George Santayana on Dickensian Realism
Though not specifically on David Copperfield, George Santayana’s essay defends the merits of Dickensian realism as against the burgeoning aesthetic of modernist fiction.
If Christendom should lose everything that is not in the melting-pot, human life would still remain amiable and quite adequately human. I draw this comforting assurance from the pages of Dickens. Who could not be happy in his world? Yet there is nothing essential to it which the most destructive revolution would be able to destroy. People would still be as different, as absurd, and as charming as are his characters; the springs of kindness and folly in their lives would not be dried up.
Santayana, George. “Dickens.” Essays in Literary Criticism. Ed. Irving Singer. New York: Scribner, 1956. (Originally in Dial, Nov. 1921).