Literature for children
Abstract
The child is often imagined in the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth as a source of creative energies and of hope for the future of humanity, as well as symbolizing a return to original naturalness. But these ideas about childhood were not peculiar to the Lake poets: they have their origin in the politicized educational theories of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as in Joseph Priestley’s revolutionary rhetoric and the children’s literature that emerged from this tradition. Variously combining these influences, a new, often realist children’s literature written by Anna Barbauld, John Aikin, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Maria Edgeworth, and William Godwin sought to revolutionize the forms and content of earlier books for children. The new children’s literature of the 1790s and early 1800s envisaged a rising generation of socially engaged thinkers capable of transforming society.
Citation
Manly , S 2018 , Literature for children . in D Duff (ed.) , The Oxford handbook of British Romanticism . Oxford University Press , Oxford . https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199660896.013.14
Publication
The Oxford handbook of British Romanticism
Type
Book item
Rights
Copyright © 2018 the Author. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199660896.013.14
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