Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children's Literature
Kenneth B. Kidd
Abstract
Children’s literature has spent decades on the psychiatrist’s couch, submitting to psychoanalysis by scores of scholars and popular writers alike. This book turns the tables, suggesting that psychoanalysts owe a significant and largely unacknowledged debt to books ostensibly written for children. In fact, the text argues, children’s literature and psychoanalysis have influenced and interacted with each other since Freud published his first case studies. This book shows how psychoanalysis developed in part through its engagement with children’s literature, which it used to articulate and dramat ... More
Children’s literature has spent decades on the psychiatrist’s couch, submitting to psychoanalysis by scores of scholars and popular writers alike. This book turns the tables, suggesting that psychoanalysts owe a significant and largely unacknowledged debt to books ostensibly written for children. In fact, the text argues, children’s literature and psychoanalysis have influenced and interacted with each other since Freud published his first case studies. This book shows how psychoanalysis developed in part through its engagement with children’s literature, which it used to articulate and dramatize its themes and methods, turning first to folklore and fairy tales, then to materials from psychoanalysis of children, and thence to children’s literary texts, especially such classic fantasies as Peter Pan and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It traces how children’s literature, and critical response to it, aided the popularization of psychoanalytic theory. With increasing acceptance of psychoanalysis came two new genres of children’s literature—known today as picture books and young adult novels—that were frequently fashioned as psychological in their forms and functions.
Keywords:
children’s literature,
psychoanalysis,
Freud,
folklore,
fairy tales,
Peter Pan,
Alice,
psychoanalytical theory,
picture books,
young adult novels
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2011 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780816675821 |
| Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: August 2015 |
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816675821.001.0001 |
