LECTURE 12

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)

The Industrial Novel, the "Condition of England ," and the Troubled Times--(1830-1870)

 Utilitarianism (Benthamism) & Political Economy (laissez-faire & trickle-down economics)
--A cardinal tenet of Utilitarianism: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” (J. Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation , 1789)

 The Novel's Form
--weekly installments, Household Words
--the novel as money-making popular entertainment, moral educator, and imaginative stimulus

Book the First: Sowing
I: Education as Sowing:
Industrial Midlands (Coketown/Preston)
a. Chapter 1: "The One Thing Needful"
b. Education as violent suppression of fellow-feeling, the soul, fancy, and imagination (8, 10, 21&22, 50, 53-54)
c. School Tests:
--the slowest pupil/the most advanced, and the image of light (9)
--the Test of Taste (11)
--the Tests of Economics (58-59)