狄更斯童年创伤的再现 E

D i cken s’s Represen t a ti on of Ch ildhood Trau maS hu2Fang La iAbstract:Referring t o his painful experience of working in a blacking fact ory in his childhood, D ickens confided in his cl ose friend and aut obi ographer,John Forster,how he and his fa m ily had been silent about what he called“the secret agony of my s oul.″On the one hand,it see med that he grudged telling the tragic ep is ode and bitter me mories of suffering that had been haunting hi m thr oughout his life;on the other,he was quite open about it.The″secret agony of s oul″recorded in Forster’s bi ography als o found its way int o his ficti ons.The disturbing trauma was transf or med int o an i m portant subject matter,and beca me a s ource of his creativity and a sti m ulus t o powerful exp ressi on.Thr ough such creative involve ment,D ickens was no l onger a be wildered and dis pos2 sessed adult,living apart fr om his trau ma at a suitable distance,but a creat or able t o articulate his feelings with rene wed clarity however dis maying that m ight be.The paper investigates how D ickens shapes a f or m of art that re medies his catastr ophic childhood experience thr ough his fic2 ti onal creativity.It ai m s t o revisit D ickens’s early life t o see how incidents of this peri od are transf or in his ficti on,and how the ne wly2f ound evidence of the s o2called″blacking poe m s″modifies f or mer conclusi ons,whether the experience is seen as destructive or ref or mative.Key words:D ickens　childhood　trau ma　blacking poe m sAuthor:Shu2Fang La i is assistant p r ofess or at the Depart m ent of Foreign Languages and L itera2 ture of Nati onal Sun Yat2Sen University,Tai w an.She s pecializes in V ict orian L iterature,N ine2 teenth Century Journalis m and hist ory of science.She has once won L iang Shih2chiu L iterary Translati on Prize,and published articles in D ickensian,D ickens Q uarterly and V ictorian Periodi2 cals R evie w.Email:sflai@.t w标题:狄更斯童年创伤的再现内容提要:本文论述了狄更斯童年的“灵魂痛苦”与日后创作的内在关系。

狄更斯有段不为外人所道的童年时期在鞋油工厂工作的痛苦经验,只偶然对其好友兼传记者佛斯特提起。

他的家人对他的“灵魂的苦痛”讳莫如深。

据他的传记记载,他一方面极不愿说起这段悲伤受难的往事,且似乎终身受这伤痕的回忆折磨着;一方面却在作品中以另一种形式公开佛斯特所记录的“灵魂的苦痛”。

最近学者发现,狄更斯早期写有一组所谓的“鞋油工厂诗”。

这些诗和小说中的种种描述显示,童年时期的创痛经验成就了作家的创作,令狄更斯的作品具有的强大的感染力。

关键词:狄更斯　童年　创伤　“鞋油工厂诗”作者简介:赖淑芳现任台湾国立中山大学助理教授,她的学术专长是维多利亚时代英国文学、十九世纪期刊及科学史。

曾获梁实秋文学翻译奖,发表论文于狄更斯学相关国际期刊。

　Many bi ographical and critical works have scrutinized the details of D ickens’s distressing ex2 perience in the blacking fact ory in his childhood;and Ed mund W ils on’s p sycho-bi ographical reading of1941,″D ickens:The T wo Scr ooges,″has been es pecially influential①.It is a landmark study of the trau ma fr om which D ickens suffered all his life.Yet,in W ils on’s words,″the unusu2al morbid tensi on ″of D ickens ’s childhood turned out t o be enor mously fruitful in his future work .This part of D ickens ’s life is now read as al m ost legendary,a myth,or a classic exa mp le of how a trauma of childhood could have a tre mendous influence on a writer .After W ils on ’s essay,a fl ood of Freudian,Jungian or Marxist inter p retati ons of D ickens ’s work has appeared,many of the m inevitably one 2sided .But such critics have been anxi ous t o show ″the intuitive D ickens,thislaughing,crying child inside the bearded public man in a fr ock coat ″(W ils on 15),and as Angus W ils on has p redicted in 1970,such critics will go on l ooking for ne w possibilities in the light .　The p r ophecy is fulfilled by John D re w ’s relatively recent discovery of a nu mber of com ic po 2e m s in The True Sun,advertising W arren ’s boot blacking,possibly composed by D ickens in hisearly t w enties ②.It was an evening ne ws paper f or which D ickens is known t o make worked as aparlia mentary reporter bet w een March and July or August 1832.The series of what D re w calls ″blacking poe m s,″not only takes us in a ne w directi on diverging fr om the well 2tr odden path of D ickens ’s career as a j ournalist,but als o challenges many p revi ous studies which f oll ow W ils on .That is t o say it suggests that perhap s D ickens was not s o trau matized by the blacking fact ory,but managed t o face and overcome his pain by writing about it .　