The Whys and Wherefores of Dickens s Poetisation of Little Nell s Funeral

This article discusses Dickens’s poetisation of Little Nell’s funeral with the aim of showing the whys and wherefores that drove him to that. This unfolds through an analysis of a passage put to verse years after the publication of The Old Curiosity Shop, his first novel with a child heroine. Among the various reasons that impelled Dickens to poetise his heroine’s funeral, stands in front the sudden loss of his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth. The epitaph he wrote on her tombstone, “Young, beautiful, and good, God in his mercy numbered her with His angles at the early age of seventeen” already displays this poetic inclination. The analysis of this poetisation shows that Dickens uses a great number of phonological devices which impact the reader’s hear with the echo that the words make in their utterance. This echo amplifies and justifies the immortal character of his portrayal of Little Nell.