CharlesDickens, one of England’s most-loved novelists, was born 200 years ago thisweek and a Victoria University researcher has come up with what, for some, willbe a new twist on his life.
Not many knowthat before Dickens became famous as an author, he was a parliamentaryreporter. The style he developed there had two major effects: on how he was towrite in the future, and on what we expect even today from our parliamentaryreporters.
VictoriaUniversity Senior Lecturer Dr Nikki Hessell has studied this part of Dickens’slife. She says:
“When he wasa parliamentary reporter, Charles Dickens had two styles of reporting: aserious style, where he reported exactly what happened; and a more maverickstyle, where he lampooned the politicians and made them into types ofcharacters, or caricatures of themselves.
“Dickens wasa brilliant shorthand writer, able to actually capture the words as they werespoken. He knew that it was important for people to understand exactly what wassaid by the politicians. He could recreate a voice, a personality—exactly asthat person would speak. This, of course, was to later influence his writingstyle, making his characters real and enduring.
“Alongsidethis, he pioneered the satirical side of politics, the kind of writing that hasendured and exists even today, where we have journalists known for theirown—and often merciless—individual opinions on what takes place in parliament.”
CharlesDickens was a parliamentary reporter from 1832 until 1836. In 1836, he startedto write The Pickwick Papers, his first novel.
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