A brief history of Shakespeare as children's literature

Abstract

Beginning by asking in what sense his works may be considered literature for children, as well as for adults, this article traces a historical line of engagement between adults and youth over Shakespeare; from seventeenth‐century performances attended by London apprentices and British students’ early response to the text of Romeo and Juliet, through eighteenth‐century inclusions of Shakespeare's songs and stories in Mother Goose volumes and moralistic summaries, to the past two centuries’ plot adaptations for children, school readers, and novelistic off‐shoots. Varying standards and tastes for adapting Shakespeare to children's readiness are shown through compared retellings of the love scene in Romeo and Juliet, and the gradual expansion of Shakespeare's presence in the literary heritage of youth in England and America is explored through attention to a variety of school rhetorics and editions, retellings for children, biographies, play adaptations, and reworkings in short and longer fiction. An outline gradually appears of sustained cultural investment in the introduction of Shakespeare to children.