Dear Unknown Friends:

Here is part 4 of the landmark 1971 lecture that we are serializing, Poetry i: Imagination Is All This, by Eli Siegel. Throughout the talk, Mr. Siegel has been describing, vividly and richly, what imagination is, and has given a sense of the tremendous variousness of it. Now he is looking at what he considered to be one of the greatest works of imagination: Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers.

Mr. Siegel wrote, and spoke, much about Pickwick over the years, and certainly about Dickens himself. In this lecture, he speaks about them as part of his showing what imagination can do, the grandeur that can be in it. Imagination came to something new, he explains, when in 1836 and ’7 Dickens wrote Pickwick. To help place what’s included in the present TRO, I’ll quote, from our previous number, these statements by Mr. Siegel:

The effect of The Pickwick Papers on the public of then is one of the mighty things in human history. A work appeared, and then gradually people felt this was different. There was a kind of laughter through this work, different from previous laughter….[That laughter,] everyone should know about. It speaks well for man.

What All Imagination Is

To introduce further what you’ll soon read, I’ll describe again, concisely, these central principles about imagination—which Eli Siegel was THE critic to see: 1) All imagination is a coming together of two opposites: self and world. Imagination always has something of the outside world seen and changed by a particular person’s thought. 2) The chief distinction between good imagination and bad is whether the imagining arises from respect for the world or from contempt. Good imagination (including when it’s satiric) arises from the desire to value reality; to know and feel as justly as we can. In bad imagination we’re impelled by contempt: our purpose is to make ourselves superior, to look down on what’s other than ourselves; and this imagination is always sloppy and cruel.

Two Characters—and Our Lives

In this section of the lecture, Mr. Siegel speaks some about the character Alfred Jingle. To my knowledge, his way of seeing Jingle is different from that of any other critic. And it matters—because the qualities Mr. Siegel shows Jingle as bringing together are opposites people have felt could never make sense. For example, The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Jingle as a “specious rascal.” That is not how Eli Siegel sees him. Here and elsewhere, he shows Jingle to be a means of relating those tremendous opposites good and evil—among others. Though I cannot in this short space give all my reasons for saying so, I believe Eli Siegel’s seeing of Jingle is masterful in the history of literary criticism.

And so is his seeing of Mr. Pickwick. In a passage included in our last number, Mr. Siegel described Pickwick as

a person who is kind and also seems not to be mawkish,…strong as he seems so gentle and, in a way, so sweet. The substantiality of sweetness: that’s one of the hardest things to imagine—to make somebody kind and not make him simply silly.

This is what humanity is thirsting for now: to feel kindness is the same as power—the same as cleverness, know-how, practicality. Aesthetic Realism shows that real kindness is those things, and that there’s nothing more hopeful than this beautiful fact.

—Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism
Chair of Education

Imagination Has Logic

By Eli Siegel

We continue looking at a speech of Mr. Pickwick given during a meeting of the Pickwick Club. What he said is described in a report by the club’s secretary:

Travelling was in a troubled state, and the minds of coachmen were unsettled.

Occasionally there is a sentence that is effective through an arrangement of a thing in two: “Travelling was in a troubled state”—then “and the minds of coachmen were unsettled.” There’s a construction there. It has to do with equivalence, and cause and effect. All imagination has logic in it. But why that sentence is funny has to do with the way it begins with something impersonal and then the second part is about persons: “Travelling was in a troubled state, and the minds of coachmen were unsettled.”

Also, the imagination of Dickens here was rhythmical. You could make that sentence much duller by robbing it of its rhythm. For instance: I have to point out that transportation right now is attended with confusion, and the personnel of transportation are not as pleased with their function as they were some years ago.

This first chapter is one of the poetic things in English literature. The person standing for poetry, Pickwick, has adventures. And the characters get more one—related deeply—as the story goes on. Dickens didn’t know what he was going to do. One can see, here and there, his uncertainty.

The account of the meeting continues:

Mr. A. Snodgrass rose to order. He threw himself upon the chair. (Hear.)

A. Snodgrass talks of throwing himself—and “upon the chair” means here the judgment of the meeting’s chairman. That use of the word throw has become part of the English language—as in I throw myself on the mercy of the court. And it is an imaginative thing. How did that come to be? A big aspect of imagination is its constantly making one of body—something you can see—and something you can’t: I throw this out for your judgment. That’s almost like something happening on a baseball field. And in Mr. Snodgrass’s throwing himself there’s something physical: “He threw himself upon the chair.”

