Many of Charles Dickens‟s peripheral characters have not received critical attention through a de-centered reading in a single, unified body of work. For reasons which are related largely to his biography, Dickens had a deep and abiding interest in the members of the lower classes who feature prominently in his novels. This thesis, on the eve of the bi-centennial anniversary of the author‟s birth, examines his representations of a selection of these characters that appear to have been, to a large extent, forgotten and lie in obscurity, submerged in the vast storehouse of his creations. In his novels, Dickens vociferously champions the rights of the marginalised whilst he, simultaneously, evinces a discerning consciousness of their susceptibility to forms of conduct which he disapproved of. His empathy is, therefore, of a kind which is tinged with distrust, fear and, at times, repulsion. Central to this thesis is Dickens‟s ambivalence towards the proverbial small man/woman which is examined in terms of its genesis, development and resolution. In its engagement with these characters, this study draws, primarily, on the New Historicist (particularly the work of Stephen Greenblatt) and Cultural Materialist approaches to the reading of literary texts and is foregrounded in Raymond Williams‟s formulation of “structures of feeling”. Aligned to this, is Michel Foucault‟s conceptualizations of power. My Introduction defines the parameters within which this thesis is situated. The need for a study of this nature is outlined and an overview of the theoretical positions, intimated above, is presented. The central ideas which link Foucault, Greenblatt and Williams are clearly spelt out and their relevance to Dickens‟s peripheral characters is anticipated. Of the 14 novels discussed, David Copperfield, because of its strong autobiographical connections, is read as most crucial in the shaping of Dickens‟s attitudes towards the lower classes. Chapter 1 is therefore devoted, exclusively, to this novel which serves, initially, as a gateway to this thesis and, thereafter, as its nodal point. Chapter 2 (“Voices in the Crowd”) picks up the links from David Copperfield as it explores the realm of public space. It identifies and draws to the centre those characters that constitute the crowd, as it is seen in everyday contexts. Chapter 3 (“The World of the Public-House”) takes the reader into the Victorian tavern – that microcosm of society where “social energies” are seen to “circulate” in complex configurations. Chapter 4 (“Servants and Dickens‟s Double Vision”) discusses the representatives of the lower classes as they are seen in their roles as servants – a crucial area of Victorian “cultural poetics” and one that was very near to Dickens‟s heart. In my Conclusion I revisit the question of Dickens‟s ambivalence and situate this in the context of the posthumously published, and relatively unknown, The Life of Our Lord. It would seem that many commentators tend to allude to Dickens‟s ambivalence without actually offering a detailed examination of the peripheral characters, as they are seen in different contexts. In bringing together some of the smallest of the small in a unified body of work (for what may possibly be the first time), this thesis offers fresh insights into the ways in which the writer knew and understood the lower classes. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Charles Dickens owes his success as a novelist to his imagination. Therefore, his attitude toward imagination is of interest. One way of determining his attitude toward imagination is to examine the characters that have imaginations.There are several characters in Dickens' works that misuse their imaginations. Initially Dickens regards these characters leniently. Eventually, however, he regards them harshly. He dwells on the damage caused by the misdirection of their imaginations.Many of the other characters who are imaginative are children or childlike adults. Dickens treats them sentimentally. This tendency to sentimentalize such characters continues throughout Dickens' career. However, with certain characters he does seem to try to correct this tendency.Finally in his last complete novel, Our Mutual_ Friend, he treats Jenny Wren, a character who uses her imagination a positive way, realistically. She represents the final development of his attitudes on imagination.

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This thesis discusses the relationship between money and character in the novels of Charles Dickens, concentrating mainly on the later novels, from Dombey & Son onwards. Money is extremely important in Dickens's social criticism, and he is always conscious of money-related motives in his conception of character. However, despite its importance and omnipresence, money ought not to be elevated into the key explanatory principle in Dickens's thought. Dickens has been valued for different qualities over the years. Many who value him as an entertainer with a powerful poetic imagination tend to undervalue his social criticism and moralising, and to treat those aspects as non-essential or as belonging to a different side of his life and work. On the other hand those who value him as social and moral critic have combined this with exaggerated claims of thematic coherence. This thesis suggests that we can dispense with such claims while still regarding Dickens's novels as serious contributions to the moral and social debates of his day. A close consideration will be given to most of the later novels, with the intention of placing the money themes alongside other themes, so as to emphasise the many-sidedness of Dickens's social and moral criticism. Other themes explored in the thesis include marriage and the home, and hypocrisy and self-deception. The thesis seeks to do justice to Dickens's thorough-going ambivalence towards money, and to his capacity for revisiting characters and themes from one work to another. The bias of the thesis is towards the personal and individual, but money is inevitably a social topic. Much consideration is therefore given to Dickens's fictional and non- fictional responses to contemporary social problems and attitudes, and also to material not written by Dickens but published by him in Household Words and All the Year Round.

In this thesis I have addressed some of the problems that have arisen in critical approaches to the nonsense works of Edward Lear from the late nineteenth century. I have entitled it “Reading Nonsense” because my central concern is with how best to apprehend the paradoxes inherent in literary nonsense, which inevitably raises interpretative questions. Because nonsense is a “basic type of communication” whose essence is “unresolved tension between [the] presence and absence of meaning” (Tigges, Anatomy 51), we are called upon either to “make sense of” that which claims to offer up no meaning or to surrender ourselves to meaninglessness. Broadly, critical approaches to nonsense fall into two classes: those that maintain that nonsense is not, in fact, “not sense”, but rather a kind of symbolic language that can be reconciled into meaning; and those which uphold the nonsensicality of nonsense, maintaining that certain ambiguities and paradoxes cannot be accounted for, and it is inappropriate to try to do so. In addition, Lear’s texts are situated in various traditions of writing for children and adults and in the distinctive setting of the Victorian era; and these cultural and literary influences play an important role in the interpretation and misinterpretation of nonsense. My first chapter comprises a mise en scène of the genre of literary nonsense; while in Chapter 2 I turn to the cultural backdrop of Lear’s nonsense in particular, and examine one of the claims frequently made in nonsense criticism: that Lear’s literary nonsense is distinctively “Victorian”. Chapter 3, “How to Read a Learian Limerick”, rests on the exegesis of nonsense that appears in Chapter 1, for here I propose a technique for reading Lear’s limericks that preserves both their “sensical” and nonsensical elements in contrast to critical analyses that attempt to reconcile the nonsense into a code. In Chapter 4 I examine Lear’s songs from the critical perspectives of nonsense and of romanticism. Finally, in conclusion, I consider the role and significance of humour in nonsense, and gesture towards further possible explorations, including in the appendix my essay on the nonsense poetry of South African writer Philip de Vos.

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University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1948 P74 / Master of Science