THIS PROPOSAL IS PRESENTED FOR DISCUSSION ONLY. IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE

CONSIDERED A TEMPLATE FOR OTHER PROPOSALS.

Research Proposal

When Charles Dickens visited Pittsburgh in 1842, he found the industrial juggernaut difficult to characterize, writing with characteristic irony in American Notes, "Pittsburgh is like Birmingham,

England; at least its townspeople say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, wagons, factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be” (Dickens, “American Notes for

General Circulation” 96). This difficulty representing America persisted. Riding in a packet coach across Ohio, he described an oncoming group of people as "glasses in a magic lantern" (Dickens,

“American Notes and Pictures from Italy” 232). Now a foreign reference to modern-day readers, the magic lantern was an immensely popular image projector in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and was used to project images in extravagant "phantasmagoria" shows, which featured moving images of demons, ghosts, and otherworldly figures. Phantasmagoria shows are now regarded as an ancestor to modern-day film and, when remarked, are generally taken up by film studies (Mannoni 390). My research will demonstrate how important the technology is to understanding the fiction of the

Victorian era.

Dickens' reference to the magic lantern reveals a critical glimpse into the author's mind.

Uncharacteristically at a loss for words, Dickens retreated to what he knew – the “counterparts of figures once familiar to me in pictures attached to childish books, forgotten long ago,” demonstrating the extent to which phantasmagoria shows intertwined with his imagination

(Dickens 232). Here, we see Dickens becoming one of the first authors to enter into a dialogue with cinematic media, which, among other things, suggests that our literary historical timeline of authors significantly engaging with visual media needs to be revised. Throughout his literature, Dickens shows how the now-forgotten phantasmagoria shows envisioned the dreams of the Victorian era, serving as a representation of their anxieties, fears, and values. My research seeks to further illuminate the phantasmagoria show's impact on the Victorian cultural imagination through its fiction by revealing its hitherto undiscovered centrality to the work of one of its most important authors, Charles Dickens. I imagine this research project to have far-reaching consequences for how we understand all of Dickens’ novels, but will focus on his 1852 novel Bleak House, where he uses phantasmagoria in his representation of London's lower class. I predict that by further exploring the history of these shows and their representations in literature, we can begin to illuminate a vital side of the Victorian imagination whose impact on literature has largely gone unstudied.

My work with Dickens and phantasmagoria began in Dr. Amy Murray Twyning's

Advanced Research in Literature course, where Bleak House has served as the subject of our research. My project initiated as an attempt to explain Dickens’ portrayal of Jo, an orphan boy who he uses to represent London’s lower class. Specifically, his description of Jo as a “ragged figure in a magic lantern” halfway through the novel (Dickens, “Bleak House” 313). Further investigation revealed that, in addition to Dickens’ direct comparison of Jo to a magic lantern, his other images of the orphan mirror the technical aspects of the machine. Considering that magic lantern shows often invoked both fear and amazement in its viewers, additional examination of Dickens’ depiction of Jo promises to reveal a new understanding of the relationship between London’s social classes.

Receiving the SURA will enable me to continue this intensive research into the magic lantern as a shaping metaphor in Bleak House and to rediscover how it represents the Victorian cultural imagination. I welcome the opportunity to work alongside a highly-motivated community of my peers while I conduct my research. I look forward to following the discoveries made by other researchers and to sharing my own research with peers.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy. London: C. Scribner's Sons, 1900.

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Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation. London: Chapman and Hall, 1842.

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Dickens, Charles, and Patricia Ingham. Bleak House. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2011.

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Mannoni, Laurent, and Ben Brewster. "The Phantasmagoria." Film History 8.4 (1996): 390-415.