Regarding Dickens and his novel art, I have some thoughts in my heart, and I will express them while writing this preface, which is just for the majority of Dickens lovers. It is Dickens' second novel.The twenty-five-year-old novelist was determined to follow the example of the British realist painter William Hogarth (William Hogarth, 1697-1764), bravely faced life, and truly expressed the miserable life of the London slums at that time.He has a lofty moral intention: to protest against social injustice, to arouse public opinion, to implement reforms, and to rescue the poor in dire straits.Because of this, Dickens has always been defined by scholars in my country and the former Soviet Union as "the founder and greatest representative of critical realism in English literature".In this regard, I have some different opinions: literature and art are a special kind of social ideology, which must be the reflection of social existence.However, we must not describe all literature that reflects reality as realist literature, and expand the extension of "realism" infinitely.In fact, writers use a variety of creative methods, which vary from person to person, which is closely related to the writer's special temperament and personality characteristics.Dickens' creations are rich in imagination and full of poetic passion. He deliberately exaggerates his own moral ideals, and breaks through the faithful imitation of nature everywhere. To borrow a sentence from Goethe: it is a level higher than nature.This is in line with the objectivity insisted on by Thackeray, Trorop and others.There is a marked difference in the dispassionate, strictly realistic approach.

Take as an example, (1) Personalized language is a means that Dickens uses very well in character creation.The language of gangsters, thieves, and prostitutes in the book are all in line with their identities, and even use the jargon of the industry.However, Dickens never reproduces naturalism, but processes, refines and selects, avoiding the use of dirty and indecent words.The protagonist Oliver speaks well and speaks elegantly. He doesn't even know what stealing is.He was an orphan who grew up in a poorhouse, never received a good education, and all he came into contact with were sinful and depraved people. How could he speak such good English?This cannot be explained by the historical materialist view that "man is the sum of all social relations".It can be seen that Dickens focused on expressing his own moral ideals, rather than pursuing complete verisimilitude. (2) In excellent realistic novels, the plot is often the history of character development under the influence of the environment, which is what Gorky called "the history of a certain character, typical growth and formation".However, Dickens does not stick to any formula, and arranges as many coincidences as he wants.It is the first time Oliver goes out into the street with a thief, and the first person to be pocketed happens to be Brownlow, a good friend of his late father.The second time, he was hijacked by the gangster Sykes and burglarized, and it happened to be his aunt Ruth Mayley's house that was stolen.This is logically unreasonable anyway.But Dickens has his own great ability, full of life and passion in the detailed description, which makes you nervous and breathless when reading, and you have to believe this kind of far-fetched and unnatural plot.This is the charm of Dickens' art world. (3) Dickens always has a "Sympathetic imagination" when he writes, even for heinous characters.In the book, the trial of Fagin, the thief leader and old Jew, always starts from Fagin's psychological perspective.He saw the floor from the ceiling, and saw multiple eyes staring at him.He heard the account of his crimes, and he turned his imploring eyes to the lawyer, hoping to speak in his defence.Some people in the crowd were eating, some were fanning with handkerchiefs, and a young artist was drawing his sketch. When he came in, he thought: he must have eaten, what kind of meal did he have?Seeing the spikes on the iron railing, he thought: This is easy to break.From then on he thought of the gallows again, when he heard himself being hanged.He just murmured that he was getting older and older, and then he couldn't make any sound.Here, Dickens carefully selected a series of details, not only depicting objective things, but also cutting into the inner world of the characters, showing his extremely rich imagination.The artistic method he uses cannot be summed up by "critical realism".I do appreciate the expression of the British writer and Dickens expert George Gissing (1857-1903), who called Dickens's creative method "romantic realism".I think this expression is accurate enough to conform to the reality of Dickens' novel art.

Finally, let's discuss E. M．Forster's depreciation of Dickens' characterization in his famous novel Aspects of the Novel.According to him, Dickens can only create "flat characters", but not "round characters", which belongs to the "lower level" in the art of fiction.Is the truth really like this?Let's take Nancy in the book as an example and do some research and analysis.In my opinion, the character Nancy has an extremely rich and complex inner world, which is far more three-dimensional and more active than all the "round characters" admired by EM Foster.Nancy is an unfortunate girl who has fallen into a den of thieves since she was a child, and has become the mistress of the second thief leader Sykes.She saw no prospect of anything but the gallows.However, her conscience is still alive, and when she sees her innocent self in the past, she feels sympathy for the innocent and pure Oliver.She was ordered by the leader of the thieves to pretend to be Oliver's sister, and when she forcibly kidnapped him back to the thieves' cave, she was full of contradictions.On the way home, she talked to Sykes about the prisoner's hanging. Oliver felt Nancy's hand shaking tightly, and when he looked up, her face turned pale.Later, at the risk of her life, she secretly tipped Miss Maylie and Brownlow, and finally rescued Oliver.Mellie and Brownlow urged Nancy to get rid of her past life and embark on a new life, but Nancy couldn't bear to leave her lover Sykes behind.After Sykes learned of what Nancy had done, he could only uphold the moral standard of a bandit, regard Nancy as an unforgivable traitor, and brutally kill her with his own hands.Dickens had deep intentions when naming these two characters. The English abbreviations of Nancy and Sikes are N and S, which are the two poles of a magnetic needle.They constitute a pair of contradictions, which are both opposite and unified, opposite and complementary, and can never be separated.Nancy couldn't do without Sykes, and would rather be killed by him than abandon him; and Sykes couldn't do without Nancy, once he lost her, he would be devastated, and finally fell off the roof with his own neck A loose loop of a rope got caught and he died of exasperation.The image of Nancy is complex, rich and profound, not only not "flat", but also achieves extremely high artistic achievements.

Dickens's novels can withstand the exploration and interpretation of various modern critical theories, constantly produce thought-provoking new ideas, and will forever maintain the appreciation interest of readers and the research interest of experts. Xue Hongshi May 1998 at Institute of Foreign Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences