Talk:Racism in the work of Charles Dickens

Should move some stuff out of lede into body

Most of what is beyond the first paragraph of the lede should be moved into a section of the text. The lede is meant to be a summary of the article contents, not an essay unto itself.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Brantlinger (copied here from YGs talk page)

YK, as far as I can see Brantlinger asserts that Dickens Perils had a significant impact on British response to Indian rebellion (which ought to me mentioned). (See "Orphan texts: Victorian orphans, culture and empire" By Laura Peters) But nowhere that I can see does Brantlinger assert Dickens "spawned a new genre" of hate literature.

As I have asserted before

1) Racist fiction existed before Dickens & racism was prevalent in the Victorian detective novel.

2) Notable subsequent examples of racist fiction (for example in America The Klansmen or in Germany the racist element in Richard Wagner) are not particularly influenced by Dickens.

Ergo, I don't think we can assert this.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:26, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It isn't "spawned a new genre: hate literature" as you read it, but " a new genre of hate literature". Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm reading exactly as you say I read it, as should be clear from the last sentence of my first paragraph.) In what sense in Perils a new genre of hate literature?? And what is the exact quote from PB??

Genre is not the same as style (or method).--WickerGuy (talk) 16:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

In The spirit of reform: British literature and politics, 1832-1867 p. 117 Brantlinger explicitly describes Dickens as an advocate of social peace.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

What is the context? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Genre refers to a species or a type of text, a poem, a horror movie, a commercial or some other kind of text. Is there a limited number of text types? What is it that defines a genre? Is it a question of some formal qualities of the text itself, or merely of the caterorizer's owm suppositions? Genreric convention is continually shaped by the production and dissemination of texts as well as the reactions of audiences. Genre is not something that exists outside of its manifestations. Genres are abstracts, classifications made by the examiners of a number of certain kinds of texts. Genres produce expectations which in turn affect how the text is read and understood. Genres are similar to trade descriptions. Genres help dismantle the differentiation between text and context. (Mikko Lehtonen (2000). Cultural analysis of texts. pp. 128–129.) Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:26, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It is true that the concept of genre is fluid and flexible, but here we should stick to the most general sense of genre (as well as to exactly what Brantlinger says). In general usage, genre refers to things like comedy vs. tragedy, novel vs. play, detective stories, science-fiction, historical epic, etc. I cannot see any meaningful sense in which Dickens "spawned a new genre of hate literature" and want to know exactly what Brantlinger said about it.

Brantlinger was deflecting Harriet Martineau's criticism that Dickens seemed to advocate that the poor resent the rich in the quote I supplied.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Again, "spawning" implies widespread influence on subsequent literature. Does Brantlinger say Dickens did that?--WickerGuy (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

(1)That is what I read from Brantlinger, moreover we seem to agree, you write "YK, as far as I can see Brantlinger asserts that Dickens Perils had a significant impact on British response to Indian rebellion", I am happy with that. (2)Will you please supply the paragraph, page from which the quote is extracted? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 13:41, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't consider the quote from Brantlinger germaine to this article. I only note it here on Talk to observe that Brantlinger's view of Dickens is fairly nuanced, and he also regards Dickens as layered and complex. Thus not too much should be read into PB's statements. It is, as I already said above, on p. 117 of the book. It reads

For many middle-class writers the desire for raprochement between classes places them in the awkward position of stressing what they wish to overcome. Harriet Martineau is not alone in accusing Dickens of being a "humanity monger" and of making the poor hate the rich instead of love them. But Dickens sees himself [Ah, perhaps I misquoted-WG] as an advocate of social peace and criticisms like Martineau's must be balanced by the assessment of the Hammonds, who declare that Dickens did "more to draw English people together than any other influence in the time."[footnote] In any case, when "humanity mongers" can be perceived as dangers to the state...

