Dickens and the Legacies of the Revolutionary Era

Fri., Oct. 24, 2014 3:30 p.m.

Location: Room AH 348, Ad-Hum Building, University of Regina

The first presentation in this semester's Orlene Murad Academic Discussions will take place at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, October 24 in AH 348. This talk Dickens and the Legacies of the Revolutionary Era will be given by Dr. Patricia Cove, the newest member of the English Department.

Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is, true to its title, as much about particularly British experiences of the French Revolution as it is about the events that occurred in revolutionary France. Tale fictionalizes two legacies of revolutionary-era violence that impacted the British state and public life: the treason trial and the espionage scandal. By engaging with the Treason Trials of the 1790s and the numerous spying scandals that occurred across the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Dickens indicates that the long-term damage of revolutionary conflict for Britain was inflicted not by radical violence across the Channel, but by government repression from within the British state.

This talk will be followed by a reception.