Childhood in literature and art, with some observations on literature for children

Part 13

Chapter 132,624 wordsPublic domain

_Alkestis_, a scene from the, 19, 20.

_Amelia_, Fielding’s, 135.

Amor, the myth of, 36-38; as treated by Raphael, 99; in the Elizabethan lullabies, 116, 117; in Shakespeare, 124; in Thorwaldsen’s art, 201.

Anchises, 31.

_Ancient Leaves_, cited, 31, 33.

Andersen, Hans Christian, the unique contribution of, to literature, 201; the distinction between his stories and fairy tales, 202; the basis of his fame, 207; the life of his creations, 208; their relation to human beings, 209; the spring in his stories, 211; his satires, 212; the deeper experience in them, 213; his essential childishness, 214; his place with novelists, 215; his interpretation of childhood, 216.

Andromache, the parting of, with Hector, 11, 12; the scene compared with one in the _Œdipus Tyrannus_, 16-18; and contrasted with Virgil, 31.

Angels of children, 144, 145.

Anna the prophetess, 47.

Anthology, the Greek, 28-30.

Antigone, 18.

Apocryphal Gospels, the legends of the, 57-64.

Art, American, as it relates to children, 237, 238.

Art, modern, the foible of, 38.

Arthur, in _King John_, 120.

Ascanius, 31, 32.

Askbert, 68, 69.

Astyanax, 11; a miniature Hector, 14.

_Atlantic Monthly, The_, cited, 34.

Austin, Alfred, cited, 38.

Ballads relating to children, 106-108; characteristics of, 113.

Barbauld, Mrs., 173; her relation to the literature of childhood, 175; Coleridge and Lamb on, 174.

Bathsheba’s child, 42.

Beatrice, first seen by Dante, 77.

_Better Land, The_, 222.

Bible, the truth of the, not dependent on external witness, 6; the university to many in modern times, 41, 42.

Blake, William, 163-165.

Boccaccio, 79.

Browning, Robert, as an interpreter of Greek life, 27; his _Pied Piper_, 237.

Bryant, William Cullen, 217.

Bunyan, childhood in, 129-133.

Byzantine type of the Madonna, 83, 84.

Catullus, 33.

Chapman’s translation of Homer, quoted, 8, 9, 10, 16; the quality of his defects, 9, 10.

Chaucer’s treatment of childhood, 108-111; compared with the Madonna in art, 113.

Childhood, discovered at the close of the last century, 4; in literature as related to literature for children, 4; in Greek life, how attested, 7; indirect reference to it in Homer, 8-11; the direct reference, 11, 12; in the Greek tragedians, 16-21; in Plato, 22-26; in the Greek Anthology, 29, 30; in Virgil, 31, 32; conception of, in Roman literature, 32, 33; in Catullus, 33; in epitaphs, 33, 34; in Lucretius, 34; in Juvenal, 35; in classic conception of the supernatural, 34-36; in the myth of Amor, 36-38; in Old Testament literature, 42-46; in New Testament literature, 48, 49; attitude of the Saviour toward, 49; as a sign of history, 52; in the legends of the Apocryphal Gospels, 57-64; of saints, 65-71; under the forming power of Christianity, 73; in Dante, 75-78; in the representations of the Holy Family, 83-87; in the art of the northern peoples, 87-92; in the Madonnas of Raphael, 92-98; in Raphael’s Amor, 98, 99; in his representations of children generally, 100, 101; in the art of Luca della Robbia, 101, 102; its elemental force the same in all literatures, 105; in ballad literature, 106-108; in Chaucer, 108-111; its character in early English literature, 112, 113; in Spenser, 114, 115; in the lighter strains of Elizabethan literature, 116, 117; in Shakespeare, 117-126; its absence in Milton, 127, 128; how regarded in Puritanism, 128, 129; in Bunyan, 129-133; in Pope, 133, 134; in Fielding, 135; in Gray, 135-137; in Goldsmith, 137-140; in Cowper, 140, 141; in the art of Reynolds and Gainsborough, 141, 142; in Wordsworth, 144-157; in De Quincey, 158-162; in William Blake, 163-165; in Dickens, 165-170; in _Paul and Virginia_, 181-183; in Lamartine, 184-186; in Michelet de Musset, and Victor Hugo, 186, 187; in German sentiment, 189; illustrated by Luther, 190, 191; in Richter, 191, 192; in Goethe, 194-196; in Froebel’s system, 197, 198; in Overbeck’s art, 199, 200; in Hans Christian Andersen, 201-216; in Emerson, Bryant, Lowell, and Holmes, 217, 218; in Whittier, 218, 219; in Longfellow, 219-222; mistakenly presented in sentimental verse, 222-225; in Hawthorne, 225-234.