The p resent paper ai m s t o l ook again at this part of D ickens ’s early life,t o re 2exa m ine what bi ographers and critics have said,and t o see how his workhouse ex perience f ound its way int o his ficti on,and whether the ne w discoveries of the ″blacking poe m s,″are right in suggesting other ne w as pects in D ickens ’s res ponse t o it than the morbidity and tensi on widely recognized .　There is no doubt that the experience affected hi m p r of oundly,if we l ook at the frag ments we have of the fa m iliar st ory .I n m id 2February,1824,only t w o days after D ickens ’s t w elve 2year 2old birthday,he was sent out t o work and t o live on his own .The fa m ily was in dire financial difficul 2ty,and he was engaged t o work f or a fe w shillings a week,atW arren ’s B lacking,30Hungerford Stairs,the Strand (near t oday ’s Charing Cr oss Stati on ).Thus the once p r om ising p r odigy,set t o work fr om Monday morning t o Saturday night (8a .m.t o 8p.m.)in the dirty rat 2ridden ware 2house,putting labels and covers on blacking pots,″with common men and boys ″as he put it .On 20February his father,John D ickens,was arrested f or debt,and three days later moved t o the Marshalsea debter ’s p ris on on the s outh side of Tha mes .The fa m ily then j oined the father,while young Charles was sent t o l odge on his own .W hen the fact ory moved t o Chandos St .in Covent Garden,he worked with other boys by the window for the sake of the light in vie w of passers 2by .A year bef ore this,his elder sister Fanny,had beco me a boarder at the Royal Acade my ofMusic at 38guineas a year and re mained there (H ibbert 38).It cost more than a tenth of her father ’s annual pensi on fr om the Navy Pay Office,which re mained unt ouched by those t o whom he was in debt .The eldest s on was thus cast adrift;the eldest daughter given her chance;and even when their father was released,in May 1824,the boy was kep t at work for nearly another year .　The first t o tell the st ory was John Forster,in his L ife of D ickens D ickens,and he gave it mainly in the words of a frag ment of aut obi ography that D ickens entrusted hi m with .It was first written ar ound 1847,but left unfinished;perhap s it see med t oo outs poken .But in fact it was largely used in the eleventh and earlier chap ters of his novel D avid Copperfield (1849-50)(Fos 2ter 29).According t o Forster,he first came t o learn of it by accident .One day in March or Ap ril of 1847,Forster asked if D ickens re membered a M r .D ilke who once met D ickens in a warehouse near the Strand where he was e mp l oyed,and who gave hi m a half 2cr own .D ickens ″was silent f or several m inutes ″;and Forster i m mediately sensed that he ″had unintenti onally t ouched a painful p lace in his me mory .″Some weeks later,D ickens t old Forster that he had ″struck unconsci ously upon a ti m e of which he never could l ose the re me mbrance while he re me mbered anything,and the recollecti on of which,at intervals,haunted hi m and made hi m m iserable,even t o that hour ″93Shu 2Fang Lai:D ickens ’s Rep resentati on of Childhood Trauma04外国文学研究　2006年第3期(Foster27-8).　D ickens’s own account enlivens and al m ost overfl ows the pages of Forster’s account,with in2 ter polati ons by his friend.And whether bef ore or after the rise of many schools and app r oaches of analyses that assess and show all s orts of as pects of D ickens in this obscure early peri od,the base of our knowledge is al m ost entirely Forster’s bi ography.D ickens first ex p resses his deep sense of being neglected and his burning desire f or educati on,using a passi onate and rhyth m ical rhet oric, underlying his feeling with better sarcas m: It is wonderful t o me how I could have been s o easily cast a way at such an age.It is wonder2 ful t o me,that,even after my descent int o the poor little drudge I had been since we ca me t o London,no one had compassi on enough on me—a child of singular abilities,quick,eager, delicate,and s oon hurt,bodily and mentally—t o suggest that s omething m ight have been s pared,as certainly it m ight have been,t o p lace me at any common school….My father and mother were quite satisfied(Forster31).　