Crossing Thresholds: The Aesthetics of an Urban Experience, from Oliver Twist to The Wire

Clémence Folléa (1)

1 LARCA UMR 8225 - Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Cultures Anglophones

The 2002-2007 HBO series The Wire has often been called ‘Dickensian’ despite the explicit reticence of its creator, who called the comparison ‘flattering’ but irrelevant. Critics who conjure up Dickens’s novels in order to discuss the show’s aesthetics rely on various definitions of the Dickensian, thus shedding light on the multilayered and sometimes self-contradictory quality of this adjective as it exists in contemporary culture. The present article seeks to explore one of these layers, comparing the experiences of the city offered to Victorian readers of Oliver Twist and to today’s viewers of The Wire. It concludes by looking at a recent blog article, in which the HBO series is parodically rewritten as a Victorian illustrated serial.

Mots clés: Charles Dickens 1812-1870; Oliver Twist; The Wire; Dickensian; Victorian peristence

Domaines: Littératures; Art et histoire de l'art

Clémence Folléa. Crossing Thresholds: The Aesthetics of an Urban Experience, from Oliver Twist to The Wire . Christine Huguet; Paul Vita. Unsettling Dickens : Process, Progress and Change, Editions du Sagittaire, pp.210-234, 2016, 9782917202326. ⟨hal-01425133⟩