CHARLES DICKENS

LIFE:
. He was born near Portsmoutn in 1812. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office.
. He read nols by Fielding and Defoe, which ga a vigorous and humorous background to his future works.
. In 1823, Dickens and his family went to London. There, his father was always in debt, so Charles was obliged to lea school and work in a factory (a painful experience).
. Thanks to a legacy, Charles came back to school and there he took moral and physical streight. In fact he had to orcome the hardships of an english school for boys of the lower middle class.
. At 15 years old, he left school and began to work in a lawyers' office. That was the good background for "Bleak House".
. In 1830 he started working as reporter and journalist
. He died in June 1870

WORKS:
His works are abo all nols published in serial forms in seral magazines. He wrote humorous, sentimental and social nols. The most important are:
. HUMOROUS NOVELS: the Dickens' first success was "THE PICKWICK PAPERS", an humorous nol written in 1836-l837
. SENTIMENTAL NOVELS: "A CHRISTMAS CAROL", a ghost sory with a moral written in 1843; "DAVID COPPERFIELD", a nol full of autobiographical memories written in 1849-l850

. SOCIAL OR HUMANITARIAN NOVELS: "OLIVER TWIST", the story of an orphan. In that nol Dickens attacks the workhouse system and denounces the degradation of porty (1837-l838). "BLEAK HOUSE", a nol in which are described and condamned the abuses of the law. The opening paragraph in fact describes the fog in London: it symbolizes the obscurity of the legal system.

LIMITATIONS OF DICKENS:
. Lack of organic unity (that's natural because his works were published in serial forms)
. Lack of real psycological insight
. Excessi pathos and sentimentalism
. Exaggerated comic scenes, which become grotesque

MERITS OF DICKENS:
. Powerful imagination
. His characters cor a wide range of people
. He holds the reader's attention
. His style is fluent and effecti
. His occasional use of symbolism (ex. Fog in London - "bleak house"-) is striking