustration, as well as text and advertising, in readings of the novel's serialized form.

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-89
Author(s):  
Mareike Schildmann

Abstract This article traces some of the fundamental poetological changes that the traditional crime novel undergoes in the work of the Swiss author Friedrich Glauser at the beginning of the 20th century. The rational-analytical, conservative approach of the criminal novel in the 19th century implied – according to Luc Boltanski – the separation of an epistemologically structured, institutionalized order of “reality” and a chaotic, unruly, unformatted “world” – a separation that is questioned, but reestablished in the dramaturgy of crime and its resolution. By shifting the attention from the logical structure of ‘whodunnit’ to the sensual material culture and “atmosphere” that surrounds actions and people, Glauser’s novels blur these epistemological and ontological boundaries. The article shows how in Die Fieberkurve, the second novel of Glauser’s famous Wachtmeister Studer-series, material and sensual substances develop a specific, powerful dynamic that dissipates, complicates, crosslinks, and confuses the objects and acts of investigation as well as its narration. The material spoors, dust, fibers, fingerprints, intoxicants and natural resources like oil and gas – which lead the investigation from Switzerland to North Africa – trigger a new sensual mode of perception and reception that replaces the reassuring criminological ideal of solution by the logic of “dissolution”. The novel thereby demonstrates the poetic impact of the slogan of modernity: matter matters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (42) ◽  
pp. 14-18
Author(s):  
Gwynaeth McIntyre ◽  
Charlotte Dunn ◽  
William P. Richardson

It can be challenging to bring material culture to life in the classroom when the cultures that produced those materials are separated from the students by time and space. Students learning about Roman history and culture often find it difficult to work with and critically analyse non-literary sources as they rarely have the opportunity to engage with the material objects themselves. Depending on the size of the class, or materials available, it may be impossible to introduce such sources for the ancient world into classroom teaching.


Babel ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Muhaidat

Abstract Translating Emily Brontë’s (1818–1848) Wuthering Heights (1847) into Arabic is a complex and multifaceted task. This paper explores the challenges involved in this task by discussing distinctive features of Brontë’s style and their counterparts in Mamdouh Haqqi’s Arabic translation of the novel. Stylistic features under focus include lexis, figurative language, and structure. As for Brontë’s lexis, it intricately knits elements like characters, setting, and themes. To take their readers to the unpredictable world of Wuthering Heights, translators try to find Arabic equivalents suggesting the associations and connotations of the Source Text (ST) style. Among the obstacles translators need to overcome are lexical gaps, as some lexicalized thoughts and experiences in English have no lexicalized equivalents in Arabic. Resorting to paraphrases may result in sacrificing the compactness of the source text (ST) and losing some shades of meaning. Further complications result from dealing with figurative language. Conveying Brontë’s imagery, personifications, and references to abstract notions in terms of material objects requires thoughtful consideration. Furthermore, the structure of Brontë’s language significantly expresses characters’ attitudes and other subtle traits. Less vivacious translations are expected when the function of expressions in the ST eludes translators’ attention. Throughout the discussion, suggestions are made to provide readers of the text in Arabic with better access to the ST. At the same time, the researcher acclaims Haqqi’s translation which reflects a considerable effort to make a landmark of English/world literature accessible to Arab readers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Setyani Tri Wahyu Briliyanti ◽  
Arso Setyaji ◽  
Indri Kustantinah

