Character and Childhood in Children's Literature: Case Studies in Classical Reception

Abstract

When Alice meets a mouse in Wonderland, she determines that the best way to address it is 'O Mouse', using the vocative case that she has learned from looking in her brother's Latin grammar: 'A mouse - of a mouse - to a mouse - a mouse - O mouse!' Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mouse does not acknowledge Alice. In Wonderland, Latin grammar books may not provide much of a useful guide for starting conversations. Yet 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is deeply classical, being a 'katabasis', a journey to, and return from, the underworld. (It comes, of course, from the Greek word for 'down'; a 'katabasis' then, is a journey down, frequently used to refer to journeys to the underworld; its opposite 'anabasis', is a journey 'up', often used to refer to a journey inland - to the interior of a country, for example). In falling down the rabbit hole to an underground otherworld, Alice travels an archetypal path, following in the footsteps of other travelers in the classical underworld such as Aeneas, Odysseus, Orpheus, and Persephone. There is of course a difference: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is comic, satiric, and focuses on the adventures of a little girl, rather than a king, a princess, or an epic hero. Nevertheless, in negotiating the curious and dangerous logic of Wonderland, in resisting the challenges to her intellect, sanity, and ultimately her life, to return to the meadow where she is drowsing with her sister, Alice journeys successfully through a child's version of Hades. These two examples show some different ways that classical influences and classical reception can operate in a work of children's literature.