I sort of want to send this to my students.

[tempestsarekind]

At least one of them has done the "when you think about the Victorians, you might think of the genteel country-house world of Jane Austen, but Charles Dickens presents gritty realism in his sketches of city life" opening*, and several of them do immediately equate--like some [columnists/bloggers/people named Joe Wright] who constantly disparage

Comments

[stoplookingup]

I think we should cut that kid a break for feeling that grit and poverty seems more real than the middle and upper classes -- not because it actually is more real, but because the suffering of privation is more fundamental and catastrophic than the suffering of a broken heart or having to move to a small cottage with a modest income. It's like when we hear of a friend or relative with a serious life-threatening illness, and we get that instant reaction of, "Wow, that puts my trivial problems into perspective." It's not that your problems don't exist, it just casts a different light on them.

[tempestsarekind]

Oh, I think it's a mistake anyone could make--but that's why I think the piece might be effective: it challenges the idea that an author's depiction of the world is more "real" or meaningful just *because* it happens to be about poverty. It points out that, from a literary standpoint at least, the distinction doesn't hold, however one might feel about the difference between the world of Austen and the world of Dickens. There definitely is a difference--but it doesn't automatically make Dickens a "better" writer than Austen (which is often the corollary, as it is in the article).

[stoplookingup]

Yes, that's very true. A good teaching moment!

[tempestsarekind]

Particularly because it's not about them. :)