_Child-Life in Poetry_, 219.

_Child-Life in Prose_, 219.

Children, books for, the beginning of, 171, 172; the characteristics of this beginning, 173; their revolutionary character, 174; the sincerity of the early books, 175; the union of the didactic and artistic in, 177; a new branch of literature, 177, 178; art in connection with, 179.

_Children’s Hour, The_, 220.

_Child’s Last Will, The_, 106.

Christ, the childhood of, 48; his scenes with children, 48, 49; his attitude toward childhood, 49-52; an efficient cause of the imagination, 55; legends of, in the Apocryphal Gospels, 57-64; his symbolic use of the child, 81; his infancy the subject of art, 82; especially in Netherlands, 89; his words illustrative of human history, 102.

Christianity and French sentiment, 182.

Christianity, living and structural, 53; its supersedure of ancient life, 54; its germinal truth, 55; its operative imagination, 56; its care of children, especially orphans, 73; its office of organization, 74; its influence on the family, 75; its insistence on death, 79; in what its power consists, 81; its ideals, 82; its type in the Madonna, 83; does not interfere with elemental facts, 105.

Christmas in Germany, 189.

Cimabue, 84.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, on Mrs. Barbauld, 176; on Christmas in Germany, 189.

_Comus_, 127.

_Confidences, Les_, 184.

_Coriolanus_, 118.

Cornelius, 88.

_Courtship of Miles Standish, The_, 226.

Cowper, William, 140, 141.

_Cruel Mother, The_, ballad of, 106.

Cupid and Psyche, 36.

_Danaë_, the, of Euripides, 20; of Simonides, 30.

Dante, childhood in, 75-78.

Day, Thomas, author of _Sanford and Merton_, 3.

Death of children, how regarded by Dickens, 167; by Wordsworth, 168.

Democracy revealed in the French Revolution, 143.

De Quincey, Thomas, reflections of, on his childhood, 158-162.

_Deserted Village, The_, 137.

Dickens, Charles, his naturalization of the poor in literature, 165; his report of childhood, 166; the children created by, 166-170; compared with Wordsworth, 168, 169.

_Distant Prospect of Eton College, On a_, 136.

_Dolliver Romance, The_, 234.

Doyle, Richard, 179.

Drama, children in, 20.

_Dying Child, The_, 222.

Edgeworth, Maria, and Wordsworth, 174.

_Edward Fane’s Rosebud_, 231.

_Elegy_, Gray’s, 135, 136.

Elijah, the prophet, 42; the incident of the boys and, 43.

Elisha, 43.

Elizabethan era, characteristics of, 113, 116.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 217.

English race, characteristics of the, exemplified in literature, 111-113.

Eros, the myth of, 36-38.

Erotion, 34.

_Essay on Man, The_, 134.

Euripides, in his view of children, 19; examples from, 20.

_Evangeline_, 226.

_Excursion, The_, 151, 152.

Fables, Andersen’s stories distinguished from, 210, 211.

_Faery Queen, The_, 114, 115.

Fairy-tales, Andersen’s stories distinguished from, 202; the origin of, 203; fading out from modern literature, 204; upon the stage, 204, 205; the scientific fairy-tale, 206.

Fénelon, 180.

Fielding, Henry, in his _Amelia_, 135.

Fitzgerald, Edward, 27.

Flaxman, John, his illustration of Homer in outline, 12.

French literature as regards childhood, 180-188.

French Revolution, the, a sign of regeneration, 52; a day of judgment, 142; the name for an epoch, 143; synchronous with a revelation of childhood, 144; its connection with English literature, 162; the eruption of poverty in, 165.

Froebel’s kindergarten system, 197, 198.

_From my Arm Chair_, 220, 221.

