Table Of ContentCHARLES DICKENS IN CYBERSPACE
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Jay Clayton
Charles Dickens
I N C Y B E R S PA C E
The Afterlife of the Nineteenth Century in Postmodern Culture
1
2003
3
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Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clayton,Jay,–
Charles Dickens in cyberspace :the afterlife ofthe nineteenth
century in postmodern culture / Jay Clayton
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ---
.English literature—th century—History and criticism—Theory,
etc. .Dickens,Charles,–—Appreciation—United States.
.Criticism—United States—History—th century. .English literature—
Appreciation—United States. .United States—Civilization—British influences.
.United States—Civilization—th century. .Great Britain—Civilization—
th century. .Postmodernism (Literature)—United States. .Literature
and science—United States. .Literature and science—Great Britain.
.Romanticism—Great Britain. I.Title.
PR. C
(cid:2).—dc
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
on acid-free paper
TO JIM AND JOHN
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the numerous people who have helped me by suggesting
sources and responding to questions: Joseph Bizup, Christy Burns, Janice
Carlisle,Margaret Darby,Lynn Enterline,Eileen Gillooly,Gregg Hecimovich,
Kurt Koenigsberger,Laurence Lerner,Alan Liu,Robert O’Malley,Leah Mar-
cus, Jaya Mehta, Eric Rothstein, Garrett Stewart, Ronald Thomas, Cecelia
Tichi,and Joseph Witek.My colleagues at Vanderbilt University were enor-
mously supportive,particularly a group ofunselfish friends who read por-
tions ofthis manuscript at crucial stages:Jerry Christensen,Carolyn Dever,
Jim Epstein,Deak Nabers,Mark Schoenfield,and Mark Wollaeger.Others
who have guided me with their clear-sighted responses include Alison Booth,
Marianne Hirsch, Margaret Homans, Andrew Miller, Dianne F. Sadoff,
Valerie Traub,and Priscilla Wald.Several friends in Nashville and elsewhere
have stimulated me by their wide-ranging engagement with literature,sci-
ence, and society: George Bradley, Robert J. Coffey, Marie Griffin, Keith
Meador,and Craig Smyser.
Lisa Niles has been an exemplary research assistant,as knowledgeable as
she is professional.Jamie Adams,who took the photos reproduced here,was
a pleasure to work with.Elissa Morris,my editor at Oxford University Press,
encouraged this project and helped shape it in valuable ways.Barry Varela
suggested several points during the editing process.
viii acknowledgments
I would also like to thank the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foun-
dation and Vanderbilt University for fellowships that gave me time to work
on this study.Audiences at a number ofinstitutions have provided me with
valuable responses to early versions ofthis material:The Center for Aesthet-
icsand Logic at Aalborg University,Denmark;Cornell University;CUNY—
Graduate Center; Emory University; The English Institute; INCS—Inter-
disciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies;Indiana University;The Modern
Language Association; The Society for the Study of Narrative Literature;
The National Human Genome Research Institute;The Northeast Victorian
Studies Association; The Society for Literature and Science; Southern
Methodist University; Tulane University; Vanderbilt Medical School; and
The University ofWashington.
Finally,I give thanks to Ellen Wright Clayton,companion in the pleas-
ures ofscholarship as in all other things,and to our two children,who have
waited long to have this work dedicated to them.Now that it has arrived,it
cannot possibly express all they have meant to me.
Portions ofvarious chapters appeared,in altered form,in the following places
and are reprinted with the permission oftheir publishers:“Dickens and the
Genealogy ofPostmodernism,”Nineteenth-Century Literature():–
;“Is Pip Postmodern? or,Dickens at the End ofthe Twentieth Century,”Case
Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations”,
ed.Janice Carlisle (Boston:Bedford Books,),pp.–;“Concealed
Circuits:Frankenstein’s Monster,the Medusa,and the Cyborg,”Raritan
():–;“The Voice in the Machine:Hazlitt,Hardy,James,”Language
Machines: Technologies ofLiterary and Cultural Production,ed.Jeffrey Mas-
ten, Peter Stallybrass, and Nancy J. Vickers (New York: Routledge, ),
pp.–;“Hacking the Nineteenth Century,”Victorian Afterlife: Postmod-
ern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century,ed.John R.Kucich and Dianne
F.Sadoff(Minneapolis:University ofMinnesota Press,),pp.–;
“Genome Time,”Time and the Literary,ed.Karen Newman,Jay Clayton,and
Marianne Hirsch (New York:Routledge,),pp.–;“Cultural Patch-
work in the Classroom: Shelley Jackson, Tom Stoppard, William Gibson,
and Bruce Sterling Rewrite the Romantics,”Romanticism and Contemporary
Culture,online,http://www.rc.umd.edu/features/rcc/papers.html,February
;“Frankenstein’s Futurity:From Replicants to Robotics,”The Cambridge
Companion to Mary Shelley,ed.Esther Schor (Cambridge:Cambridge Uni-
versity Press,),pp.–;and “Convergence ofthe Two Cultures:A Geek’s
Guide to Contemporary Literature,”American Literature():–.
Classics Illustratedcovers of Great Expectations(and ).Copy-
right © , Classics International Entertainment,Inc.All rights re-
served.Classics Illustrated® is a registered trademark of Frawley Corpora-
tion. Classics International Entertainment™ is a trademark of Classics
International Entertainment,Inc., North Michigan Avenue,th Floor,
Chicago,IL .
CONTENTS
Introduction Dickens Browses the World Wide Web
One The Past in the Future ofCultural Studies
Crystal Palace to Millennium Dome
Two The Voice in the Machine
Hazlitt,Austen,Hardy,and James
Three Undisciplined Cultures
Peacock,Mary Somerville,and Mr.Pickwick
Four Hacking the Nineteenth Century
Babbage and Lovelace in The Difference Engine
and Arcadia
Five Concealed Circuits
Frankenstein’s Monster,Replicants,and Cyborgs
Six Is Pip Postmodern? Or,
Dickens at the Turn ofthe Millennium
Seven Genome Time
New Age Evolution,The Gold Bug Variations,
and Gattaca
Description:Charles Dickens in Cyberspace opens a window on a startling set of literary and scientific links between contemporary American culture and the nineteenth-century heritage it often repudiates. Surveying a wide range of novelists, scientists, filmmakers, and theorists from the past two centuries, Jay
