Information about the author:
Elena V. Haltrin-Khalturina
Elena V. Haltrin-Khalturina, DSc in Philology (RF), PhD in English (USA), Leading Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2205-9444
E-mail:
Abstract:
The article examines several pieces by Charles Dickens related to the 19th-century Christmas Gothic, as well as to the Victorian dramatic monologues in prose and fireside ghost stories. It is shown that Dickens created Christmas stories focusing on a variety of genres and narrative models, from children’s fairy tales about miracles to dark Gothic stories about ghosts and murders. We list authors whom Dickens mentions indirectly (including W. Shakespeare, W. Irving, R. Browning, and A. Tennyson). We mention authors who allude to Dickens's Christmas texts (including E. Poe, H. James, C.S. Stanislavsky, S.M. Eisenstein, A. Hitchcock, and J. Rowling). Thematic self-repetitions with variations within Dickens's work are pointed out. Dickens's unfavorable opinion of attempts to alter and contort traditional texts is quoted (cf. so called “remakes”).
