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Kipling's Children's Literature Kipling’s Children’s Literature Language, Identity, and Constructions of Childhood Sue Walsh KIPLING’S CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Despite Kipling’s popularity as an author and his standing as a politically controversial figure, much of his work has remained relatively unexamined due to its characterization as ‘children’s literature’. Sue Walsh challenges the apparently clear division between ‘children’s’ and ‘adult’ literature, and poses important questions about how these strict categories have influenced critical work on Kipling and on literature in general. For example, why are some of Kipling’s books viewed as children’s literature, and what critical assumptions does this label produce? Why is it that Kim is viewed by critics as transcending attempts at categorization? Using Kipling as a case study, Walsh discusses texts such as Kim, The Jungle Books, the Just-So Stories, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and Rewards and Fairies, re-evaluating earlier critical approaches and offering fresh readings of these relatively neglected works. In the process, she suggests new directions for postcolonial and childhood studies and interrogates the way biographical criticism on children’s literature in particular has tended to supersede and obstruct other kinds of readings. Ashgate Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present Series Editor: Claudia Nelson, Texas A&M University, USA This series recognizes and supports innovative work on the child and on literature for children and adolescents that informs teaching and engages with current and emerging debates in the field. Proposals are welcome for interdisciplinary and comparative studies by humanities scholars working in a variety of fields, including literature; book history, periodicals history, and print culture and the sociology of texts; theater, film, musicology, and performance studies; history, including the history of education; gender studies; art history and visual culture; cultural studies; and religion. Topics might include, among other possibilities, how concepts and representations of the child have changed in response to adult concerns; postcolonial and transnational perspectives; “domestic imperialism” and the acculturation of the young within and across class and ethnic lines; the commercialization of childhood and children’s bodies; views of young people as consumers and/or originators of culture; the child and religious discourse; children’s and adolescents’ self-representations; and adults’ recollections of childhood. Also in the series The Writings of Hesba Stretton Reclaiming the Outcast Elaine Lomax Public School Literature, Civic Education and the Politics of Male Adolescence Jenny Holt The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture Dennis Denisoff Conceptualizing Cruelty to Children in Nineteenth-Century England Literature, Representation, and the NSPCC Monica Flegel Kipling’s Children’s Literature Language, Identity, and Constructions of Childhood SUE WALSH University of Reading, UK First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Sue Walsh 2010 Sue Walsh has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Walsh, Sue. Kipling’s children’s literature: language, identity, and constructions of childhood. – (Ashgate studies in childhood, 1700 to the present) 1. Kipling, Rudyard, 1865–1936 – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Children’s stories, English – History and criticism. 3. Children’s literature – History and criticism – Theory, etc. I. Title II. Series 823.8-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walsh, Sue. Kipling’s children’s literature: language, identity, and constructions of childhood / by Sue Walsh. p. cm.—(Ashgate studies in childhood, 1700 to the present) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-5596-1 (alk. paper) 1. Kipling, Rudyard, 1865–1936—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Children’s stories, English—History and criticism. 3. Children in literature. 4. Kipling, Rudyard, 1865– 1936—Language. I. Title. PR4858.C49W35 2010 828’.809—dc22 2009042380 ISBN: 9780754655961 (hbk) ISBN: 9781315591124 (ebk) For my Mum and Dad, who have always supported me, and for Karín and Ric. This page has been left blank intentionally Contents List of Figures ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction: On Children’s Booksand ‘Mature’ Stories 1 1 The Child as Colonized orthe Colonized as Child? 