A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood
This article opens up a transnational and transhistorical dialogue between the two North American women authors Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood regarding their shared passion for literary nonsense. I argue that reading Richards’s and Atwood’s nonsense alongside each other highlights the contin...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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European Association for American Studies
2024-12-01
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22774 |
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| author | Michaela Keck |
| author_facet | Michaela Keck |
| author_sort | Michaela Keck |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article opens up a transnational and transhistorical dialogue between the two North American women authors Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood regarding their shared passion for literary nonsense. I argue that reading Richards’s and Atwood’s nonsense alongside each other highlights the continuity of nonsense’s characteristic duality of subversion and dominance as well as the ongoing social and sexual violence that surrounds their young female protagonists, whose (sexual) agency challenges constructions of “childhood innocence.” Yet where Richards purportedly relates her children’s poetry to the domestic sphere as the proper site to express nonsense and wields it as a creative educational practice, Atwood’s fiction self-reflectively insists that nonsense constitutes a powerful political instrument and weapon in and beyond the nursery. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-27ac501fde7f45139604d138a82c161e |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1991-9336 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | European Association for American Studies |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Journal of American Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-27ac501fde7f45139604d138a82c161e2025-01-06T09:11:17ZengEuropean Association for American StudiesEuropean Journal of American Studies1991-93362024-12-0119410.4000/12warA Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret AtwoodMichaela KeckThis article opens up a transnational and transhistorical dialogue between the two North American women authors Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood regarding their shared passion for literary nonsense. I argue that reading Richards’s and Atwood’s nonsense alongside each other highlights the continuity of nonsense’s characteristic duality of subversion and dominance as well as the ongoing social and sexual violence that surrounds their young female protagonists, whose (sexual) agency challenges constructions of “childhood innocence.” Yet where Richards purportedly relates her children’s poetry to the domestic sphere as the proper site to express nonsense and wields it as a creative educational practice, Atwood’s fiction self-reflectively insists that nonsense constitutes a powerful political instrument and weapon in and beyond the nursery.https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22774gendergenrepowereducationnonsensechildhood |
| spellingShingle | Michaela Keck A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood European Journal of American Studies gender genre power education nonsense childhood |
| title | A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood |
| title_full | A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood |
| title_fullStr | A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood |
| title_short | A Shared Passion for Nonsense: Laura E. Richards and Margaret Atwood |
| title_sort | shared passion for nonsense laura e richards and margaret atwood |
| topic | gender genre power education nonsense childhood |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22774 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT michaelakeck asharedpassionfornonsenselauraerichardsandmargaretatwood AT michaelakeck sharedpassionfornonsenselauraerichardsandmargaretatwood |