Title: Childhood, food and fantasy :
Authors: Binder, Christiane Maria,
Date: 2018
Publisher: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier,
Physical description: 389 pages ; 21 cm
Language: English
LC classification: P
Abstract: "In numerous Biritsh fantasies for children, eating and drinking feature substantially.  In addition, the narratives make intriguing statements about children and childhood.  The present monograph examines the fantasy genre through these two major concepts of childhood and food.  The texts chosen for discussion are clasic specimens of high and low or domestic fantasy:  Lewis Carroll's Alice's adventure in Wonderland (1865) and Through the looking glass (1871/72), Edith Newsbit's Five children and it (1902), Kenneth Grahame's The wind in the willows (1908) and J.R.R. Tolkien's The hobbit or there and back again (1937).  The subtitle of this study, 'the Baggins and the Took side of life,' refers to two contrasting lifestyles to avoid or to indulge in adventures.  At the same time it neatly symbolizes the tensions between the realistic and the phantiastic.  It is between these two poles that decisve experiences are made--for protagonists and readers--and a unique kind of truth emerges.  The fantasies are read against the background of the contemporary children's culture, especially the food culture of the time.  These decades were crucial for the emergence of new conceptions of childhood and the emancipation of Children's Literature, espeically fantasy for children.  the major concern of this study is thus the socio-cultural significance of food and meals in representations of childhood in Victorian, Edwardian and inter-war fantasy.  Food is treated here as a cultural metaphor.  The study of its realistic and fantastic functions contributes to an exploration of the poetics and politics of food.  Moreover, it allows us a fuller look into the emergence and diversification of the generic paradigm of fantasy, one of the most fascinating and ocmplex types of texts."--Page 4 of cover.
Subject headings (LCSH): Children in literature.; Drinking in literature; English fiction--History and criticism; Fantasy literature, English--History and criticism.; Food in literature.; Novels.