The Comparative History of A Tale of Two Cities

Abstract

This essay examines Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities through the defining historical mode of the nineteenth-century historicism: comparative history. An under-appreciated response to the failure of stadial and progressive accounts to explain the French Revolution, comparative history drew from a range of allied disciplines, including comparative philology, mythology, and anatomy. This investigation tracks comparatist inquiry through a range of nineteenth-century theories of society and nature, and--by addressing the novel’s concern with historiography, secularism, melodrama, alterity, and multiple modernities--locates Dickens’s sensational account of Revolutionary France as a key text in the emergence of comparative history as an independent Victorian discipline.

Evaluating Quality and Readability: Contrastive Analysis of Four Arabic Translations of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities

“…The famous opening paragraph from Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…"is often examined and admired for its depth and dichotomies, especially by intellectuals and scholars because they believe that any period, no matter how bleak, has moments of light, and vice versa. The lines encapsulate the inherent contradictions of the human experience (Griffiths, 2013). This duality is a recurring theme throughout literature and philosophy, highlighting the coexistence of joy and sorrow, hope and despair (Griffiths, 2013).…”

“…The lines encapsulate the inherent contradictions of the human experience (Griffiths, 2013). This duality is a recurring theme throughout literature and philosophy, highlighting the coexistence of joy and sorrow, hope and despair (Griffiths, 2013). Considering its historical setting of the French Revolution, the novel's opening paragraph vividly alludes to the period's big differences: on the one hand, there is revolutionary hope and societal advancement; on the other, brutal violence and terror.…”

El diálogo entre los opuestos por medio de los personajes en A Tale of Two Cities de Charles Dickens

“…A lo largo del primer capítulo, el cual describe el periodo en el que se sitúa la novela, Dickens utiliza una retórica basada en contrastes. Devin Griffiths (2013) establece que "the alternating statements reach out to delimit, in their absolute contradiction, the widest compass of opposed opinions" (812). Sin embargo, aunque a primera vista pareciera ser que Dickens está estableciendo el mundo de la novela entre opuestos claramente definidos, a lo largo de la misma los logra representar de forma que demuestra las maneras en las que puede haber similitudes entre éstos.…”

“…En el primer capítulo de la novela la voz narrativa comenta que las autoridades del periodo eran las que consideraban la época llena de contrastes, pero como Devin Griffiths (2013) establece, "if these authorities rely upon the 'superlative degree of comparison only,' the narrator opens the possibility that less superlative degrees will tell a more accurate history" (812). Dickens utiliza "less superlative degrees" al relatar la Revolución Francesa a través de las vidas de individuos anónimos, pero no por eso menos heroicos, en la historia de la revolución, y por medio de éstos evidencia las posibilidades existentes entre los opuestos, las cuales hacen que la historia contada sea más humana.…”