‘Should I feel a moment with you?’: Queering Dickensian Feeling

Abstract

Let's queer the pitch slightly and consider how the bicentenary engenders negative feelings in people. Aside from the impassioned acclaim, the effusive eulogies, and the dazzling range of good-spirited festivities, what negative feelings about Dickens, his work and the bicentenary are perceptible underneath, alongside, and intermeshed with the more celebratory ones? From indifference, boredom, irritation, and exhaustion, to jadedness, anger, and shame, there are certainly undercurrents pushing against the tide of obligatory festivity, many of which express, recycle, and intersect with negative feelings about Dickens that have been circulating since his lifetime.Among some scholars, we might detect, alongside enthusiasm and excitement, fatigue, boredom, and uneasiness about nostalgic representations of Dickens. The packed schedule of conferences, exhibitions, and celebrations is wonderfully overwhelming, and only the most energetic -and wealthy -can do more than cherry-pick. people to read and enjoy Dickens, it also makes others feel overwhelmed and humiliated, particularly as Dickens is elevated alongside Shakespeare to cultural colossus. The bicentennial emphasis on Dickens's universality perhaps downplays the historical specificity of his work and elides moments of disjuncture, incoherence, and oddness that