Charles Dickens, Charles Babbage, Richard Babley: Material Memory in David Copperfield

IF 0.7 1区 文学 0 LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES DICKENS QUARTERLY Pub Date : 2023-02-22 DOI:10.1353/dqt.2023.0003
Lanya Lamouria
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Abstract

Abstract:This article argues that Dickens's David Copperfield (1850) elaborates a remarkable theory of individual and collective memory. On the one hand, Dickens embraces the idea, conventional in early Victorian psychology and philosophy, of the mind as a palimpsest that contains a permanent record of an individual's experiences. On the other, he extends this belief in the indelibility of memory to matter, proposing that the material world functions as a palimpsest of collective history that interacts in uncanny ways with individual recollection. I propose that Dickens's account of material memory adapts mathematician Charles Babbage's hypothesis that the totality of human speech and action is encoded as atomic vibrations in the earth, air, and ocean. In Copperfield, Dickens uses Mr. Dick to explore the implications of Babbage's theory for realist fiction, which, in representing the contemporary world, bears an overwhelming responsibility for the collective history that pervades it.
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查尔斯·狄更斯、查尔斯·巴贝奇、理查德·巴布利:大卫·科波菲尔的物质记忆
摘要:本文认为狄更斯的《大卫·科波菲尔》(1850)阐述了一个关于个体记忆和集体记忆的卓越理论。一方面,狄更斯接受了维多利亚早期心理学和哲学中的传统观点,认为心灵是一本包含个人经历永久记录的重写本。另一方面,他将记忆不可剥夺的信念扩展到物质,提出物质世界是集体历史的重写本,以不可思议的方式与个人回忆相互作用。我认为狄更斯对物质记忆的描述改编了数学家查尔斯·巴贝奇的假设,即人类言语和行为的整体被编码为地球、空气和海洋中的原子振动。在《科波菲尔》中,狄更斯利用迪克先生来探讨巴贝奇理论对现实主义小说的影响,现实主义小说在代表当代世界时,对弥漫在其中的集体历史负有压倒性的责任。
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来源期刊
DICKENS QUARTERLY
DICKENS QUARTERLY LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES-
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
16.70%
发文量
33
期刊最新文献
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