Advertisement

Children's Literature in Education

, Volume 47, Issue 1, pp 50–65 | Cite as

“No one queens it like himself”: Performing Unconventional Boyhood in Historical Shakespearean Fiction

  • M. Tyler Sasser
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Historical fiction has long been a staple in the social studies, history, and English curricula of primary and secondary education. Such commercial and critical successes might be linked to the genre’s unique ability to blend educational, didactic, historical, and aesthetic concerns in children’s literature, aspects that are heightened considerably when authors elect to appropriate Shakespeare in their historical fiction. While some critics suggest that the genre of Shakespeare-for-children advocates discourses of normative gender, identity, and behavior, this study maintains that the ongoing cultural capital of the Bard in the classroom and on the bookshelf permits authors the opportunity to consider unconventional expressions of gender. More specifically, this article argues that authors of late-twentieth century historical fiction about Shakespeare turn to the early modern tradition of boy players performing as women in order to embrace alternative gendered identities and models of maturation, particularly as they regard boys and boyhood.

Keywords

Shakespeare Historical fiction Time-slip novels Gender Boys/boyhood Adaptation 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Apol, Laura. (2000). Taming and Ordeals: Depictions of Female and Male Coming of Age in the West in Turn-of-Century Youth’s Companion Serials. The Lion and the Unicorn, 24(1), 61–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Blackwood, Gary. (2000). Shakespeare’s Scribe. New York: Puffin.Google Scholar
  3. Blackwood, Gary. (1998). The Shakespeare Stealer. New York: Puffin.Google Scholar
  4. Burt, Richard. (1998). Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares: Queer Theory & American Kiddie Culture. New York: St. Martin’s.Google Scholar
  5. Cheaney, J.B. (2000). The Playmaker. New York: Dell Yearling.Google Scholar
  6. Cheaney, J.B. (2002). The True Prince. New York: Dell Yearling.Google Scholar
  7. Chedgzoy, Kate. (2007). Shakespeare in the Company of Boys. In Kate Chedgzoy, Susanne Greenhalgh and Robert Shaughnessy (Eds.), Shakespeare and Childhood (pp. 184–200). New York: Cambridge UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Cooper, Susan. (1999). King of Shadows. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
  9. Crawford, Julie. (2005). The Homoerotics of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan Comedies. In Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Eds.), A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, The Comedies (pp. 137–158). Hoboken: Wiley.Google Scholar
  10. Edelman, Lee. (2011). Against Survival: Queerness in Time That’s Out of Joint. Shakespeare Quarterly, 62(2), 148–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Greenhalgh, Susanne. (2007). Introduction: Reinventing Shakespearean Childhoods. In Kate Chedgzoy, Susanne Greenhalgh and Robert Shaughnessy (Eds.), Shakespeare and Childhood (pp. 17–36). New York: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
  12. Harris, Jonathan Gil. (2010). Shakespeare and Literary Theory. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
  13. Hateley, Erica. (2009). Shakespeare in Children’s Literature: Gender and Cultural Capital. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  14. Kehler, Dorothea. (1998). A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A Bibliographic Survey of the Criticism. In Dorothea Kehler (Ed.), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (pp. 3–83). New York: Garland.Google Scholar
  15. Kidd, Keneth. (1998). Introduction: Lesbian/Gay Literature for Children and Young Adults. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 23(3), 114–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Misheff, Sue. (1998). Beneath the Web and Over the Stream: The Search for Safe Places in Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia. Children’s Literature in Education, 29(3), 131–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Nodelman, Perry. (1990). History as Fiction: The Story in Hendrik Willem van Loon’s Story of Mankind. The Lion and the Unicorn, 14(1), 70–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Pugh, Tison and Wallace, David L. (2006). Heteronormative Heroism and Queering the School Story in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 31(3), 260–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Ringrose, Christopher. (2007). A Journey Backwards: History Through Style in Children’s Fiction. Children’s Literature in Education, 38(3), 207–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Schwebel, Sara L. (2003). Historical Fiction and the Classroom: History and Myth in Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Children’s Literature in Education, 34(3), 195–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Sedgwick, Eve. (1985). Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. Columbia: Columbia UP.Google Scholar
  22. Stephens, John. (2002). ‘A Page Just Waiting to Be Written on’: Masculinity Schemata and the Dynamics of Subjective Agency in Junior Fiction. In John Stephens (Ed.), Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children’s Literature and Film (pp. 38–54). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  23. Stephens, John and McCallum, Robyn. (1998). Retelling Stories, Framing Culture: Traditional Story and Metanarratives in Children’s Literature. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
  24. Wannamaker, Annette. (2008). Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of EnglishUniversity of AlabamaTuscaloosaUSA

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options