Comic villains: melodrama tradition
Abstract
Until the middle of his career, Dickens’ treatment of evil was strongly theatrical, and, in the tradition of his time, this meant that villains were stereotyped monsters whose unrelieved wickedness was not without its comic aspect. It was one of Dickens’ greatest achievements to exploit this comedy to the full while at the same time suggesting an unusual degree of psychological sickness. The theatre’s unreality of exaggeration became, in his hands, an unreality akin to hallucination.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Theater
Performance
and Music History
Shakespeare
Adaptation
and Literary Criticism
Folklore
Mythology
and Literature Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Routledge eBooks
- Pages
- 37–42
- Publication date
- 9 January 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter