After Dickens: Reading, Adaptation and Performance

✍ Scribed by John Glavin

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 244
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

John Glavin offers both a performative reading of Dickens the novelist and an exploration of the potential for adaptive performance of the novels themselves. Through close study of text and context Glavin uncovers a richly ambivalent, often unexpectedly hostile, relationship between Dickens and the theater and theatricality of his own time, and shows how Dickens' novels can be seen as a form of counter performance. Yet Glavin also explores the performative potential in Dickens' fiction, and describes new ways to stage that fiction in emotionally powerful, critically acute adaptations.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 6
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Dedication......Page 9
Contents......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 13
Note on the text......Page 15
Introduction......Page 17
I Set Up......Page 27
CHAPTER 1 Dickens, adaptation and Grotowski......Page 29
DICKENS......Page 30
ADAPTATION......Page 40
AND GROTOWSKI......Page 47
AND BACK, THEN, TO DICKENS......Page 53
CHAPTER 2 …as upon a theatre......Page 63
QUOD SCRIPSI SCRIPSI......Page 64
HALVING A MUTUAL FRIEND......Page 68
ENTERING THE DICKENS CAMERA......Page 79
II Flashback......Page 97
EXCEPT ACTORS SOMETIMES......Page 99
A SPECTACLE OF THE PLAYER......Page 114
CHAPTER 4 Exit "the sanguine mirage"......Page 134
THE BOY IN THE GLASS BOOTH......Page 137
INTERLUDE: REFLECTIONS ON A NORMAL DEVIANCE......Page 147
MOUNTING THE SCAFFOLD......Page 153
THE HIGH COST OF DEFENSE......Page 163
CODA......Page 168
III Resolution......Page 169
CHAPTER 5 How To Do It......Page 171
THE ARGUMENT......Page 172
NOBODY'S FAULT......Page 183
I: OVERTURE......Page 188
II: CLENNAM DECIDES TO RETURN HOME......Page 189
III. CLENNAM VISITS THE HOUSE OF HIS ESTRANGED MOTHER......Page 190
IV. AN AFFLICTED CLENNAM CHOOSES BETWEEN TWO KINDS OF LOVE......Page 191
VI. CLENNAM WALKS WITH LITTLE DORRIT ON THE IRON BRIDGE......Page 192
VIII. CLENNAM ENCOUNTERS THE DORRIT FAMILY......Page 194
IX. CLENNAM STAYS TOO LONG AND IS LOCKED INTO THE PRISON......Page 195
X. CLENNAM DETERMINES TO REMAIN IMMURED......Page 196
XI. REFUSING SUSTENANCE, CLENNAM BINDS HIMSELF TO THE PRISON REGIME......Page 198
XII. CLENNAM IS FORCE-FED......Page 199
XIV. CLENNAM REFUSES LITTLE DORRIT'S OFFER OF UNION......Page 200
XVI. CLENNAM TRIUMPHS OVER HIS FALLEN MOTHER......Page 202
XVII. CLENNAM, ECSTATIC, IS CARRIED FROM THE JAIL......Page 203
CHAPTER 6 Coda......Page 205
COME UP AND BE DEAD......Page 210
1 DICKENS, ADAPTATION AND GROTOWSKI......Page 225
2 …AS UPON A THEATRE......Page 226
3 …TO BE A SHAKESPEARE......Page 228
4 EXIT "THE SANGUINE MIRAGE"......Page 229
5 HOW TO DO IT......Page 231
References......Page 232
Index......Page 239