Gainsborough, Thomas, 141.

Gascoigne, George, 117.

_Gentle Boy, The_, 231.

Germanic peoples, home-cultivating, 88.

German literature and childhood, 188-198.

Giotto, 84.

Goethe, compared with Richter as regards memory of childhood, 194; his Mignon, 194; his indebtedness to the _Vicar of Wakefield_, 195; his _Sorrows of Werther_, 195; compared with Luther, 196.

Goldsmith, Oliver, _avant-courier_ of Wordsworth, 3; the precursor of the poets of childhood, 137; his position in literature, 138; his _Vicar of Wakefield_, 138-140.

_Goody Two Shoes_, 3.

_Grandfather’s Chair_, 226.

Gray, Thomas, 135-137.

Gray, Thomas, borrowing possibly from Martial, 34.

Greece, life in ancient, how illustrated, 7; silence of the child in the art of, 21; our relation to, 21; modern interpretations of, 27, 28; compared with Rome, 31; compared with Judæa, 42.

Greenaway, Kate, 179.

Greene, Robert, 117.

Greenwell, Dora, her poem, _A Story by the Fire_, an example of pernicious literature, 222-225.

Grimm, the brothers, 207.

Hannah, the song of, 44, 47.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, the most abundant of American authors in his treatment of childhood, 225; his use of New England history, 226; his rendering of Greek myths, 226, 227; his observation of childhood, 228, 229; his relation to children, 229, 230; his apologue in _The Snow-Image_, 232; children in his romances, 232, 233; his Pearl in _The Scarlet Letter_, 233, 234; his Pansie in _The Dolliver Romance_, 234.

Hebrew life, in its influence on modern thought, 39-41; the child in, 46, 47; its transformation into Christianity, 47, 48, 53.

Hector parting with Andromache, 11, 12; face to face with Ajax, 14; comforts his wife, 16, 17.

Hemans, Felicia, 222.

Hen and chickens, in the Bible and Shakespeare, 122.

Herakles, 36.

Hermes, 36.

_Hiawatha_, 221.

Hilarion, 67.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 218.

Holy Family, the child in the, 83; character of the early type of the, 83; emblematic of domesticity, 86, 87.

Homer, authenticity of the legend of, supposed to be proved by Schliemann, 6; a better preserver of Greek womanhood than antiquaries, 7; the value of his similes, 7, 8; passages in illustration of his indirect reference to childhood, 8-11; the elemental character of, 12; the peril of commenting on, 13; the nurse in, 14; his view of childhood, 15; compared with that of the tragedians, 16-18; with that of Virgil, 31, 32.

Hosea, quoted, 44.

_House of the Seven Gables, The_, 232, 233.

Hubert, 120.

Hugh of Lincoln, 108.

Hugo, Victor, 187.

_Iliad_, the swarm of bees in the, 8; the passage describing the brushing away of a fly, 9; the ass belabored by a pack of boys, 9; Achilles chiding Patroclos, 10; Hector parting with Andromache, 11, 12; statuesque scenes in, 12.

_Imaginary Conversations_, quoted, 153.

Imagination, the, abnormal activity of, in early Christianity, 54; the direction of its new force, 56, 57.

_Intimations of Immortality_, 154, 156, 157.

Irving, Washington, 217.

Isaiah, quoted, 45.

Ishmael, 42.

Ismene, 18.

Jacob, the two wives of, 44.

James, Henry, alluded to, 236.

Jeffrey, Francis, 169.

Jerusalem, the entry into, 49, 52.

John the Baptist, 81.

Jonson, Ben, 37.

Jonson, Ben, _Venus’ Runaway_ of, 116.

Jowett, Benjamin, translation by, 22-26.

Juvenal, 35, 227.

Kenwulf of Wessex, 68.

Kindergarten, the, fortified by reference to Plato, 24; in connection with politics, 197, 198.

_King John_, 119, 120.

Kriss Kringle, 189.

La Farge, John, 237.

_L’Allegro_, 127.

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 184-186.

Lamb, Charles, on Mrs. Barbauld’s work, 176, 177; his and his sister’s books, 177.

Lambdin, George C., 237.

_Lamkin_, the ballad of, 107, 108.

Landor, Walter Savage, remark of, on children, 153.

