Chapter 3. Listing and impressionism in Charles Dickens’s description of Genoa in Pictures from Italy
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Mick Short
Abstract
This chapter examines a subset of representative list constructions in Dickens’s description of Genoa. Such constructions comprise nearly 20% of the text and those examined in detail are varied in type, long, complex and contain significant deviations from the norm. This linguistic complexity is difficult for readers to process and leads us to infer analogically the mind-set of the first-person narrator-observer behind the text, thus providing a window on how readers interact cognitively with text. In context, the extraordinary character of the lists leads to the impression that Dickens’s description of Genoa is not a standard travelogue description but, rather, an impressionist evocation (parallel to the impressionist movement in visual art) of his initial mental struggle in coming to terms with what, for him, is the overwhelming variety and unusualness of Genoa. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the relation between linguistic and cognitive accounts of reader-text interaction.
Abstract
This chapter examines a subset of representative list constructions in Dickens’s description of Genoa. Such constructions comprise nearly 20% of the text and those examined in detail are varied in type, long, complex and contain significant deviations from the norm. This linguistic complexity is difficult for readers to process and leads us to infer analogically the mind-set of the first-person narrator-observer behind the text, thus providing a window on how readers interact cognitively with text. In context, the extraordinary character of the lists leads to the impression that Dickens’s description of Genoa is not a standard travelogue description but, rather, an impressionist evocation (parallel to the impressionist movement in visual art) of his initial mental struggle in coming to terms with what, for him, is the overwhelming variety and unusualness of Genoa. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the relation between linguistic and cognitive accounts of reader-text interaction.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- 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
