Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children

While children’s books have proved fertile ground for the theorization of adaptation as process and product, adaptation studies has proved remarkably reluctant to explore the relationship between adaptation studies and childhood itself. This paper takes this hesitancy as its central focus, combining recent metacritical studies of adaptation and its theorization (Elliott 2018; 2020) with theory from the fields of children’s literature and childhood studies in order to demonstrate how adaptation studies has operated under what I will describe as the ‘anxiety of infantilization’. This paper will explore how this anxiety of infantilization manifests by engaging the work of three prominent scholars in the field—Deborah Cartmell, Thomas Leitch, and Kyle Meikle—and analysing the discourses of childhood that underpin their discussions of the relationship between adaptation and childhood. It will be my contention that existing discussions of the child and adaptation studies remain enmeshed in what Marah Gubar labels as ‘difference’ and ‘deficit’ models of childhood (2013; 2016), and that if we are ever to get out from under our anxiety of infantilization, we must find a way to Gubar’s third model: ‘kinship’ (ibid.).

show abstract

Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and His Knights and the Bourgeois Boy Reader

Couch¹

2003

art

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Magic, Media, And Alterity InCatweazle

Magic, Media, And Alterity InCatweazle

Adaptation studies has a kids problem

Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur and His Knights and the Bourgeois Boy Reader

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About