Instruction within entertainment : explicit and implicit religious teachings in children's literature in the nineteenth century
department or school: Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Francis, Rebecca Jane
issued: 2018-05-09T17:05:56Z
issued: 2018
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: How and what to teach children through stories has been an ongoing topic of debate for centuries. In the nineteenth century, much of this debate was centred around teaching Christian religious practices, and connecting these practices back to moral lessons or social concerns. This thesis traces the changes in the way in which religious teachings are presented in children’s literature throughout the nineteenth century. I argue that the instructional elements of children’s literature do not become less significant over the period, but rather become implicit rather than explicit, and thus invite the implied child reader to make connections and judgements for him- or herself rather than merely accepting what the narrator is saying. I argue that norms surrounding gender, social class and empire are linked back to religious teachings, but that these links become less clear over the course of the century. I make this argument by looking first at domestic children’s fiction in the earlier part of the century by Hannah More, Mary Martha Sherwood, Charlotte Yonge and Hesba Stretton and show that earlier fiction was heavily didactic due to a lack of faith in the child reader’s ability to interpret the text, but that this fiction also went further than simplistic didacticism by creating a spiritually significant space for women in the home. I then examine fantasy novels by Charles Kingsley, Lewis Carroll and Anna Sewell, arguing that despite being seemingly subversive, fantasy novels do not attempt to question the social class system or the religious teachings that upheld it. The final chapter explores boys’ adventure and school fiction in the works of Thomas Hughes, R. M. Ballantyne, Robert Lewis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, and demonstrates that the narrow forms of masculinity supported by earlier texts are questioned by later writers. All of these novels either accept or question social expectations around gender, class and empire while associating these expectations with …
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/65813
note: INSTRUCTION WITHIN ENTERTAINMENT: EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by Rebecca Jane Francis B.A., The University of Buckingham, 2015 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) May 2018 © Rebecca Jane Francis, 2018i The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommended to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: Instruction Within Entertainment: Explicit and Implicit Religious Teachings in Children’s Literature in the Nineteenth Century submitted by Rebecca Jane Francis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Examining Committee: Margaret Reeves, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisor George Grinnell, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisory Committee Member Oliver Lovesey, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies Supervisory Committee Member Ben Nilson, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences University Examiner ii ABSTRACT How and what to teach children through stories has been an ongoing topic of debate for centuries. In the nineteenth century, much of this debate was centred around teaching Christian religious practices, and connecting these practices back to moral lessons or social concerns. This thesis traces the changes in the way in which religious teachings are presented in children’s literature throughout the nineteenth century. I argue that the instructional elements of children’s literature do not become less significant over the period, but rather become implicit rather than explicit, and thus invite the implied child reader to make connections and judgements for him- or herself rather than merely accepting what the narrator is saying. I argue that norms surrounding gender, social class and empire are linked back to religious teachings, but that th…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2018-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0366236
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/65813