Dickens' Novels as Poetry

Jeremy Tambling is a writer and critic working on English and European literature and critical theory. He is formerly Professor of Literature at Manchester University, UK and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong.

• Introduction: Urban Writing: Writing Poetry Part I: Writing Styles: Romantic and Baroque I. Dickens’ Reading II. Dickens, Hogarth, and Caricature III. The Old Curiosity Shop Part II: Poetry and the City I. Pickwick Papers: Jingle and Weller II. ‘Bragian Words’: Martin Chuzzlewit III. Stopping Growing: Dombey and Son Part III: Opening Words I. Naming: Dombey and Son to Bleak House II. ‘The Insistence of the Letter’: Bleak House III. Staring in Little Dorrit IV. Novels of the 1860s Part IV: Dickens and the Poetry of Dreams I. The Mask II. The ‘Waking Dream’: Oliver Twist III. ‘The Tempest’ in David Copperfield IV. ‘Scattered Consciousness’: The Mystery of Edwin Drood

"This provocative study demands readers willing to widen their expectations for 'poetry.'...The organization is topical, and Trembling provides fresh explanations of the theme of stunted growth, techniques of opening chapters, and the emergence of new urban types. Summing Up: Recommended." - S. A. Parker, CHOICE"Dickens' Novels as Poetry reads as a scintillating conversation with a scholar markedly attuned to the peculiar rhythms and unconscious tics that distinguish the Dickens canon. The analysis is dense, sharp, and demanding, and by the end of the book I feel as though, by some brilliant trick, I have just re-read all the novels in the space of two-hundred pages, and with a newly re-ordered attention to their poetics of dissolution." - Leslie S. Simon, Utah Valley University, Dickens Quarterly"Powerful insights detonate on almost every page of this book...I expect to re-visit individual chapters systematically, just before or after re-reading the novels in question. In other words, Tambling assists and inspires further engagement with the primary material." - Dominic Rainsford, Aarhus University, Dickens Quarterly