I insist there is no significant body of later hate literature (novels or plays) influenced by Dickens, and I serious doubt that Brantlinger declares that there is. That is what "spawning a genre" would imply. None of the prominent examples of American racist literature (novels or plays) reflects any influence of Dickens at all! You are, I think, projecting something into PB which is not there, or else don't understand the implications of the word "spawned".

As for Brantlinger's view of Perils I am mostly going on what second-hand sources who cite PB say about him, mainly Grace Moore. I am at home rather in the library where I left it. I don't have the quote handy. However, see "Unequal partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian authorship" by Lillian Nayder on the contrast between Dickens and W.Collins. I quote from p. 167

As Patrick Brantlinger notes in his study of mutiny literature, British writing about India before 1857 generally suggested that the natives "might be helped to progress in the scale of civilization" but denied these "hopeful but obviously ethnocentric problems" after the sepoy revolt depicting the Sepoy Indians as inherently violent and superstitious. Yet Collins not only feels the mutineers can be reformed; he feels that reformers should look to oriental rather than Western ideals in accomplishing this ideal. Instead of preaching to the rebellious Indians from a Christian text, he draws from one of their own- from the lesson delivered to the seventeenth-century Muslim emperor Shah Jehan by the wise man Abbas...Collin disassociates himself from Dickens [emphasis added-WG] who expressed the desire to "exterminate the race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested" when writing....about the mutiny. Whereas Dickens writes of a race "stained" with "cruelties" whose members have "disfigured the earth with...abominable atrocities, Collins suggests that the Indians are as capable of moral goodness as the British"

A couple pages later, Nayder suggests that in Collins' play The Moonstone, Collins conveys his sense that it was really Indians rather than British on the defensive in 1857.--WickerGuy (talk) 14:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

(1)Brantlinger wrote about Dickens engendering a certain response to the events on 1857 in Britain, now we cannot go scurrying around rummaging, to verify primary sources, that is what Brantlinger said, that bloke is not FRINGE, and is RELIABLE and NOTABLE, (uppercase used to denote WP terms, in place of providing links, which become tedious). If you disagree with Brantlinger, you would need to find someone (RELIABLE etc) who agrees with you. (2) You are right about Collins, I read that the chapters in "Perils" that he wrote are used to caricature "whites". (3)Your edit "However, in his subsequent Noble Savage essay, his attitude towards Native Americans is one of condescending pity, tempered with some reflections on the arrogance of European colonialism," sorry to say was very confusing, "tempered with some reflections on the arrogance of Eurpean colonialism", however now "... by a counter-balancing concern with the arrogance of European colonialism." makes the statement clear as daylight. We can never be too careful. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Important note

Nayder in commenting on a later work by Collins "A Sermon to the Sepoys".--WickerGuy (talk) 15:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Scholar: Comes across as PEACOCK. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:35, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

It is there to distinguish from "journalist". As there are both bad and/or controversial scholars, there is nothing peacock about it. Peacock is descriptions like "brilliant", "eminent", "famous". Given that so many Americans think that scholars are over-occupied with micro-analyzing minutiae to the point of missing the big picture, there is nothing peacocky about "scholar".--WickerGuy (talk) 15:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

(1) Wasn't "journalist" an afterthought? Anyways adding professions before the sources we quote, is as far as my experience goes a little rare on Wikipedia, please take it off, no I won't do it myself. If someone needs to know what Brantlinger does to pay his mortgages, a few clicks and a few seconds are all that it would cost them. (2) We need to put RS to the sub-section, or it would be soon marked as un-referenced, I request you to do so as most of the section is your creation (in its present form). Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:54, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Often (but not consistently) subsections that are summaries of an article elsewhere (effectively acting as a preview of a lede) on WP don't have references, but we could certainly afford to put a few in. Will do. Please continue discussion on SUBarticle Talk page to where I have copied this.

Incidentally, WPedia does indeed prefers citations from scholars over journalists in spite of a prevalent anti-intellectualism in American life (Americans in general often view reporters as really being in the field, while they see scholars are locked away in their study).

