The Influence of the Juvenile Drama on the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1949 The Influence of the Juvenile Drama on the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Malcolm T. Carron Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Carron, Malcolm T., "The Influence of the Juvenile Drama on the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson" (1949). Master's Theses. 743. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/743 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1949 Malcolm T. Carron THE INFLUENCE OF THE JUVENILE DRAMA ON THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON BY MALCOLM T. CARRON# S.J. A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULF'IWlENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN LOYOLA UN IVERS lIT FEBRUARY 1949 VITA AUCTORIS Malcolm T. Carron, S.J., was born in Detroit, Michigan, May 15, 1917. He received his elementary school education at Barbour Hall, Nazareth, Michigan. His high school years, 1931- 1935, were spent at the University of Detroit High School. In September, 1935, he enrolled at the University of Detroit, from which he was graduated in 1939 with the Bachelor of Arts degree. In September, 1939, he entered the Society of Jesus at I!I11ford, Ohio. Three years later he INent to West Baden College., a branch of Loyola University at West Baden Springs, Indiana. Here he enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of English. During the school years of 1945-1948, he taught at St. Ignatius High School, Cleveland, Ohio. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE APPROACH...................................... 1 Chestertonrs starting contention---Toy theatre in Stevensonrs childhood---The toy theatre and Stevensonrs cluldlike nature---Limits of Ches terton's appraisal---Statement of thesis pro blem. II. SKELTERY •...•.•..•.. '. • • . • • . • • . • . • • • • • •• 10 Wilson the main source---Making the play-- The stage---Lighting---Characters---Scenery ---The playbook---Putting on the play-- Subject-matter and spirit of toy theatre ---Language---Ballads---Characteristics listed. III. THE STUFF OF ROMANCE •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 25 Stevenson's debt to Skeltery---Horror scenes ---Combats---Pirates and adventurers---T\flelo dramatic speech---Songs and ballads---Cottage and inn interiors---Random references to Skelt. IV. SHARP BRIGHT IMAGERy ••..••.•••...••••.•••...••••.• 51 Chesterton's thesis again---Explanation of influence---Sharp1y outlined images---Bright backgrounds---Stevenson's use of Skelt colors. V. THE FINAL \VORD •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 63 B IELI OG RAPHY. • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 65 FOREVVARD The word "Skelt" means practically nothing to the world today. But away back in the nineteenth century, it truly stood for something; for a man named Skelt was one of the more famous of the manufacturers of those nineteenth-century imaginative masterpieces known as toy theatres. Because Skelt played such an important part in the development of the miniature stage, Robert Louis Stevenson christened the toy theatre -- and every thing connected with it -- "Skeltery." In one of his essays instinct with warm feeling for a child hood pastime, Stevenson asks: "~fuat am I? what are life, art, letters, the world, but what my Skelt has made them?" This is the general tenor of the essay entitled "A Penny Plain Twopence Coloured," in which Stevenson describes so enthusiastically his love for the Juvenile Drama. Stevenson's frank admission of his love for Skeltery and his readiness to acknowledge its influence call for some attempt to evaluate the toy theatre's contribution to his writings. This, therefore, is the purpose of the following pages. tl In this paper, incidentally, "toy theat'e , "Juvenile Drama", and ItSkeltery" will be used as synonymous terms. CHAPTER I THE APPROACH Piqued by a critic who claimed a sindlarity in the works of Stevenson and Poe, G. K. Chesterton, in his critical analysis of Stevenson,l rises up in vigorous protest. He says Stevenson is the very opposite of Poe. Poe is dark, brooding, and melancholy ~lile Stevenson's style is clear and brieht, his atmosphere shadowless. Chesterton, himself a worshipper at the shrine of Skelt, then goes on to point out that the toy theatre was responsible for this light, airy, romantic spirit of Stevenson. Of his method in reaching this conclusion, Chesterton says: I have tried to take the stock and normal of his works first, and then note t~~t it really does date in a special sense from his child hood; and that it is not sentimental and not irrelevant to say so. 2 Writing with characteristic perspicacity, Chesterton begins with a sound psychological approach. He explains the basis of a writer's imagery in these terms: ••• there is at the back of every artist's mind something like a pattern or a type of architec ture. The original quality in any man of imagi- 1 G. K. Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dodd, [!lead, and Co., New York, 1928, 25-26. 2 Ibid., 35. 1 2 nation is imagery. It is a thing like the land ncapes of his dreams; the sort of world he would wish to make or in which he would wish to wander; the strange flora and fauna of his own secret planet; the sort of thing that he likes to think about. 3 And this, continues Chesterton, holds true of all the aut~orls imagery: This general atmosphere and pattern or struct ure of growth governs all his creations how ever varied; and because he can in this sense create a world, he is in this sense a creator. 4 So the writer in creating his images, creates them instinc tively according to a pattern -- "the sort of thing that he likes to think about. tt Now to discover what Stevenson liked to think about is com- paratively easy. He himself tells that from his childhood he loved adventure, anything that smacked of romance, especially the romance o~ piracy. His poor health, you might say, was a factor that contributed greatly to this. A frail, Sickly child, Stevenson was unable to share in the more rugged pleasures of robust childhood. Because of this he was forced to while away the long hours of the day in a world of ma'E:e-believe -- a less strenuous, but nevertheless for him a most engaging occupation. Part of Stevenson's world. of fancy and imagination was the 3 Chesterton, 27. 4 !t1:£., 27-28. 3 toy theatre. Fro~ the time that he was six years old he busied himself, often in the company of his cousin Robert Stevenson, staging the plays which even in later years held so much fasci nation for him. 5 In his essay "A Penny Plain Twopence Coloured," Stevenson recalls how he often lingered about the stationer's shop where the toy theatres were sold, just to gaze with anticipation at the window display: In the Leith Walk window, all the year around, there stood displayed a theatre in working order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few "robbers carousing" in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to mel the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon another. Long and often I lingered there with empty pockets. 6 Even when not actually in possession of the plays, the toy theatre attracted him and fired the young lad's imagination. However there were times when young Stevenson had the ne- cessary penny for a play. Then, he tells us, his problem lay in the choice: The crux of Buridan1s donkey was as nothing to the uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on these bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the 5 Gr~am Balfour, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Scrlbner's Sons, New York, 1923, 42. 6 R. L. Stevenson, "A Penny Plain Twopence Coloured," Memories ~ Portraits, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1925, 115. L 4 sight and touch of them which he would jeal ously prolong; and when at length the deed was done, the play selected, and the impatient shopman had brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy was forth again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the blue winter's even, and The Miller or The Rover, or some kindred drama clutched against his side -- on what gay feet he ranJ. and how he laughed aloud in exulta tion 1 'f Then once back home the joy of painting the characters and props: I ca~~ot deny that joy attended the illumi nation; nor can I quite forgive that child, who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to "twopence coloured." 8 Stevenson was no mere dilettante in this matter of the Juvenile Drama. For him it was almost a passion. ::Ie owned numerous plays and in later years rel:lembered the title of each one. In the opening lines of his essay on Skeltery he recites a long litany of plays he once put on: I have, at different times, possessed Aladdin, The Blind Boy, The Old Oak Chest, The Wood Doe ~, Jack Sheppard, The Miller and His Men, Der Freischutz, The Smugsler, The Forest of Bondy, Robin Hood, The Waterman, Richard I., (11 Poll . and & Partner Joe, The Inchcape Bell imper fect), and Three-Fingered Jack, the Terror of Jamaica; and I have assisted others in the II lumination of The Maid of the Inn and The Battle ~ Waterloo. 9--- ---- -- ---- --- He immediately adds that in these plays, performed on his minia- 7 Stevem::on "A Penny Plain Twopence Coloured, If 116.

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