Manlove, C. N. “Charles Kingsley
(1819-75) and The Water-Babies,” in his Modern Fantasy: Five
Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 13-54.
Manlove relates this examination of the major
themes, theories, and stylistic devices of The Water-Babies to Kingsley's
wider views. He contends that we should be tentative about categorically
assigning a specific idea to Kingsley. The one constant is the protean
nature, the multiplicity, the diversity, the volatility, and uncertainty
of his thought. Kingsley's many contradictions have "a natural home" in
The
Water-Babies (17). Manlove believes that the split in Kingsley's
depiction of Tom's character not only lies at the root of the difficulties
in The Water-Babies and Kingsley's other works but also mirrors
the manifest divisions in Kingsley's own personality and thought, for example
the divide between Kingsley the materialist and the mystic, between Kingsley
as scientist and Christian. Manlove concludes that "Kingsley was not more
of a materialist than a mystic: rather he was each with divided faculties.
About the only thing that unites the dualism in himself and his work is
his vigour" (53).
The
Water-Babies;
Dualism
in Kingsley; Natural
Theology. |
