Reid, J. C.Lansbury, Coral2007-07-092007-07-091969Thesis (PhD--English)--University of Auckland, 1969http://hdl.handle.net/2292/752Full text is available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland only.The traditions of a country and its people are determined by historical events, but those traditions are frequently modified and changed by literature in the continuous interplay of the reality of the imagination and the reality of life. The literary artist is not only receptive to the world around him; through his writing he creates the world afresh. The precise memory of events is translated by the conscious artistry of the writer who, like Dickens, can impose his conception of an historical occasion upon contemporary thought. A writer whose work is acclaimed and imitated is transmuting life after the fashion of his own mind and making it part of the thought of his readers. Pickwick’s England is in a sense more real than Macaulay’s. G. K. Chesterton perceived this truth when he wrote that Dickens was not simply an event in English literature, but an event in English history...enRestricted Item. Available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland.Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htmThesisCopyright: The authorQ112029979