Please continue discussion on SUBarticle talk page.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Would it not be better to say all of the above on the article talk page? I know from experience that YK will not budge from his anti-British ideas and WG seems pretty adamant that YK has got it wrong. So the pair of you will surely need to seek consensus by drawing on the thoughts of other parties. OTOH, if you both want to continue here then I guess that is your business. - Sitush (talk) 15:34, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Stalker of this mess: this American prefers scholar and uses it liberally in articles. Furthermore, this editor believes the sources should lead instead of looking for sources to shore up one point or another. Truthkeeper (talk) 18:56, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Sitush, no, it's not "their business"; it's WP's business. WP is not a personal blog. I think this article should be deleted, myself, and if I didn't have dispute resolution fatigue I'd nominate it myself. It's nothing but a POV fork with weight problems that can't be fixed because it's obviously Yogesh Khandke's personal hobby horse. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm in full agreement with this - particularly the part that it's Wikipedia's problem. And it's a serious problem. I am happy to see that the page has been tagged. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned that YK has continued the discussion on his Talk page, even after I, going along with Sitush, moved the stuff here, though the bulk of the discussion is still here.

At any rate, I've tried to do a lot to fix the weight problems, especially by introducing a fair amount of exculpatory material from Grace Moore who disagrees with the assessment of Dickens' race attitudes from Patrick Brantlinger, whom YK both likes to quote and over-interprets even that.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

POV Issues

From previous thread just above- 2nd copy

Sitush, no, it's not "their business"; it's WP's business. WP is not a personal blog. I think this article should be deleted, myself, and if I didn't have dispute resolution fatigue I'd nominate it myself. It's nothing but a POV fork with weight problems that can't be fixed because it's obviously Yogesh Khandke's personal hobby horse. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm in full agreement with this - particularly the part that it's Wikipedia's problem. And it's a serious problem. I am happy to see that the page has been tagged. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned that YK has continued the discussion on his Talk page, even after I, going along with Sitush, moved the stuff here, though the bulk of the discussion is still here.

At any rate, I've tried to do a lot to fix the weight problems, especially by introducing a fair amount of exculpatory material from Grace Moore who disagrees with the assessment of Dickens' race attitudes from Patrick Brantlinger, whom YK both likes to quote and over-interprets even that.--WickerGuy (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

End material from previous thread

I am aware that this article is in enormous danger of being a WP:POVFORK. First of all , the content of this section is controversial, but I still hope this can be discussed here from a WP:Neutral point of view. However, as there was an enormous danger of giving the whole issue WP:Undue weight (or notability) in the main article, that I feel there was also a legitimate reason for a sub-article.

It is true this was created in the wake of a heated content dispute (accompanied by some disruptive editing) on the main article on Dickens, which should indeed be a red flag. But even if the subject has been approached without full balance, I still think there are good reasons for the fork as well.

There is considerably less public discussion of Dickens' race issues than there is of that other 19th-century giant Richard Wagner. The San Francisco Jewish museum and Los Angeles' Holocaust museum devote a lot of space to Wagner's anti-Semitism, but none to Dickens. (Indeed, there was a showing of the film Oliver at the Jewish Museum of London in 2011). So on the one hand, it's good to be aware of it, but if the main article has a section on Dickens' legacy, the amount of space devoted to this issue there should be fairly minimal, at most I would think 10-20% of the legacy section.