31 2 Translating ‘Animal’, or Reading the‘Other’ in Kipling’s ‘Mowgli’ Stories 51 3 A Child Speaking to Children?Biographical Readings 71 4 The Oral and the Writtenin the ‘Taffy’ Stories 95 5 Becoming ‘Civilized’:The Child and the Primitive 117 6 ‘And it was so – just so – a long time ago’?:Kipling and History 139 Bibliography 157 Index 167 This page has been left blank intentionally List of Figures 3.1 The opening ‘illuminated T’ of ‘The Tabu Tale’. Illustration to ‘The Tabu Tale’ by Rudyard Kipling, in Just So Stories for Little Children, Oxford World’s Classics edn, ed. Lisa Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 189. 89 4.1 The ‘Letter’. Illustration from Just So Stories for Little Children by Rudyard Kipling, Oxford World’s Classics edn, ed. Lisa Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 98. 101 4.2 The Alphabet Necklace. Illustration from Just So Stories for Little Children by Rudyard Kipling, 1st edn (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1902), p. 167. 111 5.1 ‘The picture that the Head Chief made’. Illustration to ‘The Tabu Tale’ by Rudyard Kipling, in Just So Stories for Little Children, Oxford World’s Classics edn, ed. Lisa Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 211. 137 This page has been left blank intentionally Acknowledgements For special help with the scanning of images, and so helping me over the final hurdle, I would like to thank John Walker and David Page from the Kipling Society. I acknowledge that parts of the Introduction and Chapter 4 are based on an article that was published in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly in 2003. Chapter 3 is reproduced with a few changes with the kind permission of Palgrave Macmillan from Karin Lesnik-Oberstein (ed.), Children’s Literature: New Approaches, 2004, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Versions of the Introduction and Chapter 5 were given as papers to conferences organised by the Kipling Society at the University of Kent at Canterbury and Magdalene College, Cambridge. A version of Chapter 4 was given as a paper to a research seminar held at the University of Lancaster (I would particularly like to thank Professor Simon Bainbridge, Tess Cosslett and Catherine Spooner for this invitation), and versions of Chapter 2 were given as a talk to the Kiping Society, and as a paper to a research seminar held at Middlesex University (special thanks are due to Jeffery Lewins and Erica Fudge respectively). I am grateful to everyone concerned for their informed and helpful feedback. A version of Chapter 2 was also given as a paper at a conference held at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. In connection with this last, I am grateful to Jadavpur University, and in particular to Professors Sukanta and Supriya Chaudhuri, for the offer of a Visiting Fellowship in December 2003, and also to the University of Reading, and in particular to Dr Geoff Harvey, for making it possible for me to take up the offer. I am especially grateful to Ann Donahue at Ashgate for both her encouragement and her patience, and also to Claudia Nelson. Thanks are also due to the many friends and colleagues who have read drafts and various versions of chapters, and provided intellectual stimulus and enthusiasm: I am particularly grateful to Stephen Thomson and Professor Peter Stoneley for their feedback in the very early stages of this project, and also to Dani Caselli, Josie Dolan, Sarah Spooner, Neil Cocks, Simon Flynn and all the staff and students who form part of CIRCL. My friends Karen Clegg and Jane Nielsen gave invaluable moral support along the way, and for giving me the space in which to finish the job, and encouraging me in the final furlong I would like to extend my thanks to John Holmes and Professor Bryan Cheyette respectively. I count myself extremely lucky in always having behind me the unstinting support of my parents, Brenda and Frank Walsh, and my sister and brother, Cath Kiernan and Danny Walsh, I hope it never seems that I take it for granted – I don’t. Finally, this book would not have been completed without the particular encouragement and support of Karín Lesnik-Oberstein and Ric Harwood, to both of whom I owe more than I can say. This page has been left blank intentionally Introduction On Children’s Books and ‘Mature’ Stories Despite Kipling’s fame as both a much-read and well-loved author, and as a politically controversial figure, much of his work has remained un-discussed in any detail, largely because it has been assigned to a category labelled ‘children’s literature’, and this category, as I will show, carries with it critical assumptions about simplicity, transparency, and child reader-responses. This study will argue instead that these Kipling texts are complex and multi-dimensional, and that they actually constitute a challenge to the critical assumptions and practices that operate around children’s literature. As such, this book aims to trouble the apparently clear division between ‘children’s’ and ‘adult’ literature, not only with respect to Kipling’s work, but also in more general terms.
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