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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Characters Through Time, Alyssa Venezia
Characters Through Time, Alyssa Venezia
Honors Thesis
T. S. Eliot once wrote that we “often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [an author’s] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (Eliot 37). By focusing on character adaptations, one comes to understand how authors of children’s books are able to adapt classic literature into age-appropriate texts that retain the merits of the original. Five sets of characters shall be analyzed to demonstrate the success of the adaptations presented in children’s literature. In the first, Sir Bedivere from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur …
The Industrial Fairy Tale: The Adaptable Narrative In Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, Emily Handy
The Industrial Fairy Tale: The Adaptable Narrative In Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, Emily Handy
Graduate Theses
Though Charles Kingsley’s mid-nineteenth century children’s book, The Water-Babies, is generally out of favor with canons of Victorian or children’s literature, I argue that The Water-Babies is a highly adaptable text because it is made up of conjoined opposites. The text’s multiplicity of form and content as well as its emphasis on imagination make the The Water-Babies malleable for variation and adaptation, while the approach Kingsley took to the child audience prepared the text for an indefinite future readership. Moreover, the work’s initial intent to be utilized for social change and the proto-environmentalist messages already present in the text situate …
Protecting Dixie: Southern Girlhood In Children's Literature, 1852-1920, Laura Anne Hakala
Protecting Dixie: Southern Girlhood In Children's Literature, 1852-1920, Laura Anne Hakala
Dissertations
Most scholarship about girlhood in children’s literature tends to rely on national models of girlhood. My project complicates those models by demonstrating how region shapes distinct forms of American girlhood. In particular, I examine representations of southern girlhood in children’s literature published between 1852 and 1920, drawing on the four types of literature that most featured southern girls during this time period: abolitionist literature, Confederate literature, postbellum plantation fiction, and family stories. Using a historicist methodology and spatial analysis, I place these texts in relation to information about the spatial arrangements and protocols of southern domestic sites. By viewing girlhood …
“Do Not Ask Me To Remain The Same”: Charles Darwin In Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy, Rachael D. Tague
“Do Not Ask Me To Remain The Same”: Charles Darwin In Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy, Rachael D. Tague
English Seminar Capstone Research Papers
In Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, Gary D. Schmidt uses Darwin to allow his young protagonist to question the mindless acceptance of organized religion and to force his readers to engage difficult conversations, come to their own conclusions, and apply truth to their lives. Darwin provides answers and adventure, delivers Turner from his prison-like label, draws him closer to his father, his friends, and nature, while at the same time disconnecting him from the self-righteous town, its corrupt church, and its unjust God. Phippsburg was a prison; Darwin is freedom.
Shakespeare And Boyhood: Early Modern Representations And Contemporary Appropriations, Marvin Tyler Sasser
Shakespeare And Boyhood: Early Modern Representations And Contemporary Appropriations, Marvin Tyler Sasser
Dissertations
This dissertation demonstrates that Shakespearean boyhood, both in early modern plays and contemporary reimaginings for young readers, critiques patriarchal and hegemonic ideals through the rhetoric and behavior of boy characters. Although critics have called Shakespeare’s boy characters indistinguishable, I find that they provide Shakespeare a unique resource to offer persuasive skepticism about heroic conventions, education, and political instability. This project begins by examining the lexical network of boy in order to chart its uses in early modern England. The subsequent three chapters establish how Shakespeare uses boys to comment on a range of ideal manhoods, such as the chivalrous …
Mother's Bed: Gender Representation In Children's Literature, Karin Hanni
Mother's Bed: Gender Representation In Children's Literature, Karin Hanni
Senior Theses
This children's book and accompanying research paper both address gender inequity in children's literature. There is a significant imbalance of gender representation in children's literature, with the number of central male characters almost doubling that of central female characters. Additionally, the roles of males and females still tend to be stereotypical: boys are action-oriented and heroic, while girls are nurturing and passive. Further, it is believed that boys will only enjoy books about boys, while girls will enjoy books about both boys and girls. This imbalance in children's literature hurts both genders. Children not only learn to read from books, …
"So Much Scope For The Imagination”: Subversive Social Performativity And Spiritual Synthesis In Anne Of Green Gables, Sarah Wallingford
"So Much Scope For The Imagination”: Subversive Social Performativity And Spiritual Synthesis In Anne Of Green Gables, Sarah Wallingford
Senior Theses and Projects
No abstract provided.
The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2016 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee
The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2016 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee
The Center for Children's Literature
Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2015. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.
Blood Money: The Commodification Of Menstrual Education In The United States, Meghan Radosevic
Blood Money: The Commodification Of Menstrual Education In The United States, Meghan Radosevic
Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations
girl’s first menstrual cycle is often considered the first step of the seemingly ritualistic passage into womanhood. However, most girls within the United States who experience menarche fail to view it as a rite of passage, and instead see it as an event they must endure rather than celebrate. Menstruation is a mystifying process for young girls, and the mystification is intensified through the lack of open conversations between pre- and post-menarcheal females. While pedagogical strategies in period education have evolved over time, the one constant within menstrual education is silence. This thesis aims to write into the silence surrounding …
The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2015 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee
The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2015 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee
The Center for Children's Literature
Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2014. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.