This also accomplishes the task of separating skirmishes about this issue into a separate article-space, which is I think a good thing.--WickerGuy (talk) 05:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Policy states "Any daughter article that deals with opinions about the subject of parent article must include suitably-weighted positive and negative opinions, and/or rebuttals, if available, and the original article should contain a neutral summary of the split article." Let's all try to keep to that, but just keep the battles/disputes here rather than in the main article.--WickerGuy (talk) 05:23, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

From my point-of-view it's best to deal with the controversial material on the main biography page as was done for Ezra Pound who was tried as a traitor, and clearly anti-semitic, yet valued for his literary contributions. The trick is to balance the issues one a single page instead of splitting out - if we split this out, we should then split out other issues as well, such as his attitudes toward industrialism for example. Truthkeeper (talk) 13:21, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Is the issue of whether to create a split-off article due to the notability of the controversy?? I note there is a fork article on the anti-Semitism of Richard Wagner but none (as you note) on either Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot. There is a fork article on the controversies surrounding Rushdie's novel (fork article is The Satanic Verses controversy) but none on the race issues surrounding Huckleberry Finn (the latter still fairly hot-button in the American south). There is a fork article on the Polanski sexual abuse trial, but none on Charlie Chaplin's paternity suit filed against him by an underage girl. There is a fork article on President Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Jemmings Jefferson-Hemings controversy but none of Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon, etc. etc.

If the issue is the relative lack of notability for most moderns of Dickens' racism (due to the absence of its influence on 20th century life), you could have a point. The online Holocaust encyclopedia has five articles that mention Richard Wagner (though not one focused on him), one that mentions Ezra Pound, but they never even mention Charles Dickens at all. YK keeps this issue alive because he thinks Dickens' racism is still highly influential on contemporary life, when the rest of us understand it is not.--WickerGuy (talk) 14:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

And therein lies the problem. We're sending something out to the internet that other reputable publications either don't cover or cover minimally, at the whim of a single editor. This is highly problematic as far as I'm concerned. I have a fair number of edits in on Ezra Pound and am in full cognizance of how difficult it is to balance - but the main biography page is where the balance should occur. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:27, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess then it's time for an RFC. Incidentally, the print "encyclopedia on anti-semitism" does indeed have an article on Dickens, though it's fairly short.--WickerGuy (talk) 15:08, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

The existence of this article

A legit issue at hand challenging this article is that:

1) On the one hand, virtually every opera fan in America sooner or later learns of Richard Wagner's disturbing essay Judaism in Music (Das Judenthum in der Musik), and most folks who like Wagner feel apologetic/disturbed etc. that the man who wrote the music they like also wrote this unsettling essay.

2) On the other hand, a large majority of Victorian literature fans (except for specialized scholars) have never even heard of Dickens' long-forgotten Noble Savage essay.

There is however a a modest public awareness of The Frozen Deep and The Perils of English Prisoners (still fairly minor works of Dickens), and a wide public awareness of the Fagin problem in Oliver Twist as well as an awareness that the Jewish community has largely forgiven Dickens for the latter (Addendum in strong contrast to continued apprehension about Richard Wagner).

So how WP:notable is this topic? Should we bring The Noble Savage and related works to greater public awareness or assume the lack of awareness makes the subject less notable?

My personal feeling is that since there is at least one full-length book solely devoted to discussing Dickens' relationship to imperialism (Grace Moore's Dickens and Empire) the topic might be worthy of its own article. However, others feel that since the topic is little discussed in books about Dickens in general (biographies or broad critical surveys of his body of work), it is not so notable.

Consider this a preliminary RFC.--WickerGuy (talk) 02:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The article contains substantial evidence of the notability of Dickens' racism and anti-semitism. I see no reason to put a neutrality disputed tag on the article. Considering that I have been called disruptive, the vandal like defacement of an article that has been written with care and balance, (too much of it in my opinion, that makes it sound denialist) is another symptom of the Wikipedia:I just don't like it illness. It would have been amusing hadn't the result been historically so tragic. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who did not put in the tag, I agree entirely that CD's racism is notable and probably needs an article of it's own. The tag only says the neutrality is disputed without asserting that the article is definitely POV. (More hostile tags such as a POV nomination could have been placed.) However, the placer of the tag has an obligation to start a discussion of the problems here, which they only did cursorily. On the other tag, it is always inappropriate to call placement of a tag "vandalism", though one could call it "tendentious". YK, you may very well be an unfair victim of WP:IDONTLIKEYOU, but this challenge borders on WP:IDONTLIKEIT only in terms of some folk's perception that Dickens' racism is of fairly minor interest to most readers. As such, you are right to insist that you are including stuff that is WP:Verifiable. Finally, I don't really see any "denialism" here. YK, you're an observant guy, but a bit too given to hyperbole and exaggeration. "Denialism" would be the refusal to admit Dickens is racist at all!! The only debate here is how much space and weight to give to his racism and how to interpret it.

