Dickens's Clowns: Charles Dickens, Joseph Grimaldi and the Pantomime of Life

Jonathan Buckmaster

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2019

Dickens's Clowns

Charles Dickens, Joseph Grimaldi and the Pantomime of Life

Jonathan Buckmaster

In the series Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474406963

Overview
Contents

About this book

Establishes the importance of the popular radical figure of the pantomime clown in the work of Charles Dickens

This book reappraises Dickens’s Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi and his imaginative engagement with its principal protagonist. Arguing that the Memoirs should be read as integral to Dickens’s wider creative project on the theatricality of everyday existence, Jonathan Buckmaster analyses how Grimaldi’s clown stepped into many of Dickens’s novels.

Dickens’s Clowns presents new readings of Dickens’s treatment of topics such as identity, the grotesque and violence within the context of the tropes of the Regency pantomime. This is the first study to identify the Dickensian clown as a unifying force for several Dickensian themes, overturning traditional views of Dickens’s clowns as peripheral figures.

Key Features

Provides a new reading of one of Dickens’s most neglected texts, and firmly re-establishes it within the Dickens canon as both part of a wider project alongside his other major works of the period and an important influence on later work
Identifies the pantomime routines of the Regency clown as a key cultural influence on Dickens’s work, tracing significant new sources for his comical treatment of violence and his comedy more generally
Offers important new perspectives on two other key themes in Dickens’s work – the use of food and drink within Dickens’s articulation of the bodily grotesque and Dickens’s use of clothing as a radical signifier of individual liberty

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Series Editor’s Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	x
Chapter 1 Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Dickens, Grimaldi and the Pantomime Clown
Chapter 2 Pantomime and Pantomime Clowning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
Chapter 3 Dickens at the Pantomime Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
Part II: Dickens and the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi
Chapter 4 The Memoirs as Nineteenth-Century Biography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Chapter 5 George Cruikshank as Co-Biographer of the Memoirs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Part III: The Clown at Large
Chapter 6 The Gluttonous Clown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Chapter 7 The Slapstick Clown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Chapter 8 The Clothed Clown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	204
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 232
Illustrations
- Other: 11 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: March 24, 2022
ISBN: 9781474406963