Narratives of Child Neglect in Romantic and Victorian Culture [Hardcover]

Contextualizing the topos of the neglected child within a variety of discourses, this book challenges the assumption that the early nineteenth century witnessed a clear transition from a Puritan to a liberating approach to children and demonstrates that oppressive assumptions survive in major texts considered part of the Romantic cult of childhood.Acknowledgements Introduction Concepts of Childhood and Adult Responsibility: Locke, Rousseau, More, and Edgeworth Redeeming or Silencing the Child's Voice: Blake and Wordsworth Child Neglect as Social Vice: Trollope, Tonna, and Working-Class Subjectivity The Split Image of the Neglected Child: Dickens Aged Children and the Inevitability of Being Neglected: Hardy Works Cited Index

'A thoughtful work on a subject that is as urgent now as it was more than a century ago. Benziman's new conceptualization of ambivalences in educational practices and of neglect of child rights yields unexpected and at times iconoclastic insights into much studied texts.' - Professor Leona Toker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

'Narratives of Child Neglect in Romantic and Victorian Culture is a major intervention in the history of childhood and its representations in nineteenth-century English literature. Benziman offers a fresh, compelling analysis of familiar concepts, skillfully demonstrating the persistence of older Puritan and regulative attitudes toward the literary child within texts by Blake, Wordsworth, Dickens, and others that have long been identified unambiguously with the emerging reformist and liberatory treatment of childhood during the Romantic and Victorian periods. Rigorously argued and closely attentive to historical and intellectual contexts, including social class, Benziman's study opens challenging new perspectives on the topos of the neglected child and the portrayal of child subjectivity in poetry and fiction.' - Professor John Jordan, Department of Literature, University of California,lƒ#