He menti ons his being comp letely al one and unassisted more than once.And in his own words, he tells of his disappoint m ent,dep ressi on and pain: No words can exp ress the secret agony of my s oul as I…felt my early hopes of gr owing up t o be a learned and distinguished man,crushed in my breast.The deep re me mbrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless;of the sha me I felt in my positi on…can2 not be written.My whole nature was s o penetrated with the grief and hum iliati on of such con2 siderati ons,that even now,fa mous and caressed and happy,I often f orget in my drea m s thatI had a dear wife and children;even that I a m a man;and wander des olately back t o thatti m e of my life(Forster33).　The wound and scar were per petual,and it is clear that he never fully got over the pain and sha me.L ike David Copperfield,whenever he read in reverse the inscri p ti on on a coffee2r oom win2 dow(as he had at that ti m e),he said″a shock goes thr ough my bl ood.″It is what G.K.Ches2 tert on calls the″moor2eeff oc″effect,a str ong sense of fear and m isery,like an ep i phany.③H is having t o work by the window f or all the world t o see must have es pecially hurt hi m.″I sa w my fa2 ther com ing in at the door one day when we were very busy,and I wondered how he could bear it,″in ag ony D ickens tells of his feeling of being abandoned and hu m iliated(Forster48).Fortu2 nately,after s ome ti m e,John D ickens quarrelled with the e mp l oyer Ja mes La mert,thus ending his s on’s fact ory life.　H is agony haunted hi m all his life,and his silence lasted a quarter of a century.He e mphasi2 zes how reticent he was about the past:″I never said,t o man or boy,ho w it was that I ca me t o be there....That I suffered in secret,and that I suffered exquisitely,no one ever kne w but I.How much I suffered,it is…utterly beyond my power t o tell″(Forster37-8).″Until old Hungerford2 market was pulled down,until old Hungerford2stairswere destr oyed,″he had no courage t o re2vis2 it the fact ory that beca me the sy mbol of the dark corner of his heart,because it re m inded hi m of what he was once(Forster49).I n fact,after forty years when he was able t o revisit the scene, the sight of it was over whel m ing:″It was a crazy,tumble2down old house...literally overrun with rats.Its wainscotted r oom s,and its r otten fl oors and staircase,and the old grey rats s war m ing down in the cellars,and the s ound of their squeaking and scuffling com ing up the stairs at all ti m es,and the dirt and decay of the p lace,rise up visibly bef ore me,as if I were there again″(Forster 31).　Even when he went by the street where he used t o l odge al one,the me mory ar oused e moti onal upheaval:″My old way home by the bor ough made me cry,after my eldest child could s peak ″(Forster 50).Such a feeling for the vulnerable self recurring thr oughout his life was,as Forster exp lains,his ″passive and innocent suffering .″But as we will see,the old house,its staircase,the grey rats have all become his material in the novels t o come and his phot ographic me mories hel p s hi m enliven the m over and over again in his novels .　Exa m ining Forster ’s descri p ti on,Ja mes A.Davies argues that the bi ographer has been influ 2enced by Carlyle ’s lecture on ″The Her o asMan of Letters,″endeavouring t o reveal the superi ormoral qualities of D ickens ’s ″inward s phere ″④,and t o p resent a rags 2t o 2riches the me .A s the bi 2ographer suggests,fr o m his early experiences,D ickens ″had derived great good fr om the m ,butnot without f olly ″(Forster 51).It becomes the s ource of ″the fixed and eager deter m inati on,therestless and resistless energy,″which hel ped hi m ″escape fr om many mean envir on ments,″but al 2s o ″br ought with it s ome disadvantage a mong many noble advantages,″″s omething hard and ag 2gressive ″and ″a stern and even cold is olati on of self 2reliance side by side with a suscep tivity al 2most fe m inine and the most eager craving f or sy mpathy ″—all as the result of ″a sudden hard andinexorable sense of what fate had dealt t o hi m in those early years .