Laokoön, 21.

_Laws_, Plato’s, cited, 22, 24, 25.

_Legends of the Madonna_, 89.

Leslie, C. R., on Raphael’s children, 100.

Lindsay, Lord, quoted, 88.

_Lines on the Receipt of my Mother’s Picture_, 141, 142.

Literature for children in the United States, 235, 236; some of its tendencies, 239, 240; measures for its enrichment, 240.

Literature, the source of knowledge, 7; of Christendom, the exposition of the conception of the Christ, 50; inaction in, 54; fallacy in the study of the development of, 104; its bounds enlarged, 163.

_Little Annie’s Ramble_, 231.

_Little Daffydowndilly_, 231.

_Little Girl’s Lament, The_, 222.

_Little People of the Snow_, 217.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, childhood in the writings of, 219-221.

Love, the figure of, in classic and modern art, 37.

Lowell, James Russell, 217.

Loyola, 91.

Luca della Robbia, the children of, 101.

Lucretius, 34, 35.

_Lucy Gray_, 3, 148.

Luther, Martin, an exponent of German character, 190; his treatment of childhood, 190.

_Macbeth_, 121, 123.

Madonna, development of the, 84-87; treatment of by Raphael, 92-98; a domestic subject, 98.

_Magnificat, The_, 44, 47.

_Man of Law’s Tale, The_, 110.

Marcius, 118.

Martial, 34.

Martin, Theodore, translation by, 33.

Mary, the Virgin, legends concerning, in the Apocryphal Gospels, 58-60; her childhood, 65; her appearance in early art, 83; her motherhood, 84; her relation to Jesus, 85.

_May Queen, The_, 222.

_Medea, The_, cited, 19.

_Menaphon_, 117.

Mercurius, 36.

_Messiah_, Pope’s, 133, 134.

Michelet, 186.

_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, 124.

Millais, John Everett, 179.

Milton, John, quoted, 46; the absence of childhood in, 127, 128; compared with Bunyan, 129; with Pope, 133.

Moses, 42.

Moth, Shakespeare’s, 118.

Mozley, T. B., quoted, 190, 191, 235.

Musset, Alfred de, 186.

_My Lost Youth_, 221.

Netherland family life, pictured in the life of our Lord, 89-92.

New Testament, childhood in the, 47-52.

Nicodemus, 50.

Niebuhr, B. G., 28.

Norton, Charles Eliot, translation by, 78.

_Note-Books_, Hawthorne’s, 228, 229.

Nurse, the, in Greek life, 14; in the _Odyssey_, 14, 15.

_Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity_, 127, 133.

Odysseus and his nurse, 15.

_Odyssey_, memorable incidents in the, 14, 15.

_Œdipus Tyrannus_ contrasted with the _Iliad_, 16-18.

Old Testament, childhood in the, 42-46.

_Our Old Home_, 230.

Overbeck, 88, 199-201.

Palmer, George Herbert, as a translator of Homer, 28.

Parkman, Francis, 226.

Pater, Walter, quoted, 79.

Patient Griselda, 111.

_Paul and Virginia_, representative of innocent childhood, 180; an escape from the world, 181; an attempt at the preservation of childhood, 183.

_Pet Lamb, The_, 149.

Pheidias, 26, 28.

_Pied Piper, The_, 237.

_Pilgrim’s Progress, The_, 130-133.

Plato, references of, to childhood, 22-26; compared with artists, 26; can be read by children, 242.

Pope, Alexander, 133; compared with Milton, 133, 134; with Shakespeare, 134.

_Prelude, The_, 151.

_Princess, The_, 170.

Puritanism, the attitude of, toward childhood, 128, 129.

_Queen’s Marie_, the ballad of the, 106.

Raphael, an exponent of the idea of his time, 92; the Madonnas of, 92; in the Berlin Museum, 93; Casa Connestabile, 93; del Cardellino, 93; at St. Petersburg, 93; della Casa Tempi, 94; at Bridgewater, 95; del Passegio, 96; San Sisto, 97, 98; treatment by, of Amor, 99; his children, 100.

_Reaper and the Flowers, The_, 220, 222.

Renaissance, the spirit of the, in Raphael’s work, 98; childhood in its relation to the, 102.

