Epigraphs
“. . . the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17. 21) “In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease – a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breast, only needing circumstances to evoke them” (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 279). “for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” (John 12.43) Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. (Augustine, City of God, Book XIV.38).
Photographic Portrait. Charles Dickens. George Herbert Watkins. 1861. David Simkin. Portraits of Charles Dickens : Drawings, Paintings, Engravings and Photographs. Sussex PhotoHistory Home Page. 25 Feb. 2012. Web.
Dickens and The City of God
Reading the Gospel of John in A Tale of Two Cities Melissa Brotton, MS, Ph.D. Department of English and Communication Las Dickens (1812-1870)
Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens. February 7. A Tale of Two Cities, 1859, (serialized in All the Year Round, April 30- November 26). One of Dickens‘ most known stories, but one which stands out for its layers of symbolic and metaphorical meaning.
Charles Dickens. Daguerreotype. George Herbert Watkins. 1858. Wikipedia. Jan. 30, 2009. Web.
Dickens on A Tale
As the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself into its present form. Throughout its execution, it has had complete possession of me; I have so far verified what is done and suffered in these pages, as that I have done and suffered it all myself. (Preface to A Tale of Two Cities, 1959).
What Two Cities?
London and Paris?
England and France?
Soho and Saint Antoine? The City of God and the City of Man? All of the above?
St. Augustine‘s Prayer to the Holy Spirit.
Still. BBC’s A Tale of Two Cities, 1989. Granada Television.
“There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and the morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of a patient. (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 270).
Conflicts
Dr. Manette‘s background story: an innocent man imprisoned by the powerful Evrè monde brothers for attesting to a murder. Defarges‘ revenge on the Evrè monde family Love triangle: Lucie, Charles Darnay (Evrè monde) and Sydney Carton Darnay and Carton‘s simultaneous redemptions The backdrop of the French Revolution