The evolution of the dandy figure in the writings of Thomas Carlyle, Charles dickens and Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Abstract EN

The dandy was an elusive cultural icon which found expression in many literary works and attracted the attention of prominent cultural critics.

The general undiscerning assumption was that the dandy was merely a man interested in clothes and matters of style.

A more discriminating examination of the dandy figure reveals, however, that he was much more sophisticated than this assumption makes him to be.

This paper examines the nineteenth-century theoretical debate about the dandy in the works of Charles Baudelaire and Thomas Carlyle, particularly in Carlyle’s book Sartor Resartus and then proceeds to study the presentation of the dandy figure in two novels by Charles Dickens, Hard Times and Bleak House, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham.

The paper concludes that the cultural and literary debate about the dandy figure reflected the social and ideological biases of those involved in the debate and was part of a larger conflict between aristocratic and middle-class cultural and aesthetic values and their attempt for dominance in British society.