«Outsider word» in English literature: from realism to fin de siecle

The article is concerned with a parody Dickens Up to Date; Or Fiction Repeats Itself, which was anonymously published in Punch (1896). A sequential analysis of the parody reveals the differences of realistic manner of Ch.Dickens and Beardsley, a famous English graphic artist of the late XIX century. The author of the article points out the traditional elements and innovations in the reflection of English literature on itself as well as on French literature. Putting an extract from Lady Flabella to The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby Dickens parodies the style of French XVIII century novels. The poetic manner of such novels is opposed to a poetic style of English writers of the Age of Enlightenment, as well to a poetic manner of Dickens. Beardsley in his novel Under the Hill, on the contrary, makes a rococo poetic style a part of his own poetic manner, but he interprets the rococo poetic manner, according to fin de siècle culture: he intensifies the sensual and visual component. In Dickens Up to Date; Or Fiction Repeats Itself (by Ada Leverson) a creative combination of two texts underlines the uncovering of somebody else's style (a term of Tomashevsky). The author «plays» with the «Dickens (realistic) - Beardsley (rococo)» opposition.