I am also correcting (my own) misspelling of the title of this section of the page.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:22, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I used vandal like defacement in the physical sense of the word and not the wikilegal sense, well this article is better written than a million other wikiarticles, (I am repeating this not withstanding wp:OSE). It is balanced, (too much, but that is a whim, not pertinent here, while, WG, your being so sharp about this whim of mine, despite my admission of it being just that a whim, without pretense, I am a little puzzled by your giving a long rope to those who are trying to impose their whim on Wikipedia, not just a long rope, well it looks like a nod as well) well cited and the like. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Finally I seem to have got the gist of "your" argument. I want to ask, "Are Wikipedia articles to be pruned to the limits of popular culture of some editors? That the subject is notable is evidenced by a plethora of scholarly and reliable sources as easily available as ants are in an anthill. Trusting the truthfulness of the indignant, I wonder whether Wikipedia should lower itself to the level of the crass? "Probably"?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:43, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

What would one call a person whose hand itches to press the POV tag, the moment he doesn't like it. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 19:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I thought I was giving you a medium-length rope, not a long one. Ideally, WP articles are pruned to the limits of the dominant/prevalent scholarly research on the subject (not the popular culture perception) with an emphasis on scholarly research that is a broad survey of the subject as a whole.

In the case of the main parent article "Dickens" that would be the question of how much mention there is of Dickens race-beliefs in respected scholarly books that are broad surveys of Dickens. That doesn't mean that these books are doing it the best way. It simply means Wikipedia is meant to mirror the current state of scholarship! The two-volume biography of Dickens by Edgar Johnson has extensive discussion of the Fagin issue and (if I remember correctly- need to check the library copy) it has some material on The Noble Savage while the Collins collaborations are (if I remember correctly) undiscussed. WP doesn't lower itself to the level of the crass, but does reflect the failings and limits of scholars.

Hopefully, anyone who tags an article as POV-disputed has done some reflection on the issue. But the tag is only a challenge, not a statement of any final conclusion. And an article can have POV problems and still be very well written. "vandalism" always implied defacement or damage, such as scrawling on a work of art. The tagger may (or may not) be judgmental or hasty or capricious, but is not in any meaningful way a "vandal".--WickerGuy (talk) 20:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Exactly! Scrawling on a work of art! On the other hand, you seem to be living up to your earlier metaphor. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 20:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is about this article and not its ancestor. Why the diversion? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 20:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to divert. You asked about WP articles "in general"!!! I thought the principle in general was better illustrated by the main article. And please remember, I did not place the tag on the article. The article's "good name" has been challenged, no more. It does indeed render the article less attractive (especially to you), but the content has not been damaged. To the degree that the tag is frivolous, it approaches "vandalism" but doesn't really quite get there.--WickerGuy (talk) 21:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I just wish to say that I support the presence of the POV tag until such time as broad consensus is reached. While I am not against the existence of the page (I supported the creation of a subarticle along these lines), I do have concerns about the title, and in particular the use of the colon which could be seen to define Dickens' significance in terms of "Racism and anti-Semitism". —MistyMorn (talk) 21:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Didn't think about that as a signification of the colon at all. Perhaps "Dickens' racism and anti-semitism" is better.--WickerGuy (talk) 21:46, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, better imo. Personally, I feel that "Dickens and racism" might be sufficient. —MistyMorn (talk) 21:53, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

