Oscar Wilde was described by W. B. Yeats as "a man of action, a born dramatist." Although people did not recognize him as a serious playwright until the 1890s, Wilde had managed to find other outlets for his theatrical passion, for example in writing fiction. In this paper, it is argued that Wilde incorporates metadrama into his 1888…

This article considers J.M. Barrie's satirical treatment of the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence in "Peter Pan," and how Barrie's work both honors and undercuts it. It will first analyze the Platonic notion of the doctrine of reminiscence in Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (1807). It will then…

Presents a personal tribute in memory of the work of eccentric writer and performer Spike Milligan. Celebrates and examines Spike's absurdist poetry and sketches for children in the context of both British nonsense traditions and the poetry of American writer Ogden Nash and Dr. Seuss. (SG)

Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is a complex, uninhibited, savage satire that concludes with the narrator's descent into madness--hardly a likely candidate for children's reading. In the nearly three hundred years since it was first published, however, "Gulliver's Travels" has become associated with children's literature, though it is…

Challenges the influence of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree": the way it is being viewed, used, misused, understood, and misunderstood by parents, teachers, librarians, and children. (HOD)