″(Forster 52-3).Carlyle had als o discerned that beneath D ickens ’s ″bright and j oyful sy mpathy with everything ar ound hi m ,″there were ″dark,fateful,silent ele ments,tragical t o l ook upon,and hiding,a m id dazzling radi 2ances as of the Sun,the ele ments of death itself ″⑤.It is what Davies calls a ″counter the me ″or ″the relati onshi p bet w een the early hu m iliati ons and D ickens ’s persisting and ulti m ately self 2de 2structive faults of character ″(Davis 43).But Forster and D ickens,as Graha m S m ith puts it,have perhap s successfully transf or med life int o myth (S m ith 5).I n fact,D ickens ’s aut obi ograph 2ical frag ment survives only as Forster gives it and as used in D avid Copperfield .The original MS did not survive .　Critics have l ong argued about how reliable Forster is,f or they have detected the bi ographer ’s obvi ous intenti on t o include and om it,and his craft in skillfully mani pulating D ickens ’s own ac 2count t o offer his own comments .But they may be t oo skep tical .It is al w ays arguable how ficti on 2al an aut obi ography is and how factual an aut obi ographical ficti on such as D ickens ’s D avid Cop 2perfield can be .I n fact,Barbara Charles worth Gel p i has observed a tendency a mong V ict orian au 2t obi ographers t o e mphasize or exaggerate their is olati on in childhood,and she assu mes that thismay be influenced greatly by D ickens ’s D avid Copperfield ⑥.Robert Tracy ’s hel pful study hastried t o distinguish bet w een ficti onal aut obi ography and aut obi ographical ficti on .He suggests that that an aut obi ography is ″ficti onal in f or m and t o s o me extent in content ″;while aut obi ographical ficti on is ″partly based on fact .″Ficti on is more or less dra matic in nature,but an aut obi ographynot only tells but tries t o exp lain ⑦.″D ickens never recovered fr om his experience and t o under 2stand what lies at the heart of his feeling f or children,the poor,the debt ors,and the unl oved and outcast,″says K .J.Fielding in his intr oduct ory work on D ickens,and he judici ously judges how unusual and comp licated such a document is,suggesting ″you should read in Forster ’s pages all that is left of the strange document that D ickens once intended f or his aut obi ography ″(Fielding9).This is consistent with Robert Tracy ’s argument that D ickens ’s ″childhood s olitude in his au 2t obi ography is t o a considerable extent a literary contrivance of om issi on and careful selecti on ″(Tracy 282).I n his novels,as we shall see,the voiceless is after all,voiced .Therefore besides the odd docu ment,we should pay equal attenti on t o his novels t o see how real life ex perience has been transf or med .I n fact,there are s o many atte mp ts such as John Bayley ’s ″O liver Tw ist :14Shu 2Fang Lai:D ickens ’s Rep resentati on of Childhood Trauma24外国文学研究　2006年第3期‘Things are They Really A re,’″that f oll ow this truth2seeking critical app r oach⑧.A s late as in Oct ober1862,he wr ote t o Forster openly dwelling on the″never2t o2be2forgotten m isery″t o raise the curtain he then dr opped⑨.It was s o real t o hi m,but he was constantly able t o recover his more genial self.This is shown in his frequent and recurrent allusi ons t o boot blacking,blacking pots,and the na me ofW arren’s warehouse in the novels,if never in life.　