Ill Will and a Famous Phrase

At this meeting there’s a person who corresponds to the bad fairy in the fairy stories—the one arranging, for instance, that bad things happen to the newborn child. Here that is Mr. Blotton. He doesn’t like what’s going on. He’s envious of Pickwick. And the Phiz illustration gives his envy very well: he does look displeased. He thinks all that’s going on in the meeting is false. And he thinks Mr. Pickwick is not as authentic as he might be. So we have this discussion after Mr. Blotton has been insulting and has been criticized for it:

Mr. Blotton would only say then, that he repelled the hon. gent.’s false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt….The hon. gent. was a humbug. (Immense confusion, and loud cries of “Chair,” and “Order.”)

Then we have this:

The Chairman was quite sure the hon. Pickwickian would withdraw the expression he had just made use of.

Mr. Blotton, with all possible respect for the chair, was quite sure he would not.

The way this is put has a rhythm. There is “was quite sure the hon. Pickwickian would withdraw…” and then “was quite sure he would not.” There’s a use of sameness and difference that shows imagination working well.

The Chairman felt it his imperative duty to demand of the honourable gentleman, whether he had used the expression which had just escaped him in a common sense.

Mr. Blotton had no hesitation in saying that he had not—he had used the word in its Pickwickian sense. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to acknowledge that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and esteem for the honourable gentleman; he had merely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of view. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. Pickwick felt much gratified by the fair, candid, and full explanation of his honourable friend. He begged it to be at once understood, that his own observations had been merely intended to bear a Pickwickian construction. (Cheers.)

Now, if I go so far (and I’m aware that I’m going far) as to call this a great poetic place in the history of world literature, dealing with the desire of people to be prudent and imprudent, to be audacious and timid, to say something and also feel they’re not saying something—and the way people withdraw here, including Mr. Blotton, is a sign of that desire—I think I’m careful. The fact is that the phrase in a Pickwickian sense has become proverbial in English, and if it didn’t have this poetic meaning that would not have occurred to it.

How what’s in that passage is said is such a mingling of wanting to be fair and yet wanting to take care of oneself in a bad way. It is lovely in its temporizing and also its eternity. The way persons get out of a difficulty through that phrase in a Pickwickian sense—it’s luscious, imaginative, and immortal.

A New Kind of Imagination

Mr. Pickwick and his colleagues go out, and they meet a cab man. The cab man gets angry and suspicious because Mr. Pickwick is taking notes—what’s he taking notes for?—and wants to fight Mr. Pickwick and his friends. There would have been trouble, because the persons around the cab man are on his side, if a stranger had not appeared. The stranger saves the Pickwickians from being mauled a bit by the friends of the cab man. I’ll read a description of the stranger. His name isn’t given yet, but he’s Alfred Jingle, who’s one of the great characters of imagination. To study Jingle is to study poetry.

His long, black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat; and glimpses of his bare wrists might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his coat sleeves. His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man.

The way two aspects of the world, the richness of the world and the skimpiness, are here—the way they’re shown through particular words—makes us see that another kind of imagination is working. Imagination deals with oceans and teakettles. It has to do with the small and hardly seen and the large. Where imagination is unimpeded, it is just to both.

So if we look at Dickens’ description of Jingle we can see imagination: “His long, black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat.” What we have here is linearity with “His long, black hair”—and the rhythm of that, with its long syllables, is poetic. Next is “escaped in negligent waves,” which puts the hair in motion. But through the words “negligent waves” we get the feeling of richness after linearity.

“…from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat.” The “pinched-up hat” is so forlorn, so of poverty; but the hair escaping is rich.

Then, he’s dressed and not dressed: “and glimpses of his bare wrists might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his coat sleeves.” Jingle here is like Charlie Chaplin, who could be in a rather unkempt state and maintain his aplomb. This is a sign that the imperfection of the world need not make you grouchy or sour.

Fullness and not-fullness, entirety and the fraction quality of things, are to be seen here. They’re in the next sentence: “His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man.”