The objectives of the study are (1) To categorize the cultural terms found in the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Parukinto The Dancer(2) To describe the techniques implemented in the translation of cultural terms in the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Parukinto The Dancer (3) To find out the contribution of novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk and The Dancer to Cross Cultural Understanding teaching.This is a descriptive research with qualitative analysis. The writer used following steps: (a) the writer read the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk by Ahmad Tohari and its translation The Dancer by Rene T.A. Lysloff, (b) the writer search the cultural terms in the novel, (c) the writer analyzed the cultural terms found in the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk and its translation The Dancer, (d) the writer analyzed the technique of translation, (e) the writer analyzed both of the novel to find out the possible contribution to Cross Cultural Understanding teaching. The result of this research are (1) Categories cultural terms found in the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk and The Dancer. There are four categories of cultural terms related to Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk and The Dancer. Those are material culture, social culture, activities and procedures, and then gestures and habits. (2) technique implemneted in the translation of cultural terms in the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk into The Dancer. In translation the novel, the translator applied borrowing technique i.e without any change the word of culture. (3) contribution of the novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk and The Dancer to Cross Cultural Understanding teaching. The contribution of translation analysis of cultural terms in the novel is giving information and developing the student’s knowledge. It also can be the new media of Cross Cultural Understanding teaching. 


PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph I. Fradin

Lionel Trilling has observed that Little Dorrit is “about the will and society” and that “the whole energy of the imagination in the novel is directed toward finding the non-personal will in which shall be our peace.” Little Dorrit is “not only the Child of the Marshalsea ... but also the Child of the Parable, the negation of the social will.” Professor Trilling's comment, enlightening over a large area of Dickens' work, seems to me especially applicable to the first and most germinal of Dickens' “dark novels,” Bleak House; and I want here to approach Bleak House through Dickens' analysis of will and society.


2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fleur Kemmers ◽  
Nanouschka Myrberg

AbstractThis paper sets out to re-member coins into archaeological discourse. It is argued that coins, as part of material culture, need to be examined within the theoretical framework of historical archaeology and material-culture studies. Through several case studies we demonstrate how coins, through their integration of text, image and existence as material objects, offer profound insights not only into matters of economy and the ‘big history’ of issuers and state organization but also into ‘small histories’, cultural values and the agency of humans and objects. In the formative period of archaeology in the 19th century the study of coins played an important role in the development of new methods and concepts. Today, numismatics is viewed as a field apart. The mutual benefits of our approach to the fields of archaeology and numismatics highlight the need for a new and constructive dialogue between the disciplines.


Author(s):  
Josephine McDonagh

Bleak House is a novel saturated with figures of unsettlement, in which characters uprooted by their social conditions operate within a plot animated by unsettlement, in an affective world dominated by feelings of pity and sympathy for those who have been displaced. Thresholds recur in the novel as privileged sites of heightened emotion. The novel’s preoccupation with unsettlement is best understood in the context of mid-century bourgeois aspirations to reimagine the nation as a place in which all citizens might enjoy freedom of movement. In framing this vision, Dickens draws on two contemporary discourses, one drawn from emigration, especially Caroline Chisholm’s popular ‘family emigration’ schemes; the other from public discussions about the law of settlement in the context of the New Poor Law. The latter were attempts to regulate where the poor could live, in the context of the bureaucratic reorganization of national geography that occurred at this time. Throughout, however, the novel displays profound ambivalence about Britain’s engagement with the wider world, expressed most clearly through its antagonism to overseas philanthropy, which it sees as a misdirection of national feeling. The novel’s vision of the nation, underpinned by its commitment to mobility and an ideology of freedom of movement within, but not beyond, the nation, produces its particular formal features and thematic emphases on mobility and movement, and its preoccupation with thresholds—doorsteps, entrances, and finally national borders—as places at which political decisions about inclusion and exclusion are made.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
Charlotte A. Lerg

Using transmediality as an approach to analyse the use of symbols in Anglo-American protest culture during the 1760s and 1770s sheds new light on the process of creating ideological alliances and the making of meaning. In the same way written text created a shared realm of ideas even as they were read and reinterpreted in accordance with different political and social contexts, visual templates, for example in carricature, also featured as points of reference. Relating these images to performances of protest and objects from a material culture of revolution brings together forms of resistance that have previously been examined separately. Arguably, by using a shared arsenal of symbolism protesters identified with an imagined community that in reality was never socially or politically coherent.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document