Marvellous Matilda: the child on stage

Author(s)
Hale, Elizabeth
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
Along with stage musicals such as Lionel Bart's Oliver! during the 1960s and Billy Eliot, produced by Lee Hall and Elton John in 2005, Matilda is the story of a misunderstood child overcoming adversity to achieve her dreams. All of these shows (and many others) focus on the child protagonist, who is simultaneously the object of pity and admiration. The idealisation of childhood goes back at least to the Romantics. Children, poet William Wordsworth wrote in 1804, have traces of heaven in them, "trailing clouds of glory" until the "shades of the prison house" of human (adult) life close in on them. This very idealisation goes hand in hand with the increased concern for the rights of the child across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Citation
The Conversation (Arts + Culture)
ISSN
2201-5639
1441-8681
Link
Language
en
Publisher
The Conversation Media Group Ltd
Title
Marvellous Matilda: the child on stage
Type of document
Journal Article
Entity Type
Publication

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