Advanced Studies In ChildrenS Literature

Identifying a series of critical concepts essential to the conceptualization and production of early children's literature (among them easiness, gradation, and abridgment), we will consider how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers have sought to convey challenging themes to young audiences as comprehensi bly, appealingly, and, at times, intensively as possible. How is the threat of child mortality treated in the New-England Primer's rhyming alphabet (1727) and Christina Rossetti's verse parable Goblin Market (1862)? How do Isaac Watts and George MacDonald respond differently to the challenge of introducing young readers to Christian theology? What taxonomic comparisons might we locate between John Newbery's eighteenth-century compendiums and Victorian children's magazine? This course will also develop students' skills in using archival databases such as Eighteenth-Centurey Collections Online and Nineteenth-Century Collections Online.