Children's Classics across Time and Cultures

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

Juvenile literature is a compelling domain underpinning every reader’s imagination. Children’s classics – books from different western cultures and languages that combine fantasy with reality, humour and nonsense with lyricism, and linguistic invention with philosophy – constitute an important part of the world’s literary heritage. This course proposes to revisit the literary lands of childhood to set them in context and appreciate them anew.

Main aims of the course:

• Familiarising the Students with selected children’s classics in a broad historical, social and cultural context (especially different themes and aspects of children’s classics; mechanisms of canon formation and its culture-forming powers);
• Developing and refining their ability to analyse, interpret and evaluate literary texts with particular reference to the specificity of children’s literature;
• Developing the Students’ capacity to relate what they have learnt to their own cultural and linguistic context (world versus national/local canon/s);
• Practising discussion abilities, exchanging ideas and formulating opinions based on the materials read.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Basic knowledge in the field of children’s literature, basic competence in analysing and interpreting literary texts, English language skills at intermediate level (B2).

Syllabus

Get-to-know-you Meeting & Introduction (Week 1)

Reading as a child, reading as an adult

Curiouser and Curiouser: A Curious Child in Wonderland (Week 2)

• Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in: The Annotated Alice, introduction and notes by Martin Gardner, New York – London: W.W. Norton 2015.
• Nina Auerbach, Alice and Wonderland: A Curious Child. “Victorian Studies”, Vol. 17, No. 1 (1973): The Victorian Child, pp. 31–47

Wonderland Illustrated (Week 3)

• Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – different illustrated editions
• Salvatore M. Ciancitto, Illustrating Alice in Wonderland in the New Millennium: New Meanings for an Evergreen Children’s Classic. “Translation Matters”, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2023): Experiential Translation, pp. 70–83.

PROJECT: Please prepare a presentation of chosen illustrated Alice editions published in your country and be ready to discuss them

The Shadow in the Garden (Week 4)

• M. Barrie, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, London: Hodder & Stoughton 1912.
• Maria Tatar, M. Barrie in Neverland: A Biographical Essay, in: The Annotated Peter Pan. The Centennial Edition, edited with an introduction and notes by Maria Tatar, New York – London: W.W. Norton 2011, pp. LXVII–CVIII.
• Carrie Wasinger, Getting Peter’s Goat”: Hybridity, Androgyny, and Terror in “Peter Pan”, in: M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” In and Out of Time: A Children’s Classic at 100, edited by Donna R. White, C. Anita Tarr, Lanham – Toronto – Oxford: The Scarecrow Press 2006, s. 217–236.

Neverland Revisited (Week 5)

• M. Barrie, Peter Pan and Wendy, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons 1911.
• M. Barrie, Captain Hook at Eton, in: M’Connachie and J.M.B.: Speeches of J.M. Barrie, with preface by Hugh Walpole, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons 1939, pp. 108–121.
• Bonnie Gaarden, Flight Behavior: Mr. Darling and Masculine Models in J. M. Barrie’s “Peter and Wendy”. “Children’s Literature”, Vol. 45 (2017), pp. 69–91.

The Nature of Arcadian & Dangerous (Week 6)

• Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Oxford: Oxford UP 2010.
• A. Milne, Toad of the Toad Hall (BBC Radio Drama)
• Peter Hunt, Introduction, in: Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Oxford: Oxford UP 2010, pp. VII–XXXII.

Wooden Humanity (Week 7)

• Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio, translated with an Introduction and Notes by Ann Lawson Lucas, Oxford: Oxford UP 2009.
• Ann Lawson Lucas, Enquiring Mind, Rebellious Spirit: Alice and Pinocchio as Nonmodel Children. “Children’s Literature in Education”, Vol. 30, No. 3 (1990), pp. 157–169.
• Pinocchio (2019) dir. Matteo Garrone

Translating the Giant Country (Week 8)

• Roald Dahl, The BFG, illustrated by Quentin Blake, London: Puffin 2016.
• PROJECT: Please translate the excerpt from The BFG provided by the teacher into your native language and prepare a presentation about your translation process, the challenges posed by the text and your adopted solutions

Loving Wild (Week 9)

• Astrid Lindgren, Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, translated by Patricia Crampton, New York – London: Puffin 1985.
• Tobias Kurwinkel, Philipp Schmerheim, Intermediality in Children’s Literature: Reflections of Adult Relationships in Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, in: Beyond Pippi Longstocking. Intermedial and International Aspects of Astrid Lindgren’s Works, edited By Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauera and Astrid Surmatz, London – New York: Routledge 2011, pp. 1–10.

The Child and the Book (Week 10)

• Michael Ende, The Neverending Story, translated from the German by Ralph Manheim, illustrated by Roswitha Quadflieg, New York: Dutton Children’s Books 1997.
• Maria Nikolajeva, How Fantasy is Made: Patterns and Structures in “The Neverending Story” by Michael Ende. “Merveilles & Contes”, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1990), pp. 34–42.

 The Mighty Child (Week 11)

• Janusz Korczak, King Matt the First, Translated by Richard Lourie, introduction by Esme Raji Codell.
• Anna Maria Czernow, The King of Misrule, in: Child Autonomy and Child Governance in Children’s Literature: Where Children Rule, edited by Christopher Kelen and­ Björn Sundmark, London – New York: Routledge 2017, pp. 134–149.

 Drawing the Secrets of Life (and Death); What is a Classic? Summing Up (Week 12)

• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, translated from the French by Katherine Woods, Thorndike: GK. Hall & Co. 1995.
• Clémentine Beauvais, From Puer Aeternus to Puer Existens. The Advent of the Child “Thrown Forth”, in: The Mighty Child. Time and Power in Children’s Literature, Amsterdam–Philadelphia: John Benjamins 2015, pp. 15–41.
  • Italo Calvino, Why Read the Classics? In: Why Read the Classics?, translated from the Italian by Martin McLaughlin, New York: Vintage Books.

Reading list

Further reading:

Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children’s Literature, ed. by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Anja Müller, London and New York: Routledge 2019.

Carpenter Humphrey, Secret Gardens. A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature, London: Faber and Faber 2012.

Keywords for Children’s Literature ed. by Philip Nel and Lissa Paul, New York and London: New York University Press 2011.

Lathey Gillian, The Role of Translators in Children's Literature. Invisible Storytellers, London and New York: Routledge 2010.

Lerer Seth, Children’s Literature. A Reade’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press  2008.

Nikolajeva Maria, Children’s Literature Comes of Age. Toward a New Aesthetic, London and New York: Routledge 2016.

Nodelman Perry, The Hidden Adult. Defining Children’s Literature, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 2008.

O’Sullivan Emer, Comparative Children’s Literature, trans. by Anthea Bell, London and New York: Routledge 2005.

The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture, ed. by Claudia Nelson, Elisabeth Wesseling and Andrea Mei-Ying Wu, London and New York: Routledge 2023 (selected chapters).

Wall Barbara, The Narrator’s Voice. The Dilemma of Children’s Fiction, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 1991.