universe which Dickens creates, but they
still have a grounding in everyday actuality
more secure than do the magical properties
of the pantomime. Like melodramatic plotting
and characterization based on role-playing,
pantomime offers a partial but by no means
total explanation of the theatricality of
Dickens's fiction.
pretending to slavish imitation. Part of the
fascination of such art lay precisely in the
surprising ways in which the patent artifice
could reflect the known reality. Dickens was
explicit about the non-mimetic appeal of
such art when he described the theatre as a
■delightful dream' in which one had the
experience "of having for an hour or two
The diverse nature of nineteenth-century
theatre, with its emphasis on spectacle as
much as upon plot and character, was
frankly committed to providing delight, just
as we find Dickens insisting in his prefaces
that the aim of his writing was to offer
amusement. This entertainment, both in the
theatre and in Dickens's fiction, reflected
the realities of contemporary life without
Mr Grimaldi, de bekende negentiende--eeuwse
clown
quite forgotten the real world, and of
coming out into the street with a kind of
wonder that it should be so wet, and dark,
and cold, and full of jostling people and
irreconcilable cabs.'20) Similarly, he spoke of
the attraction of the "jocund world" of
pantomime,
where there is no affliction or calamity
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