_Republic_, Plato’s, cited, 23.

_Resignation_, 220.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 141, 142.

Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, autobiography of, 191; early birth of consciousness in, 192; compared with Goethe, 194.

_Riverside Magazine for Young People, The_, 237, 238.

Roman literature, childhood in, 31-38.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 180, 182, 184.

Ruskin, John, 242.

Samuel, 42.

_Sanford and Merton_, 3.

Sarah, the laugh of, 44.

_Scarlet Letter, The_, 233, 234.

Schliemann, Dr., 6.

School, great literature in, 242.

_Sella_, 217.

Sellar, John Y., quoted, 35.

Sentiment, French and German, as seen by the English and American, 188.

_Shadow, A_, 220.

Shakespeare, childhood in, 117; limitations of the exhibition, 117, 118; his Moth, 118; his _Coriolanus_, 118, 119; his _King John_, 119, 120; his _Titus Andronicus_, 120, 121; his _Macbeth_, 121; his _Richard III._, 122; random passages in, relating to childhood, 123-125; reasons for the scanty reference, 125, 126; compared with Pope, 134.

Shunamite, the, 43.

Simeon, 47.

Simonides, 20; quoted, 30.

_Sketches of the History of Christian Art_, 88.

Smith, Goldwin, translation by, 20.

_Snow-Bound_, 218.

_Snow-Image, The_, 232.

Solitude, the, of childhood, 160-162.

_Songs of Innocence_, 164.

Sophocles, the _Œdipus Tyrannus_ of, 16.

Sparrows, the story of the miraculous, 61, 62.

_Spectator, The_, a writer in, quoted, 38.

Spenser, Edmund, his _Faery Queen_, 114, 115.

Statius, 33.

_Story by the Fire, A_, an example of what a poem for a child should not be, 222-225.

Supernaturalism in ancient literature, 35, 36.

_Suspiria de Profundis_, 158-162.

Swedenborg, a saying of, 142.

Symonds, John Addington, translation by, 20.

S. Bernard, 76, 77.

S. Catherine, 65.

S. Christina, 70.

S. Elizabeth of Hungary, 65, 66.

S. Francis of Assisi, 71, 72.

S. Genevieve, 66.

S. Gregory Nazianzen, 66.

S. John Chrysostom, 66.

S. Kenelm, 68-70.

St. Pierre, Bernardin, 180-183.

Tanagra figurines, 28.

_Tanglewood Tales_, 226.

Tennyson, Alfred, makes a heroine of the babe, 170; his _May Queen_, 222.

Thompson, D’Arcy W., translation by, 31, 33.

Thoreau, Henry David, 217.

Thorwaldsen, 37, 201.

_Tirocinium_, 140.

_Titus Andronicus_, 120, 121.

_To a Child_, 220.

Translations, the great, of the Elizabethan era, 116.

_Twice-Told Tales_, 231.

_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 124.

_Ugly Duckling, The_, 213; compared with _The Snow-Image_, 232.

Ugolino, Count, 76.

_Vicar of Wakefield, The_, 3, 137-140, 142.

_Village Blacksmith, The_, 221.

Virgil, contrasted with Homer, 31, 32; his treatment of childhood, 32.

Virgilia, 118, 119.

Volumnia, 118, 119.

_We are Seven_, 168-224.

_Weariness_, 220, 221.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, childhood in the writings of, 218, 219.

_Wonder-Book_, Hawthorne’s, 226, 227, 232.

Wordsworth, William, the creator of Alice Fell and Lucy Gray, 3; quoted, 3; the ridicule of his _Lyrical Ballads_, 145; his defensive Preface, 145-147; his apology for _Alice Fell_, 147, 148; his poem of _Lucy Gray_, 148, 149; his poem of _The Pet Lamb_, 149, 150; his treatment of incidents of childhood, 150; the first to treat the child as an individual, 151; his draft on his own experience, 152; his poetic interpretation of childhood, 153-156; his ode, _Intimations of Immortality_, 156, 157; his treatment of death, 168; his _We are Seven_ contrasted with _A Story of the Fire_, 224, 225.

_Wreck of the Hesperus, The_, 221.

Zarephath, the widow of, 42.

Zechariah, quoted, 45.