Topologies of the Classical World in Children's Fiction: Palimpsests, Maps, and Fractals. By Claudia Nelson and Anne Morey

Abstract

The past few years have seen a surge of scholarship on how children's literature draws on the Classical world. Most recent scholarly work in this field has been driven by classicists, more interested (naturally) in how the classical world appears in children's literature: the narrative patterns, ideas, texts, historical and mythical figures that children's literature transmits to new generations of readers, and how particular cultural emphases shape their depiction, and use, of classical material. See for instance Lisa Maurice, ed., <i>The Reception of Ancient Greece and Rome in Children's Literature: Heroes and Eagles</i> (2015); Katarzyna Marciniak, ed., <i>Our Mythical Childhood: The Classics and Literature for Children and Young Adults</i> (2016); Owen Hodkinson & Helen Lovatt, eds., <i>Classical Reception and Children's Literature: Greece, Rome and Childhood Transformation</i> (2018); Sheila Murnaghan & Deborah Roberts, <i>Childhood and the Classics: Britain and America, 1850-1965</i> (2018); Katarzyna Marciniak, ed., <i>Chasing Mythical Beasts : The Reception of Ancient Monsters in Children's and Young Adults' Culture</i> (2020).