Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Benziman, G

Titel

Narratives of Child Neglect in Romantic and Victorian Culture

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

London: Palgrave Macmillan

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• 01 02 Contextualizing the popular topos of the neglected child in nineteenth-century Britain within a large variety of texts and discourses, this book isolates a strand in literary history that has not been fully examined yet, and fills a gap in literary criticism. Rereading Romantic poems, Victorian novels and social documents of the period, it challenges the largely-accepted narrative according to which the turn of the century witnessed a clear transition from a Puritan, oppressive approach to children, to a Romantic, liberating one. Narratives of Child Neglect demonstrates that these contradictory trends continued to be a shaping factor of British literature and society way into the late nineteenth century. The book demonstrates the ways in which the oppressive approach managed to survive in the subconscious of the new discourses of childhood and traces a difficulty in representing the child's subjectivity as valuable even in texts written by key figures in the formation of the Romantic cult of childhood such as Rousseau, Blake, Wordsworth, and Dickens. 02 02 Contextualizing the topos of the neglected child within a variety of discourses, this book challenges the assumption that the early nineteenth century witnessed a clear transition from a Puritan to a liberating approach to children and demonstrates that oppressive assumptions survive in major texts considered part of the Romantic cult of childhood. 31 02 The book offers a revision of the largely-accepted critical narrative about the development of the cultural image of the child during the first half of the nineteenth century 04 02 Acknowledgements Introduction Concepts of Childhood and Adult Responsibility: Locke, Rousseau, More, and Edgeworth Redeeming or Silencing the Child's Voice: Blake and Wordsworth Child Neglect as Social Vice: Trollope, Tonna, and Working-Class Subjectivity The Split Image of the Neglected Child: Dickens Aged Children and the Inevitability of Being Neglected: Hardy Works Cited Index 19 02 Discusses texts by key writers including Dickens, Wordsworth, Blake, Rousseau, Maria Edgeworth, Hannah More and Thomas Hardy Also discusses non-fiction works from the period, including contemporary newspaper articles, medical reports, guidebooks for parents and Parliament Bluebooks Offers a revisionist chronological development of nineteenth-century British literature Taps into growing interest in childhood studies in relation to literature The book traces a strand in literary history not fully examined yet 08 02 'A thoughtful work on a subject that is as urgent now as it was more than a century ago. Benziman's new conceptualization of ambivalences in educational practices and of neglect of child rights yields unexpected and at times iconoclastic insights into much studied texts.' - Professor Leona Toker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel 'Narratives of Child Neglect in Romantic and Victorian Culture is a major intervention in the history of childhood and its representations in nineteenth-century English literature. Benziman offers a fresh, compelling analysis of familiar concepts, skillfully demonstrating the persistence of older Puritan and regulative attitudes toward the literary child within texts by Blake, Wordsworth, Dickens, and others that have long been identified unambiguously with the emerging reformist and liberatory treatment of childhood during the Romantic and Victorian periods. Rigorously argued and closely attentive to historical and intellectual contexts, including social class, Benziman's study opens challenging new perspectives on the topos of the neglected child and the portrayal of child subjectivity in poetry and fiction.' - Professor John Jordan, Department of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA 'Addressing the interconnectedness of catechizing and liberating views of childhood from the Romantics to Thomas Hardy, Galia Benziman provides an important contribution to the history of child neglect in nineteenth-century England. Her attention to representations of the child voice in literary texts, combined with readings of canonical and lesser-known philosophers and writers, makes this study essential reading in the field of child studies.' - Monica Flegel, Associate Professor, Department of English, Lakehead University, Canada 13 02 GALIA BENZIMAN is Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the Open University of Israel and specializes in British Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century. Formerly a Fulbright and Dan David Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of California Dickens Project, USA, she has published essays in JNT, Women's Studies, Partial Answers, Dickens Quarterly, The Victorian Newsletter, SEL (forthcoming), and other journals.