Burke, TD (2020) From terror to terrorism in Bleak House: Writing the event, representing the people. The London Journal, 45 (1). pp. 17-38. ISSN 0305-8034
Abstract
This paper argues for strong affinities between Dickens’s handling of political violence in Bleak House (1852–3) and the alteration in meaning of the words ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ in the nineteenth century. Between the French Revolution and the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ shifted from connoting revolutionary violence wielded by the state to criminal political violence committed by clandestine organisations and individuals. I first read two key moments of political violence in the novel via Lyotard’s definition of ‘the Event’ as the occurrence that cannot be represented. I argue that Dickens’s novel responds to this problem of representation in a dual movement: on the one hand revolutionary violence is confined to the criminal discourse of the detective police, on the other, ‘modern’ conspiratorial terrorism is returned to the discourse of the French Revolution.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The London Journal Trust 2019. This is an author produced version of a paper published in The London Journal. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Dickens, Terrorism, Detective, Violence, French Revolution, Event |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Oct 2020 10:47 |
Last Modified: | 17 May 2021 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/03058034.2019.1687221 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:166450 |