MM: I am not going to revert the title move right now. Please MM would you explain your understanding of the older title and what makes you reject it? WG: I know you didn't put the tag, your support (or neutrality) is perplexing considering that you are the most active contributor to this article. All: Is the non-neutral tag about the title or the article? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:51, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Anyways the s after the apostrophe is redundant. D I C K E N S' is how it should read?? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The possessive seems to me to be clearer (less ambiguous) than the colon construction, which is open to multiple interpretations. I've moved the title to ...Dickens'... to remain consistent with the rest of the article, though Dickens's is actually also a perfectly acceptable form (see MOS:POSS). —MistyMorn (talk) 16:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I had used it in the appositive sense,as a sub-title, to be neutral about it and to separate Dickens from racism, prima facie, well I'm all thumbs here, lack of training in the language you see. Though I got your point about ambiguity. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

That Dickens, at several points in his life, publicly expressed some very racist views — including some antisemitic ones — appears to me incontrovertible. Personally, I'd go for a simpler title, like "Dickens and racism" or perhaps "Dickens and racism controversies". But I'm not suggesting we argue the point! —MistyMorn (talk) 17:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

My view on the tag is hoping we can eventually convince everyone that this article is reasonably free from POV once it gets reviewed. Meanwhile, out of respect for other WP editors (who may or may not be mistaken), the tag should remain. The tag is at worst a minor annoyance.

Most importantly, it is simply a challenge, not a declaration.--WickerGuy (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

WickerGuy, I think you've done a reasonably good job here, but my objection to this page is that its existence came about because of tendentious editing and the inability to resolve a talk page dispute on the parent article. Despite what seemed to be consensus regarding the removal of this material, it was repeatedly added back via edit warring and then pulled out into a separate page. In my view that's simply not how we do things here - or not how things should be done. A lot of the material here could have gone into separate articles - the Fagin material for example added into the "Oliver Twist" page, and if pages don't exists for some of the works discussed then they could have been created. All of that takes time and a systematic approach. Instead what's been done is that a page has created, which may or may not accurately reflect current Dickens scholarship (I'm honestly not interested enough at this point to look), at the whim of a single editor. That's a problem. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think that's one of two or three reasons for the creation of the page. There were actually three editors (including myself) who thought the creation of a separate article would be a handy resolution to edit-conflicts, and while it was created by the single editor you mention, he was not the first to suggest it!! The editor you mention has IMO, has both some very legitimate points and can be over-the-top, the latter in part due to his lack of mastery of English, as well as his passion for the subject. I think we can more easily simultaneously accomodate Yogesh's legitimate concerns and curb excessive POV in a separate article than in the main. One of the big conflicts in the main article was simply a matter of how much space to devote to the issue in the main article!! This is a handy way of reducing the space in the main article while still dealing with the subject. The commentary in section 1 Charles Dickens' Racism and anti-Semitism#Controversies over Dickens' racism cannot go in articles on separate works of Dickens, as this is entirely about how critics have dealt with and interpreted Dickens' racism as a whole as spread out over all his work. Finally, re the state of scholarship, Grace Moore and Laurence Mazzeno are the two primary scholars who see Dickens' racism as having mitigated over time, while others do not. They are mentioned in the above-mentioned section, so I think we are at least covering the range of opinion, even if in not as much depth and detail as we might ideally desire. I may say more later. Thanks for your thoughtful input.--WickerGuy (talk) 01:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't an article ultimately be judged as an end product? (Btw, I do think it important that the page should be a genuine subarticle rather than a POV fork.) —MistyMorn (talk) 08:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Restored Lede Sentence

The original lede sentence "Although Charles Dickens is best-known as a writer of coming-of-age novels about children and adolescents and as a champion of the downtrodden poor, it has often been noted that both in his journalism and fiction he expresses attitudes that are profoundly racist and xenophobic." was deleted on the grounds of being synthesis. I am restoring it for two reasons.

