Chapter 2. The role of analogy in Charles Dickens’ Pictures from Italy
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Katie Wales
Abstract
Pictures from Italy (1846) is one of Charles Dickens’ lesser known works. There has been very little critical interest in this travelogue, and no linguistic analysis. In this chapter, I focus on the significant role of analogy in this text: broadly covering similes (like, as); quasi-similes (as if) and comparisons; and defined in cognitive terms as overt “mapping” across conceptual domains. I argue for four kinds of analogies at work, each group having different functions, effects and, most importantly, degrees of reader-helpfulness. The overall result is the creation of an Italy that is a rich composition of possible worlds and sub-worlds, corresponding as much to Dickens’ beliefs and fantasies as to actual experience. The analogies are therefore a necessary and important part of the linguistic “texture” of the work overall. They raise interesting possibilities for the further exploration of related travelogues and the discourse of tourism more generally.
Abstract
Pictures from Italy (1846) is one of Charles Dickens’ lesser known works. There has been very little critical interest in this travelogue, and no linguistic analysis. In this chapter, I focus on the significant role of analogy in this text: broadly covering similes (like, as); quasi-similes (as if) and comparisons; and defined in cognitive terms as overt “mapping” across conceptual domains. I argue for four kinds of analogies at work, each group having different functions, effects and, most importantly, degrees of reader-helpfulness. The overall result is the creation of an Italy that is a rich composition of possible worlds and sub-worlds, corresponding as much to Dickens’ beliefs and fantasies as to actual experience. The analogies are therefore a necessary and important part of the linguistic “texture” of the work overall. They raise interesting possibilities for the further exploration of related travelogues and the discourse of tourism more generally.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. The role of analogy in Charles Dickens’ Pictures from Italy 21
- Chapter 3. Listing and impressionism in Charles Dickens’s description of Genoa in Pictures from Italy 31
- Chapter 4. Immersed in imagined landscapes 45
- Chapter 5. The blind tour 61
- Chapter 6. “How Others See …” 81
- Chapter 7. The poems of Edward Thomas 95
- Chapter 8. Landscape as a dominant hero in “Bezhin Meadow” by I. S. Turgenev 123
- Chapter 9. A social landscape 153
- Chapter 10. The agency of The Hungry Tide 191
- Name index 233
- Subject index 235
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. The role of analogy in Charles Dickens’ Pictures from Italy 21
- Chapter 3. Listing and impressionism in Charles Dickens’s description of Genoa in Pictures from Italy 31
- Chapter 4. Immersed in imagined landscapes 45
- Chapter 5. The blind tour 61
- Chapter 6. “How Others See …” 81
- Chapter 7. The poems of Edward Thomas 95
- Chapter 8. Landscape as a dominant hero in “Bezhin Meadow” by I. S. Turgenev 123
- Chapter 9. A social landscape 153
- Chapter 10. The agency of The Hungry Tide 191
- Name index 233
- Subject index 235
