The Verse of Charles Dickens

The Verse of Charles Dickens reveals Charles Dickens’s complex, tortured relationship from 1830 to 1870 with the form and function of verse, a highly influential literary medium in the nineteenth century. Renowned as a prose writer, not as a poet, Dickens’s various engagements with the genre reflect a dichotomy of enjoyment and aversion. Positioning Dickens as sensitive to the emotive capacities of verse, despite arguably lacking lyrical talent, solidifies the active role it played in his career