1) WP is explicit that statements justified in the body of the article don't have to be cited in the lede. We already have in the body of the article "The Historical Encyclopedia of anti-semitism notes the paradox of Dickens both being a "champion of causes of the oppressed" who abhorred slavery and supported the European liberal revolutions of the 1840s, and his creation of the anti-semitic caricature of the character of Fagin." This justifies the lede statement, as does For authors Sally Ledger and Holly Furneaux, it is a puzzle as to how one can square away Dickens' racialism for concern with the poor and the downcast.

I will slightly modify and cite the statement, however.--WickerGuy (talk) 13:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

If there are sources why are they not cited? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 22:04, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I have in fact both

1)added citations, and

2)noted that in general statements in lede supported by subsequent body text (which is in turn cited) don't generally have to be cited in the lede.

For example,

Lede paragraph- Charles Keaton's career was marked by occasional scandal (No citation)

Later in article body- There were several scandals in Keaton's career, including the Maritown savings and load[Citation]

is entirely legitimate.--WickerGuy (talk) 22:41, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Contemporary significance

"The online Holocaust encyclopedia has five articles that mention Richard Wagner (though not one focused on him), one that mentions Ezra Pound, but they never even mention Charles Dickens at all. YK keeps this issue alive because he thinks Dickens' racism is still highly influential on contemporary life, when the rest of us understand it is not", the Curley-Dickens reconciliation is evidence of the contemporariness of Dickens' insults, and has been added to the articleYogesh Khandke (talk) 15:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

In this case, I entirely agree.

PS I'm doing relatively little typing and editing over the past week due to a finger injury from a week a go.--WickerGuy (talk) 15:10, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

It's an excellent and worthy addition to the article. Thanks for keeping us a bit less Anglo-centric.--WickerGuy (talk) 15:11, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Dubious claim regarding film being banned in Egypt

1948 Oliver Twist banned in Egypt because it wasn't antisemitic enough? Sounds dubious, and the only source provided is some DVD review signed by initials. An extraordinary claim like that should require a more credible source.--84.108.213.97 (talk) 21:09, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to YK for providing a better source. As Elizabeth Taylor was banned from personally entering Egypt after her conversion to Judaism (creating some complications during the filming of "Cleopatra"), I didn't really find it hard to believe.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:10, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible plagiarism

The first three paragraphs of Charles Dickens' Racism and anti-Semitism#Fagin are the same as a section called "Allegations of anti-semitism and racism" published as part of an afterword to Dickens' novels, without attribution. Here is a link to an afterword to A tale of two cities. Several other sections appear to be the same as this source as well. TFD (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That's actually fascinating. It looks like it's reverse plagiarism - it's a reprint of our page, but we'll need to dig through history to see which version. There's a template to use for this but I can't remember what it is right now. Can look for it though. Thanks for finding this. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

There are many printed editions of Dickens' novels which have some version of the Wikipedia article on Charles Dickens on it. Some of the material here is copied from an earlier version of the main Dickens article.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I used the wrong term - it's backwards copyvio. Here's the template: Template:Backwardscopy. I've seen this used on talkpage headers as an alert that the "copyvio" / plagiarism is not. It might be worth considering using for this page and the main bio page, no? Truthkeeper (talk) 19:13, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

That happens a lot. I remember once on the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship page a statement was challenged and a news source was provided as a source. No other source could be found, and by tracing the history of the edit and the date of the news story it was determined that the reporter took it from the Wikipedia article. That's called a feedback loop, in which material in a Wikipedia article gets picked up by a source, which is later cited in the Wikipedia article to support the original edit. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Rename

I've implemented a rename for several reasons.

First, most minor, and least disputable, the title "racism in the work of Charles Dickens" sidesteps the issue of whether the possessive apostrophe is correctly placed.

