Childhood and adolescence in Fantasy literature for children and young adults

Kathrin Wegscheider
2013 unpublished
This thesis aims to examine the link between fantasy and children, with a particular emphasis on the depiction of the secondary world in fantasy literature and the connection between this fictional world and the concept of childhood. In the first part of the thesis, the topic of children's literature is analysed and discussed in terms of definition, historical development and idealisation of childhood as illustrated by the characteristics of the Romantic child. The Romantic child is a concept
more » ... at is strongly influenced by the philosophical writings of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose at the time revolutionary new notions of children and childhood played an important part in the evolution of the perception of childhood as a separate, valuable stage of life. This resulted in the idea of children as inherently innocent and pure characters and childhood as a state of independence and adventure that was also demonstrated in literary texts. The second theoretical part is concerned with fantasy literature, its origins, definition as a genre and especially its connection to children's literature, as there is a general assumption that fantasy literature is innately more suitable for children than adults, with diverging opinions on the subject depending on the author or literary critic. Moreover, Maria Nikolajeva's terminology regarding secondary worlds in fantasy literature is discussed, which serves as a theoretical backdrop for the analytical part of the paper. The literary works discussed in this thesis are J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, as well as Neil Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan", which is considered in relation to Lewis' novels. All these texts (with the exception of Gaiman's short story) are regarded as fantasy literature for children and each book demonstrates its own unique approach to representing childhood and its child characters. The focus of the analysis of these texts is on finding traces of Romanticism and an ideali [...]
doi:10.25365/thesis.29667 fatcat:yreko76ucjbyhouzrtsgpjobby