17353
Seminar
SoSe 14: S-Literary Studies: Periods-Genres-Concepts: Literary Studies II: Children's Literature: The Edwardian Tradition
Andrew James Johnston
Comments
The Edwardian Age (1901-1910/14) is often seen as the Golden Age of children?s literature. In this period of unprecedented wealth and globalisation, both in Britain and America issues concerning children and childhood occupied a highly visible position in the public arena and in the cultural imagination, while the childlike and the childish became fascinating to adults in a manner that had never been experienced before. It is probably no coincidence that the archetypal children?s toy, the Teddy Bear, was invented in this period and named after an American president (Theodore Roosevelt) often accused of living a life of eternal boyhood. And just as the Teddy Bear is still with us as a powerful symbol of childhood, so does Edwardian children?s literature still exert its influence on present-day notions of the genre.
This course will endeavour to unravel the dominant themes and preoccupations, structures and tropes of some of the most famous examples of Edwardian children?s literature:
Sir James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan (1904: play, 1911: novel)
Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children (1905)
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1910/11)
A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)
Students are expected to have read all the texts before the beginning of the class.
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12 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Mon, 2014-04-14 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-04-28 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-05-05 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-05-12 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-05-19 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-05-26 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-06-02 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-06-16 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-06-23 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-06-30 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-07-07 10:00 - 12:00
Mon, 2014-07-14 10:00 - 12:00