5/29/2023 0 Comments Where the wild things are 1963Take Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, which holds a treasured position on perhaps more bookshelves than any other American picture book in history. Ironically, this myth of the purity of children and the consequent innocence of children's books has given the picture book an ideological scope of influence far exceeding that of any "fallen," and therefore critically scrutinized, literary domain. But the long-established myth of the innocence and transparency of the children's book, particularly the picture book, works as powerfully today as it has in the past to designate children's literature a genre worthy of only marginal critical attention.1 As Jacqueline Rose explains, "Children's fiction has never completely severed its links with a philosophy which sets up the child as a pure point of origin in relation to language, sexuality and the state" (8). It would seem, then, that the function of children's books as the first print texts used to assimilate the modern child into literacy, and consequently into culture, should guarantee a central place in cultural studies for children's literature. May we one day find a land where there are no women, and war only, for in that land we shall grow great.Ĭultural studies has enabled literary critics to recognize the ideological influence of all texts, from classics to mail-order catalogues and tattoos.
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