Books available at Goering's.  Packet available at CustomCopy

The child--as a concept--is often said to have been "invented" sometime during the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.  (This odd position has been challenged, as we shall see.)  Nevertheless, of course, children not only lived before they were invented, they read books.  Some of these books were written for them, and if these books were often heavily moralistic or merely informational--primers, catechisms (secular as well as religious), grammars--books were also written and published for children's pleasure, both in the narrow sense of amusement, and in the broader sense in which the distinguishing feature of "literature" as a category is that it delights as it instructs.  Many more books were appropriated by children (and sometimes, therefore, reprinted by publishers in formats thought attractive to children) that were written for an adult audience.  N.B.  In the term "children" I include all literate non-adults, that is, I exclude those who are addressed by picture books only (aka "babies"), and I do not exclude "adolescents" and "young adults," because books are produced for these groups based on the assumption that their most significant feature as readers is their age.

The publication of Alice in Wonderland (1865) is regarded as a landmark in English-language children's literature not because it was the first book for children, but because it was one of the first written for children that gave the child heroine and the child reader priority over adults, who, of course, have responded by appropriating the book for their use. After Alice, the deluge--so we will concentrate on what came before Alice.

This course will examine what actual children read before books like Alice were available, both books written for them and books that they appropriated.  We will also use the resources of the Baldwin Collection of  children's books to find out both what was available and how books for adults were remade for child readers.  At least half our time, then, will be spent considering how books like Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Vicar of Wakefield, Gay's Fables,  Gulliver's Travels affected the imaginative life of children, and the other half will be spent considering how books like fairy tale collections and chapbooks, Little Goody Two Shoes, Sandford and Merton, Tom Brown's School Days, The Swiss Family Robinson, Simple Susan supplemented or supplanted adult fare available for these children.

While histories of children's literature will be available for consultation, the emphasis in this course will be on children's literature as a subset of all literature and as an index to the society in which it was written, including but not limited to the ideas held about  childhood in that culture.

Assignments:

1. Since time and what's now in print will not allow us to read all the texts important to English-reading children before 1865, each student will choose one thing available in the Baldwin collection but not assigned for class reading to present to the group as a whole, discussing the features and interest of that text and also what can be learned from the Baldwin, the STC, and other appropriate sources (if any) about its reception and printing history.  These papers will be presented on February 19 and 26.  Appropriate texts would be selected chapbooks, Mother Goose, versions of Aesop, Keach's War with the Devil, Richard Johnson's The History of a Doll,  Day's Sandford and Merton, Edgeworth's Harry and Lucy, Eliza Andrews' The Brothers, Sherwood's The Fairchild Family, Sinclair's Holiday House, Watts' Divine Songs... for Children, Sarah Fielding's The Governess, Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days, Pope's Iliad, Trimmer's Fabulous Histories, aka "The Robins," Barbauld's Evenings at Home, Mary Lamb's Mrs. Leicester's School, books by Hannah More, Lady Eleanor Fenn (Mrs. Teachwell, Mrs Lovechild), Lucy Peacock, Thomas Smith, Elizabeth Sandham, etc., as well as other books appropriated by children, including novels such as The Vicar of Wakefield and most Gothic novels, plays, comic poems such as Tam O'Shanter and John Gilpen's Ride, and American imports such as Cooper's Leatherstocking series.

2. Each student will also write a short (1-3 pp) review of a book about the history or theory of children's literature--list of possibilities to be provided, but other suggestions are welcome. The book reviews will be posted and presented as they are completed; all should be completed by the beginning of April.

3. Finally, students will write a formal paper suitable for oral presentation, but documented as an article, using one of the following very general topic ideas to analyze a work or works read for this class: explaining the dual appeal of a work that has proved to have a dual audience;  dealing with representations of children as indices of the author's/buyer's/social group's conscious or unconscious culture; dealing with assumptions about desirable formations for the next generation.  (Other topics of interest may be substituted, but please clear them with me first.)  I  recommend as models the essays in Opening the Nursery Door, ed. Hilton, Styles, and Watson, and those in Jack Zipes's Sticks and Stones.  These papers will be presented at our final meeting on April 23 (Shakespeare's birthday).

4. Since this is a seminar, all students are expected to participate in the discussion at all class meetings.  Just to make sure the discussion is worth participating in, each of us will email to the group a question, comment, or hypothesis (prompted by the reading for that class, and/or by prior discussions or work in progress) that s/he would like to discuss.  Be prepared to discuss and respond to the other comments as well as the assigned books. (except those on February 19 and 26, and April 23).

5. (Optional) I have begun collecting primary-source comments on children's reading before Alice .  I would appreciate your contributions to this collection.  Evidence of what children read can be of several kinds: statements in autobiographies and memoirs; allusions and internal evidence from children's games and activities; statements of adults about children--and any of these kinds of evidence  can be found in either fiction or factual material.

Approximate Schedule--Books listed below are available at Goerings at Bageland, except for those in course packet .

January 8--Introduction; Little Goody Two Shoes (1765); domestic realism
January 15--Introduction to the Baldwin collection; assorted stories from packet
January 22--Pilgrim's Progress (Part I) (1678): allegory, realism, moral formation
January 29--Arabian Nights (1709); tales of magic and enchantment
February 5--Gay's Fables (1727); the fable tradition and animal stories
February 12--Gulliver's Travels (1726); real and imaginary journals
February 19--Individual Selections from the Baldwin Collection
February 26-- Individual Selections continued
March 5 Robinson Crusoe (1719); the Crusoe phenomenon
March 12--Spring Break
March 19--Swiss Family Robinson (1813); Crusoe revisited: books begetting books
March 26--Evelina (1778); girls' activities
April 2--Romance of the Forest (1791); girls' sensationalism
April 9--Ivanhoe (1819); boys' sensationalism
April 16--Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836); boys' activities
April 23--Mock Conference