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Thackeray’in Çocukları: Gülme, Çocukluk ve Peri Masalının Büyü Bozumuna Uğratılışı

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 1, 135 - 150, 29.06.2021
https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.879700

Abstract

Bu çalışma Viktorya dönemi çocukluk anlayışı bağlamında on dokuzuncu yüzyıl ortalarında İngiliz gülmecesinin kullanım alanı / alanlarını, William Makepeace Thackeray’in pek az çalışılan peri masalı The Rose and The Ring (1854) örneğinde bulmayı amaçlar. Thackeray’in çocuklara olan yaklaşımının altındaki Viktoryan eğilimin kültürel yaşamdaki yerini tespit ederek ve bu yaklaşımının kendi çağının roman söylemi içerisindeki karşılığını bularak, bu çalışma Viktorya dönemi çocuğunun/çocukluğunun anlatısal bir araç oluşu ile aynı zamanda romansal anlatım stratejilerinin de bir geliştiricisi oluşu arasında bir bağlantı kuracaktır. Bu bağlantının ise doğal olarak, çocuğu yazınsal olanakların bir keşfedicisi olarak konumlandırararak peri masalı türünün peri-masallaştırılmasına karşı duran bir argümanın geliştirdiği fikri savunulacaktır. TRTR’da, çocuğun/çocukluğun gülme/ mizah odağı olarak kullanıldığı ve bu yolla peri masalının alışılagelmiş büyüselliğinin bilinçli şekilde yıkılmaya çalışıldığı ifade edilecektir. Çocuğun gülmesinin ya da çocuk tarafından başlatılan gülmenin Thackeray’in realist ajandasının bir yansıması olarak onu hem bir anlatısal araç olarak kullandığı ve hem de çocuğun gülmesinin Thackeray tarafından anlatının merkezine konulduğu ifade edilecektir. Bu bağlamda, Thackeray’in çocuklarının gülmesi hem yazarın romansal realizm yoluyla peri masalının büyüselliğini bozmasına yardım ettiği hem de romanın edebi büyüselliğe karşı olan pozisyon alışının sınırlarını belirlediği tezi sunulacaktır. Sonuç olarak, Thackeray’in çocuklarının bir yandan yazarın anlatısal stratejilerinin hizmetine sokulmasına rağmen; diğer yandan da anlatısal tavrın onları güçlendirdiği fikri savunulacaktır.

References

  • Andrews, Malcolm. Dickensian Laughter: Essays on Dickens and Humour. Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. Translated by Roger Crisp. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  • Beattie, James. Essays: On the nature and immutability of Truth, in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. Edinburgh
  • Calic, Marie-Janine. A History of Yugoslavia. Translated by Dona Geyer. Purdue University Press, 2019.
  • Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: An Introduction. Blackwell, 2005.
  • Forster, E.M. Aspects of The Novel. Edited by Oliver Stallybrass. Pelican Books, 1985.
  • Filmore, Parker. The Laughing Prince: A Book of Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1921.
  • Fleming, Patrick C. “The Rise of the Moral Tale: Children’s Literature, The Novel, and The Governess,” Eighteenth-Century
  • Gray, Donald J. “The Uses of Victorian Laughter.” Victorian Studies, vol. 10, no.2, 1966, pp.145-176.
  • Hunt, Peter. “Introduction: The expanding world of Children’s Literature Studies,” Understanding Children’s Literature,
  • Jones, Stephen Swann. The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination. Routledge, 2002.
  • Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge University Press,
  • Morreall, John. Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
  • Moretti, Franco. The Way of The World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. Verso, 1987.
  • Newton, Michael, editor. Victorian Fairy Tales, Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Nussbaum, Martha C. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge University
  • Praet, Stijn. “An Underdog in the Vanguard.” The Fairy-Tale Vanguard: Literary Self-Consciousness in a Marvelous Genre,
  • Propp, Vladimir. Theory and History of Folklore. Translated by Ariadna Y. Martin and Richard P. Martin. University of
  • Segel, Elizabeth Towne. “Truth and Authenticity in Thackeray.” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 2, no.1, 1972, pp. 46-
  • Sorensen, Gail D. “Thackeray’s The Rose and The Ring: A Novelist’s Fairy Tale.” Mythlore, vol. 15, no.3, 1989, pp. 37-43.
  • Tatar, Maria. “Introduction.” The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, Cambridge University Press,
  • Thackeray, W.M. The English Humourists of The Eighteenth Century and Charity and Humour, edited by Edgar F. Harden,
  • Wood, Naomi. “Angelic, Atavistic, Human: The Child of The Victorian Period.” The Child in British Literature: Literary
  • Construction of Childhood, Medieval and Contemporary, edited by Adrienne E. Gavin. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Thackeray’s Children: Laughter, Childhood, and Disenchanting The Fairy Tale