Second, the phenomenon of anti-Semitism is a subphenomenon of racism in general. There's probably a name for this sort of cross-taxon category error, but if there is, I'm not aware of it.

Thirdly, since Dickens is long dead, we can only assess his attitudes via his writing (fiction, essays, and journalism). The racist attitudes he held (which I am not denying) are a relic of his era, and are -- sadly -- quite unremarkable and typical for that time and place. It is not the presence of racist attitudes in the mind of a 19th-century Englishman which is a reasonable topic for an article, it is the presence of racist attitudes in the work of a notable author. DS (talk) 15:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks—the new title nicely avoids the style and undue problems in the old Charles Dickens' Racism and anti-Semitism. Johnuniq (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I also like it.--WickerGuy (talk) 03:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Copy of material from CD page, where it will be abbreviated. To be included here.

===The Question of Prejudice===

Main article: Racism in the work of Charles Dickens

Fagin waits to be hanged.

Dickens was a forceful advocate of English middle-class virtues and national values, and stigmatised foreign cultures that he thought lacked these ideals. His journalism and letters contain sporadic outbursts of kneejerk prejudice against non-whites. While considering slavery an ‘hideous blot and foul disgrace’, Dickens thought the idea that emancipated slaves be allowed to vote ‘an absurdity’. In an 1853 essay on The Noble Savage, he wrote that primitive peoples were "cruel, false, thievish" and "murderous" and advocated that they be "civilised off the face of the earth". He defended Governor Eyre after the latter's savage repression of the Jamaican Morant Bay rebellion. In Household words, and also a play he co-authorized with Wilkie Collins The Frozen Deep, a ‘melodrama in defence of national honour’, he attacked John Rae's report on the Franklin expedition, based on Inuit testimonies. The English explorers had not engaged in cannibalism, but were victims of the ‘savage Eskimoes’ who were 'covetous and cruel'. In the immediate aftermath of the Indian Mutiny, and the Cawnpore massacre, his antipathy to a "colonized people" reached "genocidal extremes" when he wrote privately to Baroness Burdett-Coutts: "I wish I were the Commander in Chief in India. ... I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested ...".ref>Nayder 2002, p. 101:"I wish I were Commander in Chief in India. The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental race with amazement, . .should be to proclaim to them, in their language, that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the strain of the late cruelties rested; and that I begged them to do me the favor to observe that I was there for that purpose and no other, and was proceeding, with all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot out of mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth."</ref> Such outbursts were common among Dickens’ contemporaries.Moore argues that Dickens modified his views, voiced also in his allegory The Perils of Certain English Prisoners. in the light of later reports of English brutalities, and that his sympathy for the rebellious sepoys emerges in his A Tale of Two Cities. (1859) Others disagree: Nayder thinks his outlook became more ‘virulent’ over time. Joshi allows that Dickens' prejudices were not racially grounded, but expressed his cultural chauvinism: Dickens lacked a notion of a superior "master race", was neither a white supremacist or segregationist. He retained however a powerful antipathy for the natives in British colonies, who functioned as a negative foil for Dickens' positive image of British virtues.

Dickens' portrait of Fagin, described repeatedly as "the Jew" in Oliver Twist has often been seen as anti-Semitic. Eliza Davis, whose husband had purchased Dickens's home in 1860, wrote to Dickens to protest his portrayal of Fagin, arguing that he had "encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew". While Dickens pointed out that "all the rest of the wicked dramatis personae are Christians", and that he had "no feeling towards the Jews but a friendly one", he took her complaint seriously. In Our Mutual Friend, he subsequently created a profoundly sympathetic Jewish character, "Riah",(said to be derived from Hebrew rē'eh (friend)). whose goodness is almost as complete as Fagin's evil. Davis sent Dickens a copy of the Hebrew bible in gratitude for his 'atoning for an injury as soon as conscious of having inflicted it'. Nishidani (talk) 15:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

References