Classics, Children's Literature, and the Character of Childhood, from 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' to 'The Enchanted Castle'

Abstract

When Alice meets a mouse in Wonderland, she addresses it politely as "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!" (Carroll, 1865, 26) Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mouse does not acknowledge Alice. In Wonderland, Latin grammar books may not provide much of a useful guide for starting conversations. Surface jokes aside, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is deeply classical, being a katabasis, a journey to, and return from, the underworld. (The term 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 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, Alice journeys successfully through a child's version of Hades, returning safely to the sunny meadow where she drowses with her older sister. These two examples from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' show some different ways that classical influences and classical reception can operate in a work of children's literature.