D ickens’s warehouse experience finds its way int o his novels.For exa mp le,the character Bob Fagin is based on a boy who on D ickens’s first day at W arren’s hel ped hi m learn the tricks of wrapp ing and tying up the pots.Pick wick’s most dev oted servant,Sa m W eller,uses Day and Martin’s blacking that can ar ouse the envy of M r.W arren.Young David Copperfield,e mp l oyed by a fir m of wine2merchants,Murdst one&Grinby,bears a cl ose rese mblance t o young D ickens. W e have the authoritative verdict fr om the author hi m self.Just after he had comp leted the part a2 bout David’s warehouse adventures,D ickens wr ote t o Forster saying he had″done it ingeni ously, and with a very comp licated inter weaving of truth and ficti on″(10July1849).I n his surviving Working Notes,on the left of the sheet of his p lan f or No.5of D avid Copperfield,D ickens″what I know s o well″(St one,D ickens’s W orking N otes148).I n Great Expecta tions,when Joe Gargery first comes up t o London,he goes and l ooks at the B lacking W are’us.I n Barnaby Rudge,an old house called″The W arren″is″mouldering t o ruin,″and in which the secrets of the past are buried⑩.A s much t o the point,in D ickens’s ficti onal world,we often encounter or phans,is olated, wounded and neglected:inB leak House there is Joe,the wretched street s weeper,who has″no fa2 ther,no mother,no friends,″″[n]ever been t o school,″and lives in the dark dep th of Tom2all2 A l one’s;in O urM utual F riend,JennyW ren,a def or med t w elve2year2old child(the sa me age as D ickens in the blacking fact ory),working as a dolls’dress maker and p laying parent t o her child2 ish and drunken father;in D o m bey and S on,Paul Dombey who lives with″an aching void in his young heart,and all outside s o cold,and bare,and strange,″and whose ill health re m inding readers of the recurrent painful s pas m s young D ickens suffered.Most of D ickens’s her oes and her oines,as Christ opher H ibbert concludes,″begin their lives cut off fr om other peop le,inse2 cure,obliged t o make their way in a strange,discordant,threatening world,endeavouring t o be2 come accep ted by it and a part of it,trying t o understand the m selves,and,in the meanti m e,sha2 ring the sense of dep rivati on″(H ibbert73).Another clue lies in the narrative.Often the narra2 t ors are gr own2up children such as O liver T wist,Esther in B leak House,Redla w in The Haunted M an,or Pi p in Great Expecta tions.W hile telling their lives,they recall,redefine and recover fr om the past.　Many self2evident exa mp les come fr om A Christ m as Carol(1843).W e are t old that bef ore writing A Christ m as Ca rol,D ickens initially thought of issuing a pa mphlet,″Appeal on Behalf of the PoorMan’s Child″in res ponse t o a parlia mentary report on the exp l oitati on of child laborers in fact ories and m ines;but instead of making such a direct state ment,he commanded his fancy t o do it.W e hearD ickens’s own verdict thr ough Redla w in″Haunted Man″:″I bear within me a Sorr ow and a W r ong.Thus I p rey upon myself.Thus,me mory is my curse.″Redla w and Scr ooge re m ind us of another ficti onal characterMag witch who has t o″steal or starve″in his early years and has gone astray as he gr ows up.These characters are,in Harry St one’s words,his″avatars of D ick2 ens,″″unquiet ghosts of D ickens’haunted past″or″dark alter egos″and they show how his rep re2 sentati on of early self has devel oped fr om allegorical beings t o more comp licated characters (St one,The N ight S ide of D ickens476).Fortunately Redla w,Scr ooge and Mag witch all acquire the chances t o heal their wounds and redee med the m selves by hel p ing others.　Harry St one’s analysis of the night side of D ickens directs us t o another excellent exa mp le,George Silver man ’s Exp lanati on,a short st ory he wr ote as late as in 1867,which is a ″disguisedaut obi ography ″rich in overt ones λϖ.Silver man,an elderly clergy man,tells the st ory of his life .Born in a dark cellar by a cruel and abusive mother,and having lived in darkness,poverty,fear,and s olitude,he was als o a child of neglect and want .After his parents died of fever,the or phan could not be accep ted by the s ociety f or the fear of infecti on,but later he was rescued by a cleri 2cal friend of his grandfather ’s .