Louisa May Alcott and the textual child : a critical theory approach / Kristina West.
West, Kristina, author.
2020
PS1018 .W47 2020
Available Online

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Title Louisa May Alcott and the textual child : a critical theory approach / Kristina West.
Author West, Kristina, author.
ISBN 9783030390259 (electronic book)
303039025X (electronic book)
3030390241
9783030390242
Published Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2020]
Language English
Description 1 online resource.
Call Number PS1018 .W47 2020
Dewey Decimal Classification 813/.4
Summary This book examines constructions of childhood in the works of Louisa May Alcott. While Little Women continues to gain popular and critical attention, Alcott's wider works for children have largely been consigned to history. This book therefore investigates Alcott's lesser-known children's texts to reconsider critical assumptions about childhood in her works and in literature more widely. Kristina West investigates the trend towards reading Alcott's life into her works; readings of gender and sexuality, race, disability, and class; the sentimental domestic; portrayals of Transcendentalism and American education; and adaptations of these works. Analyzing Alcott as a writer for twenty-first-century children, West considers Alcott's place in the children's canon and how new media and fan fiction impact readings of her works today.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 08, 2020).
Series Critical approaches to children's literature.
Available in Other Form Print version: 9783030390242
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
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Intro
Acknowledgments
Contents
Chapter 1: Reading Alcott's Textual Childhood
Childhood and Literature
The Little Women Legacy
Writing an American Childhood
Alcott and the Canon
'Childhood Persists'
The Chapters
Chapter 2: 'We Really Lived Most of It': The Trouble with Autobiography
Genre Trouble
Women Writing
The Trouble with 'I'
Retrieving the Real
Alcott and the Archives
Real Child, Real Author: Jo, Peter, Alice
Negotiating the 'Counter-Flow'
Chapter 3: Subverting the Sentimental Domestic
Positioning the Textual Child

'There's No Place Like Home': Locating a Sentimental Childhood
Subverting the Domestic
Reconstructing the Family Unit
Changing Spaces
Fleeing the Domestic: Outside Spaces and Wild Children
Chapter 4: Queering the Child
Narrating the Queer Child
Queering Language
Child Sexuality
Queering the Family: Gender and Domestic Roles
Gender Performativity and the Cross-Dressing Child
Can Childhood Be Queer?
Chapter 5: Race, Disability, and Class: Alcott's Peripheral Children
Reading Alcott's Peripheral Children

'Poor Lads' and 'Brave Little Girls': Class and Poverty in Alcott
Reading the Disabled Child
Language and Race
Language and the Utopian Society
Chapter 6: A Transcendental Childhood
Reading Transcendentalism
A Transcendental Childhood
The Trouble with Utopia
'This Large-Hearted Child': Emerson, Thoreau, and Childhood26
A Textual Transcendentalism
Chapter 7: 'The Model Children': Alcott's Theories of Education
A Transcendental Education
A Place to Learn
Books and Education: Reading the Canon
A Mutual Education
The Educated Child

Chapter 8: Retelling Alcott in the Twenty-First Century
Reading Fan Fiction
The Value of Fan Fiction
Children's Literature and Fan Fiction
Little Women as Origin
Alcott Adaptations
Reading Alcott Fan Fiction
'Everything Was Finally Right with the World'
Bibliography
Index

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