Literature and the Child: Romantic Continuations, Postmodern ContestationsJames Holt McGavran, James Holt Mcgavran The Romantic myth of childhood as a transhistorical holy time of innocence and spirituality, uncorrupted by the adult world, has been subjected in recent years to increasingly serious interrogation. Was there ever really a time when mythic ideals were simple, pure, and uncomplicated? The contributors to this book contend—although in widely differing ways and not always approvingly—that our culture is indeed still pervaded, in this postmodern moment of the very late twentieth century, by the Romantic conception of childhood which first emerged two hundred years ago. In the wake of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, western Europe experienced another fin de siècle characterized by overwhelming material and institutional change and instability. By historicizing the specific political, social, and economic conflicts at work within the notion of Romantic childhood, the essayists in Literature and the Child show us how little these forces have changed over time and how enriching and empowering they can still be for children and their parents. In the first section, “Romanticism Continued and Contested,” Alan Richardson and Mitzi Myers question the origins and ends of Romantic childhood. In “Romantic Ironies, Postmodern Texts,” Dieter Petzold, Richard Flynn, and James McGavran argue that postmodern texts for both children and adults perpetuate the Romantic complexities of childhood. Next, in “The Commerce of Children's Books,” Anne Lundin and Paula Connolly study the production and marketing of children's classics. Finally, in “Romantic Ideas in Cultural Confrontations,” William Scheick and Teya Rosenberg investigate interactions of Romantic myths with those of other cultural systems. |
Contents
| 1 | |
ROMANTICISM AND THE END OF CHILDHOOD Alan Richardson | 23 |
PARADIGM LOST REVISIONARY GLEAM OR PLUS ÇA CHANGE PLUS CEST LA MÊME CHOSE? Mitzi Myers | 44 |
ROMANTIC IRONY IN MODERN FANTASY FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES Dieter Petzold | 87 |
ROMANTICISM CHILDHOOD AND POSTMODERN Richard Flynn | 105 |
WORDSWORTH LOST BOYS AND ROMANTIC HOMEOPHOBIA James Holt McGavran | 130 |
THE CULTURAL WORK OF KATE GREENAWAY Anne Lundin | 155 |
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Literature and the Child: Romantic Continuations, Postmodern Contestations James Holt Mcgavran No preview available - 1999 |
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A. A. Milne Abrams adult aesthetic Alan American Anne archetypal argues artist Aunt Austin Basket Woman Bishop boys Calvin and Hobbes century characters chil child Childlike Empress children's books Children's Literature Christopher Milne Christopher Robin contemporary critics critique cultural discourse Disney dream Edgeworth Elizabeth Bishop essay fantasy female feminine feminist fiction Forest gender genre Greenaway's Hejinian homeless Horn Book human ideal ideology illustration imagination Inanna Jarrell journey Kate Greenaway literary Literature in Nineteenth-Century London Mahony male mantic Margaret Maria Edgeworth Mary Mary Shelley metafictional Milne's Mitzi modern Moore moral Myers myth narrative nature Nichols novel Oliver Pearl picture books poem poetic poetry poets political Pooh postmodern readers reading reality Romantic childhood Romantic irony Romanticism Romanticism and Children's sense sentimental social Song story Strieber tale textual theory tion Tirigan tradition ture vision Watterson Winnie-the-Pooh women Wordsworth writing York young