Critical Children - Images of Childhood in Ten Great Novels

Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15782-7
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

The ten novels explored in Critical Children portray children so vividly that their names are instantly recognizable. Richard Locke traces the 130-year evolution of these iconic child characters, moving from Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Pip in Great Expectations to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn; from Miles and Flora in The Turn of the Screw to Peter Pan and his modern American descendant, Holden Caulfield; and finally to Lolita and Alexander Portnoy.

"It's remarkable," writes Locke, "that so many classic (or, let's say, unforgotten) English and American novels should focus on children and adolescents not as colorful minor characters but as the intense center of attention." Despite many differences of style, setting, and structure, they all enlist a particular child's story in a larger cultural narrative. In Critical Children, Locke describes the ways the children in these novels have been used to explore and evade large social, psychological, and moral problems.

Writing as an editor, teacher, critic, and essayist, Locke demonstrates the way these great novels work, how they spring to life from their details, and how they both invite and resist interpretation and provoke rereading. Locke conveys the variety and continued vitality of these books as they shift from Victorian moral allegory to New York comic psychoanalytic monologue, from a child who is an agent of redemption to one who is a narcissistic prisoner of guilt and proud rage.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Locke, Richard

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturpsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturkritik: Hermeneutik und Interpretation
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatursoziologie, Gender Studies

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction1. Charles Dickens's Heroic Victims: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Pip2. Mark Twain's Free Spirits and Slaves: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn3. Henry James's Demonic Lambs: Miles and Flora in The Turn of the Screw4. J. M. Barrie's Eternal Narcissist: Peter Pan5. J. D. Salinger's Saintly Dropout: Holden Caulfield6. Vladimir Nabokov's Abused Nymph: Lolita7. Philip Roth's Performing Loudmouth: Alexander PortnoyAcknowledgmentsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Richard Locke is professor of writing at the Columbia University School of the Arts, and his essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, The American Scholar, The Threepenny Review, The Yale Review, and other publications. He has been editor in chief of Vanity Fair and deputy editor of the New York Times Book Review.