A Christmas Carol

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2021

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' novella, written in 1843 when he was 31, which has become intertwined with his reputation and with Christmas itself. Ebenezer Scrooge is the miserly everyman figure whose joyless obsession with money severs him from society and his own emotions, and he is only saved after recalling his lonely past, seeing what he is missing now and being warned of his future, all under the guidance of the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet To Come. Redeemed, Scrooge comes to care in particular about one of the many minor characters in the story who make a great impact, namely Tiny Tim, the disabled child of the poor and warm-hearted Cratchit family, with his cry, "God bless us, every one!"

With

Juliet John Professor of English Literature and Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at City, University of London

Jon Mee Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York

And

Dinah Birch Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement and Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:49.8	Hello in 1843 Charles Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol a work which like
0:54.5	Dickens reputation has become intertwined with Christmas itself.
0:58.1	He brought us Scrooge the miserly every man cut off from emotion and society by his joyless obsession with money, his
1:05.1	essence preserved in his grumbling oath bar, Humbug. And then there's his counterpoint
1:10.1	that Cratchit family as rich in fellow feeling as they are poor financially, warm-hearted, among them
1:15.4	Tiny Tim who declares God bless us every one.
1:19.0	With me to discuss the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens are Julia John, Professor of English Literature and
1:24.4	Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at City University of London, John Mee,
1:28.5	Professor of 18th Century Studies at the University of York, and Dyna Birch Birch Pro Vice Chancellor for Cultural Engagement
	...

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