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SUMMARY:From Fog to Smog: A Literary Journey - Dr Christine Corton\, Senio
 r Member\, Wolfson College
DTSTART:20120201T130000Z
DTEND:20120201T140000Z
UID:TALK36942@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Marina Salorio-Corbetto
DESCRIPTION:London fog has been viewed as a nuisance since Tudor times\, b
 ut it was the Victorian era that began to view it as a feature so characte
 ristic of London life that it could provide both writers and artists with 
 great metaphorical opportunities. Nineteenth century writers grappled init
 ially with the naming of this problem: was it fog\, mist or smoke? Could i
 t best be described as a  ‘pea-souper’ or a ‘London Particular’? T
 hese linguistic dilemmas not only provided an opportunity for metaphorical
  representation but also represented the reasons behind the delay in clean
 ing up London’s air. If nobody could agree whether London fog was natura
 l or man-made\, or\, if it was man-made\, whether it was the fault of the 
 householder or the industrialist\, then legal attempts to enforce the clea
 ner burning of coal\, could not be pushed through. For this reason it took
  until 1956 to pass the Clean Air Act\, even though earlier reformers\, as
  varied as John Evelyn (1620-1706) to Michael Angelo Taylor (1757-1834)\, 
 MP for Durham and even Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) attempted many times to
  pass Bills through Parliament which would improve the air breathed by Lon
 doners.\n\nIn my talk I will not only look at fog as a signifier of London
  but also at the varied ways in which it was used metaphorically. It seems
  only right that in this bicentenary year of his birth that I should conce
 ntrate on Charles Dickens (1812-1870). I will take the example of The Old 
 Curiosity Shop (1841) to examine how he uses a natural fog to cause the de
 ath of the villain Quilp\, who represents industrial pollution. I will mov
 e on to the way in which the popular novelist Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1
 947) uses fog to convey mystery and murder in her novel\, The Lodger\, wri
 tten in 1911\, the first fiction based on the Jack the Ripper murders.  I 
 will then briefly look at ways in which visual medium of television have t
 aken up fog as a signifier of Victorian London. Interspersed will be repre
 sentations of fog by artists such as Monet\, Whistler and Markino to show 
 the very different attraction London fog had for artists.\n
LOCATION:Combination Room\, Wolfson College
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