ABSTRACT
In Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens uses the despicable hypocrite Seth Pecksniff to articulate a common Victorian perception of the purpose of a cathedral and of its representations. Cathedrals are, in this view, dated structures associated with aesthetic pleasure, nostalgia, and vague emotional responses. They are, Pecksniff suggests, so loaded with cultural baggage as to have become essentially meaningless, familiarly picturesque enough to be manipulable by those who would like to exploit the “venerable associations” attached to them, and most of all, they are irrelevant to the contemporary nineteenth-century world in which he operates and of which Dickens writes. Readers of Martin Chuzzlewit are well aware that they should mistrust Pecksniff ’s self-interested cant; however, despite his grandiose and proprietary tone, here Pecksniff has a point. Something about cathedrals, and about the spaces in which they are situated, lends itself to replication through artisticand literary-representation, and to manipulation by those who incorporate the cathedral’s atmosphere into their own works. The cathedral’s medieval origins and Roman Catholic history, as well as its imposingly ancient physical appearance of massive stonework, carved porticoes, looming windows, and gothic spires, seem distant from, and opposed to, modernity; yet this apparent distance also suggests, perhaps counter-intuitively, the usefulness
of the cathedral town to the modern author: cathedrals and their surroundings provide powerful foils to the bustling urban life more often associated with the progressive, Anglican nineteenth century while allowing writers the opportunity to complicate and disrupt the dichotomy between ancient and modern spaces-and worldviews.
