Perceptions of childhood in the Victorian fin-de-siècle
By: by Jennifer Sattaur
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Pub.
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Newcastle upon Tyne
Language: eng
Number of pages: 165
ISBN-13: 9781443826884
Subjects: Children in literature; Children's literature, English; English literature; History and criticism
Description: This book reads Victorian fin de siècle literature through the medium of perceptions of childhood. It examines the connection between 'monstrous' and idealistic symbolic representations of childhood represented by key cultural discourses of the Victorian fin-de-siècle. Specifically, anxieties about change are linked closely to anxieties about childhood, procreation, and maturation in a range of children's and adults' texts from the 1860s to the 1890s. The book demonstrates the ways in which the emergent social movements which have come to define and represent change in the fin-de-siècle period were inherently concerned with the ideas of childhood and parenthood and the ways in which they represented both the promise and the threat of the future. The texts are arranged by theme, and grouped according to whether they are seen primarily as intended for children, or for adults.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [153]-161) and index.