Children's Literature

Catalog description

An historical study of children's literature from the 17th century to the present, principally in Europe and America, which will explore changing literary forms in relation to the social history of childhood. Ranging from oral folktale to contemporary novelistic realism (with some glances at film narrative), major figures may include Perrault, Newbery, the Grimms, Andersen, Carroll, Alcott, Stevenson, Burnett, Kipling, the Disney studio, E. B. White, C. S. Lewis, Sendak, Silverstein, Mildred Taylor, and Bette Greene. We'll also encounter a variety of critical models-psychoanalytic, materialist, feminist, structuralist-that scholars have employed to explain the variety and importance of children's literature. Finally, we will consider how the idea of the child has evolved over this period. (ENGL-LOA)