There Are Relations

We have to think of how people influenced each other. The writer Don Marquis is not thought of much now. But if he is thought of at all, it’s in terms of his character Mehitabel, who says “toujours gai.” We have a whole relation among characters, different but with something big in common. We have Falstaff, and we have Bobadil in Every Man in His Humour. We have Jingle. We have Charlie Chaplin. We have Mehitabel. These are characters who have to endure the world and show how they take it. Don Marquis may have been affected by Jingle; I’m sure he read Dickens. And, since Dickens acted in Every Man in His Humour, he certainly knew Bobadil, the soldier who was so sure of himself. This jauntiness as the world is falling is something to see. And Jingle has that.

In the meantime, Jingle destroys the complacency of various people. And the way he talks is a mingling of rush and stoppage. Jingle goes with the Pickwickians to Rochester. And we have his way of talking, which is in terms of personal headlines. This is the way he describes the cathedral in Rochester:

“Ah! fine place,” said the stranger, “glorious pile—frowning walls—tottering arches—dark nooks—crumbling staircases—old cathedral too—earthy smell…: capital….”

The Pickwickians and the stranger, Jingle, go to where a ball will take place. But first they go to a tavern, and there’s a lot of eating and drinking. Dickens has this sentence:

Mr. Pickwick’s countenance glowed with an expression of universal philanthropy; and Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass fell fast asleep.

That description of “universal philanthropy” is about something Dickens can get to. He gets to it in a famous phrase in A Christmas Carol: “In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.”

However, Tupman and Jingle talk about going to the ball. And they represent two kinds of humanity. Tupman has been fortunate financially. He’s rather complacent. And he sees himself as liked by anyone whom he wants to have like him. Jingle is one who represents misfortune. He’s called a strolling actor. But we know he doesn’t have what people look for. Tupman does. Jingle sees that he cannot go to the ball in the attire he has. So what will he do? Mr. Winkle has fallen asleep, and a suit of Mr. Winkle is just about fitting for Jingle. —Now, this is imagination. There’s the imagination of Shakespeare when he uses the handkerchief to bring about tragedy in Othello. You use a particular object to show great meaning. And Dickens ingeniously arranges the taking of Winkle’s garb by Tupman and Jingle, with Winkle later challenged to a duel because the person wearing his clothes has angered someone.

Tupman has some hesitation about using Winkle’s apparel without his permission. But Jingle acts as Mephistopheles now:

“Fill your glass, and pass the wine,” said the indefatigable visitor [Jingle]. Mr. Tupman did as he was requested; and the additional stimulus of the last glass settled his determination.

“Important” People

Mr. Tupman and Jingle (in Winkle’s clothes) are at the ball, and at a certain point the “important” people come in. Dickens, in his novels, describes ever so many kinds of importance, usually false importance. There’s this sentence:

Colonel Bulder and Sir Thomas Clubber exchanged snuff-boxes, and looked very much like a pair of Alexander Selkirks—“Monarchs of all they surveyed.”

And there’s Doctor Slammer, and the wealthy widow, Mrs. Budger. What impelled Dickens to have four names of self-satisfied people all ending in er—Clubber, Bulder, Slammer, and Budger? You could say it was willpower, but imagination has the effect of will.

Meanwhile, Jingle is going to cause some trouble. The one good purpose of the existence of evil is to put complacency into motion. If there weren’t evil, we’d be so self-satisfied we couldn’t be tolerated. So evil, insofar as it is a threat to complacency, has some kind of function. This Doctor Slammer doesn’t have a good purpose. The widow, Mrs. Budger, has money, and Slammer is going to pursue her for that reason. Jingle says he’s going to interfere with this. Jingle is not interested in the widow for himself—he just doesn’t like the doctor’s expeditionary complacency. And Dickens tells of it:

Upon the doctor, and the widow, the eyes of both Mr. Tupman and his companion had been fixed for some time, when the stranger broke silence.

“Lots of money—old girl—pompous doctor—not a bad idea—good fun,” were the intelligible sentences which issued from his lips. Mr. Tupman looked inquisitively in his face.

“I’ll dance with the widow,” said the stranger.

“Who is she?” inquired Mr. Tupman.

“Don’t know—never saw her in all my life—cut out the doctor—here goes.”

The phraseology here is poetic. This is a little free verse poem of a sort:

Jingle has a triumph: soon the widow prefers him to Slammer.

I shall get back to Pickwick. I hope to deal with as much of the book as I can, because it is a laboratory for the very useful seeing of imagination.