Speaking for Lions

Abstract

Speaking for Lions Gillian Adams Until the lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter. African Proverb In his last editorial, Rod McGillis reminds us that "'children's literature' refers as much to the literature children make as to the literature they may or may not read" and that we need to pay more attention to "the texts that children fashion out of themselves" (230). McGillis notes that no matter how "constructed" by adults the childhood that exists in children's books may be, "it [is] difficult to accept the notion that children don't exist outside of our linguistic notion of children." One way that children do manifest their existence is through the literature that they create. In this issue we begin to explore what children have to say for themselves. Given all the critical ink that has been expended on the subject of children's responses to literature, one would think that the subject of juvenilia would have been extensively addressed before. It has in the sense that there are an increasing number of articles, particularly in journals devoted to the education of children, on children's writing. Nevertheless, this writing occurs in structured situations, no matter how "free" and how "creative" the circumstances. In addition, researchers like Gareth Mathews and Robert Coles have documented responses by children to major philosophical, religious, social, and political questions. And it is true that of late there has been an increasing interest in earlier journals that published some juvenilia; for example, a collection of essays centered on St. Nicholas now being edited by Susan Gannon, Suzanne Rahn, and Ruth Anne Thompson. But a trip to the library demonstrates how little is readily available on the subject of juvenilia itself. The catalogue for the extensive collection of the University of Texas library system produced two books under the subject heading juvenilia: one is a collection of juvenilia by an obscure eighteenth-century writer which is in the rare book library; the other, edited by Neville Braybrooke, is a collection of some 100 items, mostly nonsense verse and parody, by English writers aged 16 and under. The library does not possess Jon Stallworthy's anthology of pieces by fifty-eight well-known poets from George Herbert to Seamus Heaney. Also disappointing are the 52 items in the MLA data base under "juvenilia." There one finds single essays on George Mackey Brown, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Alfred Jarry, D.G. Rossetti, and Tennyson; the remaining roughly 45 works cited are about evenly divided between Jane Austen's Lady Susan and her other juvenilia and Charlotte Bronte's Angria. One essay of interest not listed is A.O.J. Cockshutt's "Children's Diaries," not to mention other articles that address diaries and journals. Perhaps such works are not considered true juvenilia, although a standard dictionary definition runs: "writings, paintings, etc. done in childhood or youth" (Webster's). This issue of the Quarterly, then, should add significantly to the scholarship on the subject. Jan Susina and Daniel Shealy document the significance of Lewis Carroll's and Louisa May Alcott's juvenilia as a source for their adult writing. Marjorie Fleming will be familiar to some; Judith Plotz points out the ways in which, as the ideal creative child for the Romantics, she is an exemplar of importance. Greta little discusses the standards of the editors of St. Nicholas and Our Young Folks for their aspiring child writers, some of whom became famous. David Sadler's article about a generation of young American writers introduces us to some published, and arguably exploited, child writers who are now forgotten. A related piece by Miriam Bat-Ami concerns the oral literature of children and its implications. And in the two Carol Gay Award essays, we have some actual juvenilia. The contents of this issue raise some interesting questions about juvenilia which might well be explored by future writers on the subject. The questions fall into three categories: the authors, the contexts in which their work was written, and the actual and potential audience. First, what kind of children are most likely to produce juvenilia that survives? Cockshutt concludes that the best milieu for...