″I know how all these things have worked t ogether t o make me what I a m ,″Silver man says years after he has become a Ca mbridge graduate,and an ordained clergy man;his state ment echoes the aut obi ographical one given by Forster .　The st ory is again an allegory of the author ’s own life .On writing it,D ickens said t o the sub 2edit or of his j ournal,W.H.W ills:″Upon myself,it has made the strangest i m p ressi on of reality and originality!!And I feel as if I had read s omething (by s omebody else )which I shall never get out of my head!!″(28June 1867) λω.H is past me mories make it s o hard f or Silver man t o articu 2late his life st ory that he has t o make three atte mp ts t o begin .This corres ponds with D ickens ’sown reluctance t o face his old past,but at last he says,″Iwill come upon it by degree ″(W atkins 122).I n Silver man ’s st ory,St one finds f our sy mbolic i m ages distinctive D ickensian and a down 2right transfor mati on of his early warehouse experience:Silver man ’s living in darkness and his ″tarnished ″na me (meaning the col our of grey literally )that corres pond t o the well 2known idea of the ″Shadow ″;the circling and recycling (a hall m ark of D ickens ’s i m aginati on )in his old aban 2doned house where he finds ″green leaves tre mbled,butterflies fluttered,and bees hu mmed in and out thr ough the br oken door ways ″and ″encircling the whole ruin were s weet scents and sights of fresh green gr owth and ever rene wing life ″(St one,The N igh t S ide of D ickens 490);the rats gr own 2up Silver man sees in the darkness of the cellar that beca me ″the embodi m ent of the terrif 2ying childhood trau ma:the trau ma of the blacking warehouse ″(St one,The N ight S ide of D ickens 496);and the archetypal ″l ong chain ″of past,p resent and future reflected in the narrative (als o seen in D avid Copperfield,Great Expectations,A Christ m as Carol and his other Christ m as st o 2ries ).The ending of the st ory carries an op ti m istic message .After telling ″the delicate,perhap s the diseased,corner ″of his m ind,″Silver man or D ickens in disguise concludes:″my heart did not break,if a br oken heart involves death;f or I live thr ough it .″H is trauma was overcome f or the ti m e being .　Theref ore,though Forster ’s L ife suggests that D ickens see med never fully g ot over the pains,the sha me and the fear caused by the blacking fact ory ep is ode,we may dra w a different conclu 2si on,fr om evidence in his novels .W ith his str ong will,D ickens not only got over the trauma and ″the self 2abs orbed grief of childhood ″as the modern bi ographer Edgar Johns on calls it but als o t ook strength fr om it (Johns on 32).The recurrent allusi ons t o the unhappy past become his re m inder of the trau matic ex perience .I n hi m ,writing exerts its magic power of healing .One of the most sy mbolic reflecti ons is seen in N icholas N ickleby :in the office where y oung N icholas works,there is al w ays a bootblack bottle within which there was no blacking but a fl ower!This i m age i m p lies an essential D ickensian motif:even in the bleakest circu m stances,s omething beautiful will still bl oom !　Here is the turning point t o break a way fr om the p sychoanalytical school in rethinking D ick 2ens ’s childhood trauma .″D ickens ’s critics and bi ographers have tended t o overe mphasize the traumatic ele ments of W arren ’s and t o ignore the nor mal and even healthy as pects of this event because they fail t o p lace D ickens in a devel opmental frame work,″be moans A lbert Hutter . λξIt is justifiable t o stress the positive as pect of D ickens ’s experience,as he usually did hi m self .Hutter modifies p revi ous p sychol ogical app r oaches by f ocusing on D ickens ’s p reoccupati on with food in his novels,its relati on t o physical sy mp t om s,supp ressi on,anal and oral i m ageries,and his ag 234Shu 2Fang Lai:D ickens ’s Rep resentati on of Childhood Trauma44外国文学研究　2006年第3期gressi on against the father(in corres pondence t o Freud’s″Rat Man″)(Hutter13).Moreover, Hutter compares D ickens with Coleridge who was sent t o a charity school after his father’s death and als o found hi m self cut off fr om his fa m ily,is olated and neglected(at this ti m e,three years younger than D ickens in the blacking fact ory).Coleridge’s parallel case i m p lies that perhap s rather than pathol ogical urge,descri p ti ons of traumatic ex periences are common in life writings of e m inent writers of D ickens’s generati on.　