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 1, 135 - 150, 29.06.2021
https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.879700

Abstract

This paper aims at excavating the use(s) of mid-nineteenth century English laughter in relation to the conception of Victorian childhood in William Makepeace Thackeray’s rarely studied fairy-tale, The Rose and The Ring (1854). Defining the cultural coordinates of Thackeray’s Victorian sensibility towards children and locating the root of this sensibility in its contemporary novelistic discourse, this paper assumes a connection between the Victorian child as a narrative chess-piece and her/his involvement in the development of novelistic strategies. This connection, it is contended, naturally results in the ‘employment’ of the child as a narrative explorer of narrational possibilities in TRTR, which builds up an argument against the fairy- tailisation of fairy-tales. It is argued that the child herself/himself and ideas pertaining to childhood in TRTR function as sources and manufacturers of laughter/ humour which tarnishes the conventional magicality of a fairy-tale. In this context, not only does the child’s laughter relocate her/him as a narrative auxiliary in accordance with Thackeray’s realist mission, but also it centralises the child’s laughter and the child herself/himself as a narrative wanderer. In this context, it will be argued that Thackeray’s child’s encounter with laughter and her/his involvement in laughter-evoking instances further both the mission of novelistic realism contra fairy-tale magicality and emerge as directors of the narrative tone and course. In conclusion, it will be maintained that although Thackeray’s children are formally at service of the author’s inner strategies, the narrational attitude empowers them.

References

  • Andrews, Malcolm. Dickensian Laughter: Essays on Dickens and Humour. Oxford University Press, 2013.
  • Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. Translated by Roger Crisp. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  • Beattie, James. Essays: On the nature and immutability of Truth, in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism. Edinburgh
  • Calic, Marie-Janine. A History of Yugoslavia. Translated by Dona Geyer. Purdue University Press, 2019.
  • Eagleton, Terry. The English Novel: An Introduction. Blackwell, 2005.
  • Forster, E.M. Aspects of The Novel. Edited by Oliver Stallybrass. Pelican Books, 1985.
  • Filmore, Parker. The Laughing Prince: A Book of Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1921.
  • Fleming, Patrick C. “The Rise of the Moral Tale: Children’s Literature, The Novel, and The Governess,” Eighteenth-Century
  • Gray, Donald J. “The Uses of Victorian Laughter.” Victorian Studies, vol. 10, no.2, 1966, pp.145-176.
  • Hunt, Peter. “Introduction: The expanding world of Children’s Literature Studies,” Understanding Children’s Literature,
  • Jones, Stephen Swann. The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination. Routledge, 2002.
  • Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge University Press,
  • Morreall, John. Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
  • Moretti, Franco. The Way of The World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. Verso, 1987.
  • Newton, Michael, editor. Victorian Fairy Tales, Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Nussbaum, Martha C. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge University
  • Praet, Stijn. “An Underdog in the Vanguard.” The Fairy-Tale Vanguard: Literary Self-Consciousness in a Marvelous Genre,
  • Propp, Vladimir. Theory and History of Folklore. Translated by Ariadna Y. Martin and Richard P. Martin. University of
  • Segel, Elizabeth Towne. “Truth and Authenticity in Thackeray.” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 2, no.1, 1972, pp. 46-
  • Sorensen, Gail D. “Thackeray’s The Rose and The Ring: A Novelist’s Fairy Tale.” Mythlore, vol. 15, no.3, 1989, pp. 37-43.
  • Tatar, Maria. “Introduction.” The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, Cambridge University Press,
  • Thackeray, W.M. The English Humourists of The Eighteenth Century and Charity and Humour, edited by Edgar F. Harden,
  • Wood, Naomi. “Angelic, Atavistic, Human: The Child of The Victorian Period.” The Child in British Literature: Literary
  • Construction of Childhood, Medieval and Contemporary, edited by Adrienne E. Gavin. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
There are 24 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Literary Studies
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Selena Özbaş 0000-0002-7710-9296

Publication Date June 29, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Volume: 15 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Özbaş, S. (2021). Thackeray’s Children: Laughter, Childhood, and Disenchanting The Fairy Tale. Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 15(1), 135-150. https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.879700

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