Durham E-Theses `Dangerous Creatures': Selected children's versions of Homer's Odyssey in English 16992014 RICHARDS, FRANCESCA,MARIA How to cite: RICHARDS, FRANCESCA,MARIA (2016) `Dangerous Creatures': Selected children's versions of Homer's Odyssey in English 16992014 , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11522/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 ‘Dangerous Creatures’: Selected children’s versions of Homer’s Odyssey in English 1699–2014 Abstract This thesis considers how the Odyssey was adapted for children, as a specific readership, in English literature 1699-2014. It thus traces both the emergence of children’s literature as a publishing category and the transformation of the Odyssey into a tale of adventure – a perception of the Odyssey which is still widely accepted today (and not only among children) but which is not, for example, how Aristotle understood the poem. I explore case studies from three different points in the development of children’s literature, and in the development of the Odyssey as a tale of adventure, and connect them to broader cultural attitudes to children and to classical literature. The first, the successful translation of François Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque (The Adventures of Telemachus, 1699) illustrates the clash of the Odyssey with contemporary discourse on literature and education. I then turn to Charles Lamb’s The Adventures of Ulysses (1808) – a text that was at the heart of Romantic cultural upheavals and the commercial development of children’s literature, and which responded directly to Fénelon. Lamb’s work transformed the way the Homeric poem would engage with children by focusing on the fantastic adventures of Odysseus, rather than Telemachus, as Fénelon had done. The nineteenth-century shift in the critical reaction to Lamb’s work, and to the notion of reading adventure for recreational purposes, would eventually see The Adventures of Ulysses become a foundational text for future generations of Odysseys for children, and indeed in the reception of the Odyssey more generally (Lamb’s version was foundational for Joyce, for example). The final part of the thesis explores how Lamb’s influence is still operational in a new generation of texts that use subaltern voices in an apparently antagonistic approach to the poem. The thesis argues that the children’s texts considered, which are often treated as marginal, both as classical receptions and as children’s literature, need to be brought to the core of classical studies. 1 ‘Dangerous Creatures’: Selected children’s versions of Homer’s Odyssey in English 1699–2014 Francesca Maria Richards PhD in Classics Department of Classics and Ancient History University of Durham 2015 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 2 Table of Contents Introduction 7 Part I: Fénelon’s The Adventures of Telemachus 23 i. The Odyssey in the Renaissance ii. Fénelon iii. La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes iv. The Adventures of Telemachus v. The reception of The Adventures of Telemachus in England Part II: Straining the imagination: The development of Lamb’s The Adventures of Ulysses 67 i. Adventures in the Juvenile Library ii. ‘The Giant’s vomit’: The Adventures of Ulysses, the Odyssey and placating demographics iii. ‘The manners to the passion’: Lamb, Chapman, and Pope iv. Critical reactions Part III: ‘Fairyland and Wonderland made real’: Lamb’s legacy in the nineteenth- century and beyond 116 i. Odysseus the role-model ii. A muscular, Christian Odysseus iii. Adventures in the real world: The ‘Boy’s Own’ Odyssey iv. Lamb enters the classroom Part IV: Not the Odyssey? The adventures reevaluated 160 i. Twentieth-century transformations ii. ‘Cut down to size’: female voices and adventure in Ithaka iii. His master’s voice: Odysseus, parental figures, and adventure in Torn from Troy and King of Ithaka Conclusion 210 Appendix 213 Bibliography 242 3 Acknowledgements My supervisor, Barbara Graziosi, has been singularly supportive of this project since I first approached her with the idea in 2011. I would like to thank her for her enthusiasm, patience, dedication, and belief in my potential, which has kept me afloat in the process of researching and writing. I am also grateful for her invitation to join the Living Poets team to develop their public engagement activities, which has been a rewarding experience that has complemented my research. Her kindness and generosity in allowing me to develop professionally and personally has been exceptional. My examiners, Helen Lovatt, Ed Richardson, and chair of examiners Jennifer Ingleheart, have been generous with their time, insight, and encouragement, and I am very grateful to them for their animated interest in my work. I have also been fortunate to have the support of a large number of people who offered in some combination their professional support, their work for me to read, their resources, or their time (with tea and sympathy): in particular, I am grateful to Johannes Haubold (who offered constructive comments in my first-year review), Sheila Murnaghan, Mark Woolmer, Justine Wolfenden, Viv Arbia, Emma Bridges, Lilah-Grace Canevaro, Zoe Cormack, Kaja Marczewska, Marc Botha, Emily Ridge, Annabel Haynes, Nikoletta Manioti, Louise Hodgson, Will Viney, Tom Ogden, Barney Chesterton, and Donald Maclennan. I would also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council: without their funding, this research would never have been possible. Similarly, staff at the British Library, the Bodleian Libraries, the University of St. Andrews Special Collections, and the Seven Stories Collection were all exceptionally efficient and helpful. My Dad, Ian, and the Richards, Rose, and Hoban families, for all of their support. Andy Sykes and James Millen have been generous and patient even when I was out of the loop; the best kind of friends. Finally, to Matty for his long-enduring love and support. 4 To Eva, and all the books she will read. 5 Odyssey, n. 1. (The name of) one of two great hexametric epic poems of ancient Greece traditionally attributed to Homer (the other being the Iliad), which describes the ten years' wanderings of Odysseus (Ulysses) on his way home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. 2. In extended use (freq. with lower-case initial): a long series of wanderings; a long adventurous journey. Also fig. (Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2014) 6 Introduction ‘The books offered to me in my childhood left out the adult world, and even when they didn’t, entirely, they never presented adults as children really see them…They were never the uncertain, awkward, quirky, dangerous creatures that I knew adults to be. Since it was the adults who had written these books, it was reasonable to assume that they didn’t want to give themselves away; show themselves to us children, to their enemies as they really were.’ Nina Bawden (author of Carrie’s War), 1974: 7 Odysseus’ self-narrated encounters with fantastic characters, such as Polyphemus the Cyclops, the Sirens, Circe, Scylla, Charybdis, and the Lotus Eaters, form the most prominent parts of the versions of the Odyssey for children: collectively these episodes of the poem have long held a powerful imaginative appeal, having been emphatically differentiated from the rest of the Odyssey by generations of authors, editors, and critics who publish for children. However, as Nina Bawden remarks, we should be aware, if not sceptical, of the motivations of the adults behind these versions of the poem: for in their writing they are not showing either the Odyssey or themselves as they really are. For classicists, significant consequences arise in the evolution of these versions: the reception of the Odyssey in these works is not only primarily responsible for the association of the Odyssey with adventure, but, as the dictionary definition relates, the idea that the Odyssey is most primarily concerned with ‘the ten years’ wanderings of Odysseus’. Yet the portions of the narrative that might be categorized as Odysseus’ adventures constitute less than one third of the poem. This thesis traces the way in which children’s literary versions of the Odyssey have fundamentally contributed to this privileging of the adventure episodes of the Homeric epic in a wider context: an understanding that continues to persist in the popular imagination despite (apparently) radical attempts to reframe the poem. Classical reception in children’s literature is a new field of study. This thesis is contemporary with the first extended publications on the subject, which are due for publication imminently: first monographs and edited volumes on Classics and children’s literature are being prepared for publication,1 whilst several international conferences 1 Most notably a forthcoming monograph by Sheila Murnaghan and Deborah Roberts on Classics and childhood, as well as forthcoming edited volumes by Helen Lovatt and Owen Hodkinson (Changing the 7 and conference panels have taken place in the last five years.