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Scary in the Nineteenth Century
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:25:15 -0500
I was curious about the history of scary stories as children's literature, and found a terrific article in the Spring, 2009, issue of
"Children and Libraries" by Charmette Kendrick: "The Goblins Will Get You! Horror in Children's Literature from the Nineteenth Century."
Kendrick (an Association for Library Service to Children Bechtel Fellow who received a scholarship to conduct research at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville) looks at attitudes in the nineteenth century toward children and scary. She notes that the prevailing outlook was the need to protect children, and also to instruct them.She writes, "In nineteenth-century England and America, most scary stories written and published for the young had two purposes---to indoctrinate youngsters with the morals of the day and to expose superstition as a false belief system perpetuated by the foolish and the wicked."
So while adult readers may have reveled in gothic tales, young readers were expected to spend their time consuming stories that enriched and enlightened them.
She also talks about the fact that "a few brave souls pushed past Victorian constraints." One example she gives is "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. And she adds that although "Alice in Wonderland" was not a ghost story, it was a story that sought to turn
"the staid Victorian world of strict morals on its head." Reveling in the fantastic, Lewis Carroll, along with a few other writers, understood the need for children "to delight in pure imagination and to experience the thrill of a good ghost yarn for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of it ."
While we might say the tables have flipped---with our socialnorms in general now understanding and welcoming the desire to give children stories that will thrill and engage for pure pleasure's sake--the tension she described in the nineteenth century has certainly not disappeared.When someone worries something is too scary for a child, that worry is genuine and usually mired in the desire to protect. Perhaps we aren't as concerned about "moral instruction" from a societal perspective (although many individuals are), but the idea of exposing kids to things that are gruesome and harsh still gives some people pause.Perhaps what has changed is our broad (but by no means universal) understanding that children have ways of navigating scary, and sometimes it's as simple as putting the book down and picking up something else.
Megan
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:25:15 -0500
I was curious about the history of scary stories as children's literature, and found a terrific article in the Spring, 2009, issue of
"Children and Libraries" by Charmette Kendrick: "The Goblins Will Get You! Horror in Children's Literature from the Nineteenth Century."
Kendrick (an Association for Library Service to Children Bechtel Fellow who received a scholarship to conduct research at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville) looks at attitudes in the nineteenth century toward children and scary. She notes that the prevailing outlook was the need to protect children, and also to instruct them.She writes, "In nineteenth-century England and America, most scary stories written and published for the young had two purposes---to indoctrinate youngsters with the morals of the day and to expose superstition as a false belief system perpetuated by the foolish and the wicked."
So while adult readers may have reveled in gothic tales, young readers were expected to spend their time consuming stories that enriched and enlightened them.
She also talks about the fact that "a few brave souls pushed past Victorian constraints." One example she gives is "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. And she adds that although "Alice in Wonderland" was not a ghost story, it was a story that sought to turn
"the staid Victorian world of strict morals on its head." Reveling in the fantastic, Lewis Carroll, along with a few other writers, understood the need for children "to delight in pure imagination and to experience the thrill of a good ghost yarn for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of it ."
While we might say the tables have flipped---with our socialnorms in general now understanding and welcoming the desire to give children stories that will thrill and engage for pure pleasure's sake--the tension she described in the nineteenth century has certainly not disappeared.When someone worries something is too scary for a child, that worry is genuine and usually mired in the desire to protect. Perhaps we aren't as concerned about "moral instruction" from a societal perspective (although many individuals are), but the idea of exposing kids to things that are gruesome and harsh still gives some people pause.Perhaps what has changed is our broad (but by no means universal) understanding that children have ways of navigating scary, and sometimes it's as simple as putting the book down and picking up something else.
Megan
--
Megan Schliesman, Librarian
Cooperative Children's Book Center
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Room 401 Teacher Education
225 N. Mills Street
Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503
schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
ccbc.education.wisc.edu
My regular hours are T-F, 8-4:30.
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Received on Tue 14 Oct 2014 12:25:54 PM CDT
