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Tillermans - Solitary Blue
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From: Eliza T. Dresang <edresang>
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 06:39:36 -0400
Hello Everyone:
A number of you have mentioned A Solitary Blue as particularly meaningful or powerful -- and Homecoming as well. Both of these "modern tales" have a structure that strongly resembles traditional oral tales. Kathy Isaacs mentioned reading the Odyssey to her class in tandem with Homecoming. Not only are the wanderings, the seeking to go home of the four Tillerman children in Homecoming very similar to the wanderings of Odysseus, but there are also several of the plot elements from Hansel and Gretel woven into this journey tale. In other words, Homecoming is a contemporary version of two classic tales that have lasted (in one case) for hundreds of years. An article, which I do not have at my fingertips, was written some time ago analyzing Homecoming in relation to to these two embedded tales.
Several years ago when I taught a class in children's literature a student, Lee Burress, Jr., wrote a paper comparing the plot structure of A Solitary Blue to that of The Juniper Tree, a Grimm fairy tale in which the mother kills her son, chops him to pieces, boils the pieces in a stew, and serves it to the father to eat. (usually depicted in the Grimm tale as a stepmother but the refrain of the story changes this to "my mother slew me/my dear father ate me" the word "mother," not "stepmother." is used). The parallels in the two tales are really remarkable. The article was later published in a Wisconsin journal, The Wisconsin English Journal, I believe.
Although I know that other (not Tillerman) books of Voigt have similar underlying classic literary structures/. plots, I am not sure if any others of the Tillerman series does. (Is anyone else?)
This just brings the question to my mind whether there are, indeed, deeply buried literary (oral and written) ties/motifs in these two "multilayered" Tillerman novels that don't exist as strongly in the others and make them
"speak" more strongly than those without these allusions. Well, this is pure speculation.
Eliza Dresang School of Information Studies Florida State University Author of Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age http://slis-two.lis.fsu.edu/radicalchange/
At 10:41 PM 5/16/99 00, you wrote:
Received on Mon 17 May 1999 05:39:36 AM CDT
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 06:39:36 -0400
Hello Everyone:
A number of you have mentioned A Solitary Blue as particularly meaningful or powerful -- and Homecoming as well. Both of these "modern tales" have a structure that strongly resembles traditional oral tales. Kathy Isaacs mentioned reading the Odyssey to her class in tandem with Homecoming. Not only are the wanderings, the seeking to go home of the four Tillerman children in Homecoming very similar to the wanderings of Odysseus, but there are also several of the plot elements from Hansel and Gretel woven into this journey tale. In other words, Homecoming is a contemporary version of two classic tales that have lasted (in one case) for hundreds of years. An article, which I do not have at my fingertips, was written some time ago analyzing Homecoming in relation to to these two embedded tales.
Several years ago when I taught a class in children's literature a student, Lee Burress, Jr., wrote a paper comparing the plot structure of A Solitary Blue to that of The Juniper Tree, a Grimm fairy tale in which the mother kills her son, chops him to pieces, boils the pieces in a stew, and serves it to the father to eat. (usually depicted in the Grimm tale as a stepmother but the refrain of the story changes this to "my mother slew me/my dear father ate me" the word "mother," not "stepmother." is used). The parallels in the two tales are really remarkable. The article was later published in a Wisconsin journal, The Wisconsin English Journal, I believe.
Although I know that other (not Tillerman) books of Voigt have similar underlying classic literary structures/. plots, I am not sure if any others of the Tillerman series does. (Is anyone else?)
This just brings the question to my mind whether there are, indeed, deeply buried literary (oral and written) ties/motifs in these two "multilayered" Tillerman novels that don't exist as strongly in the others and make them
"speak" more strongly than those without these allusions. Well, this is pure speculation.
Eliza Dresang School of Information Studies Florida State University Author of Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age http://slis-two.lis.fsu.edu/radicalchange/
At 10:41 PM 5/16/99 00, you wrote:
Received on Mon 17 May 1999 05:39:36 AM CDT
