Re-discovering Brit. Lit.

I like British Literature. I forgot how much I like Brit lit.


Victorian Children's Lit
Just last week, I was re-reading Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market." It's very rich, filled with a lot of detail and complexity, yet it's written for children and is very simple and easy to read. It's a bit of a mysterious-creepy read - hard to describe. Just read it, and you'll know what I mean: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16950.

I love to read Victorian Children's Lit. It's much more complex than today's literature, and has quite a bit more substance. Victorian's saw children as small versions of adults - they didn't simplify stories to the point of boredom nor did they censor violence from children's books. Take for example, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Mowgli kills Shere Khan, and other animals are just as fiersome, if not more.

The richness and complexity in children's books make the stories long-lasting. Take for example Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll, The Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum, or Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. All of these books are still read today, and all that I've listed here have been adapted to movies and plays. They were all written for children, yet adults today are most often the main readers.


Victorian Goth
And if you're not into reading Victorian Children's lit, try reading Victorian goth - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for instance, Bram Stoker's Dracula, or Edgar Allen Poe. Thes types of books always focus on the psyche, and/or the spectre. There is a presence of barbarism, either in action or behaviour. Settings are dark and gloomy, and on most occasions archaic. The horror presented in these books are not necessarily of blood and violence, but also of the characters' horrific lack of conscience and morality. People lose their minds, right wrongs with wrongs, make bad judgements, and do things that sometimes we wish we could do.


I haven't done a lot of reading recently, but I always like to go back to my Victorian collection once in a while...