It is a fairly common vie w that D ickens’s observati on of l ow life at s o tender an age generates the purity of t one with which that life is treated in his ficti on,but George Gissing held different vie w:″He just escaped in ti m e,that was all,and his most f ortunate endowment did the rest.″(Gissing21).However,the many allusi ons and references found in Forster,D ickens’s novels, and his letters p r ove that D ickens is not an escap ist as Gissing asserts.O r rather he has utilised it.　Now D re w’s discovery of a series of genuine″B lacking Poe m s″by D ickens hel p s t o confir m the brighter side of D ickens’s blacking2fact ory ep is ode.They show much earlier than the ti m e when ficti onal allusi ons appeared,D ickens was willing t o dwell upon the experience in a poetic way.I nstead of al w ays indulging hi m self in self2p ity and agonizing f or the dark and dis mal past,he was able t o transfor m his experience int o s omething co m ic and p leasant.It is nothing ne w t o those who studies D ickens’s j ournalis m f orD ickensian critics have l ong known that he wr ote a series of com2 ic poe m s or early advertising jingles″blithely eul ogizing W arren’s boot blacking″ λψ,but f or the first ti m e,D re w has br ought t o light the series of ten puffing verses λζ.These poe m s,theref ore, reveal a jauntier D ickens:a young man just starting his career as a parlia mentary reporter,with the a mbiti on t o become a successful writer or act or,who si m p ly put the wound of his childhood behind hi m.He see m s positively glad t o flirt with revealing the past in his com ic advertising ver2 ses.Here we may recall the″shabby genteel2man″in Pick wick who leads a life of seclusi on on coffee,bread,and pens and inks.″H is fell ow2l odgers very naturally suppose hi m t o be an au2 thor,″and there are rumours about his″writing f orM rW arren.″I n The O ld Curiosity Shop,a M r Slu m sells his verses t o W arren’s and writes advertise ments f or M rs Jarley’s wax work at three2 and2six a ti m e.Perhap s the shabby2genteel man and M r Slu m are cheerful self2reflexive gli m p ses of young D ickens hi m self.These characters unf old features of the industri ous and lighthearted ju2 venile D ickens and balance the stereotyped i m age of the wounded and neglected children often in the foregr ound of critical attenti on in the past.　D re w als o finds evidence f or m John Collier’s account in his A n O ld M an’s D iary entry f or24 July1833,published in1872,the sa me year as the first v olume of Forster’s L ife.W hen John D ickens and uncle John Henry Barr ow tried t o hel p D ickens app ly a j ob in the office of Morning Chr onicle,Barr ow t old Collier that his nephe w had written″puffing″advertising verses for W ar2 ren.Among the m is a mocking par ody with a wood-cut figure of″a dove…l ooking at a polished boot,and m istaking the reflecti on of itself f or the real appearance of its mate.″Judging fr om the internal and external evidence(s o full of hu mour and wit),the poe m is the earliest p iece of D ick2 ens’s published work in any genre.It was rep rinted again as″The Turtle Dove″on the fr ont page of the True S un(13March1832)entitled″The Turtle Dove″: A s l onely I sat on a cal m su mmer’s morning,To breathe the s oft incense that fl ow’d on the wind;Imus’d on my boots in their bright beauty da wning,By W arren’s Jet B lacking—the p ride of mankind.…。