Classical Reception and Children's Literature

Reception studies have transformed the classics. Many more literary and cultural texts are now regarded as 'valid' for classical study. And within this process of widening children's literature has in its turn emerged as being increasingly important. Books written for children now comprise one of the largest and most prominent bodies of texts to engage with the classical world with an audience that constantly changes as it grows up. This innovative volume wrestles with that very characteristic of change which is so fundamental to children's literature showing how significant the classics as well as classically-inspired fiction and verse have been in tackling the adolescent challenges posed by metamorphosis. Chapters address such themes as the use made by C S Lewis in The Horse and his Boy of Apuleius' The Golden Ass; how Ovidian myth frames the Narnia stories; classical 'nonsense' in Edward Lear; Pan as a powerful symbol of change in children's literature for instance in The Wind in the Willows; the transformative power of the Orpheus myth; and how works for children have handled the teaching of the classics.