ARTFUL ARTLESSNESS: AUTHORSHIP, APPROPRIATION, AND THE CREATIVE CHILD, 1858 ...

191 Pages·2012·1.13 MB·English

by  Katherine Carlson

ARTFUL ARTLESSNESS: AUTHORSHIP, APPROPRIATION,
AND THE CREATIVE CHILD, 1858-1920

Katherine L. Carlson

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Department English and Comparative Literature.

Chapel Hill
2011

Approved by:
Dr. Laurie Langbauer
Dr. Timothy Marr
Dr. Eliza Richards
Dr. Beverly Taylor
Dr. Jane Thrailkill
© 2011
Katherine L. Carlson
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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ABSTRACT
KATHERINE L. CARLSON: Artful Artlessness: Authorship, Appropriation,
and The Creative Child, 1858-1920
(Under the direction of Dr. Laurie Langbauer)

This project reassesses both extant definitions of authorship and Victorian
reconstructions of the Romantic child by analyzing the tradition of published British
children in the period 1858-1920. It suggests that current criticism largely overlooks the
phenomenon that made juvenile writers like Marjory Fleming and Daisy Ashford
household names because that phenomenon unsettles cherished twenty-first century
definitions of intellectual property. Attempting to extend the rights of authorship to the
misspelled and unrevised work of minor dependents forces the recognition that childhood
and authorship embody an uneasy relationship between autonomy and socialization.
Victorians, however, embraced child-authorship because it foregrounded this paradox,
which allowed them at once to celebrate childhood creativity and to appropriate it for
their own artistic ends.
Additionally, this project builds on Catherine Robson’s claim that Victorian
photography extended the bounds of adult-child collaboration already being explored in
writing. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s images of children reveal complex attempts to
afford sitters creative agency. In contrast, Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs
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repeatedly efface the agency of child-sitters, despite the fact that they have not inspired
the accusations of exploitation that are legion in Dodgson scholarship.
Rudyard Kipling and Frances Hodgson Burnett reflect similar questions of
childhood agency when they acknowledge that they “plagiarize” the identities of their
biological offspring by inserting them in fiction. Complicating the traditional book-as-
baby trope as well as the evolutionary theory of recapitulation, Kipling in particular cast
children as both outcomes of genetic reproduction and active creative originators, a
paradox reflecting the same mixed complicity and resistance to adult forms that
characterizes Daisy Ashford, Marjory Fleming and juvenile photographers Frances
Griffiths and Elsie Wright.
Griffiths and Wright – the infamous Cottingley Fairy photographers – created
illusions of empirical evidence to prove the existence of fairies to adults. Their widely
successful hoax challenged the infallibility of adult constructions of objectivity and
earned them subjectivities outside of totalized notions of childhood artlessness and fancy.
While it too was ultimately appropriated by adults, Griffiths and Wright’s work joined
that of Ashford and Fleming in subverting definitions of childhood which simultaneously
objectify children, harvest their creativity, and marginalize them from grown-up modes
of expression.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I don’t think I could have written this without such a nurturing director. Dr.
Laurie Langbauer’s benevolent and insightful leadership is an immeasurable boon to my
work as well as that of her other advisees – Anna Panszczyk, Hannah Bryant, Cheryl
Thayer, Sarah Ficke, Sarah Shaw, and Sarah Cantrell. Thanks to all of you for your
feedback in the sessions Dr. Langbauer organized.
I likewise owe a debt of gratitude to the other members of my committee: Dr.
Tim Marr, Dr. Eliza Richards, Dr. Jane Thrailkill, and Dr. Beverly Taylor. Thanks also
to those who wrote me letters of recommendation: Dr. Thrailkill, Dr. Taylor, Dr.
Langbauer, Dr. Elizabeth Chenault of the UNC Libraries, and Dr. Pamela Parker of
Whitworth University.
I could always count on Sarah Tolf for a raised eyebrow, a grin, and a “Well?” on
the day of a self-imposed dissertation deadline. Along with Sarah, colleagues including
Ashley Reed, Will Shaw, Sarah Shaw, and Kate Attkisson listened with bottomless
patience and goodwill to my moments of writer’s angst. Actually, that particular note of
thanks goes for everyone in these pages. I do not go gently into a good night of
scheduled writing, but having them to talk to made it so much easier.
More than anyone else, Erin Bartels Buller helped me make sense of our
profession, and her comments improved countless drafts with the added benefit of often
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making me laugh. She deserves sole credit anytime I properly place a colon or semi-
colon outside of a quotation mark.
Marc Cohen boosted my confidence and lifted my spirits, week after week. Does
he realize how many people’s days he improves just by being around?
Many other fellow graduate students provided support and friendship – so many
that I must end this list having barely begun. I hope you know who you are. Thank you.
Karen Neiswender, Kyle Brown and Mike and Courtney Przybowski frequently
provided me an escape from academia and from incarceration in my own head. Thanks
especially for listening to my broken records and for keeping me laughing for days after
spending time together. Thanks also to many other friends, too numerous to name here,
but all great blessings on this journey. They especially include Rebekah Carlson, April
Szuch, Tara Schmidt, Marie Moeller, and Kimberly Burton.
While it may be rather silly to formally thank a pet, Derby the house rabbit
provided just the right amount of diversion and company to keep me going. There are
two words of advice I would give to a graduate student. The first is to determine and
respect the boundaries of your emotional and mental health. The other is to find a furry
friend.
When it comes to family – both biological and selected – I possess an
embarrassment of riches. Thanks especially to the Annises, Olivers, and Nystroms for
your love and support. My aunts and uncles David and Barbara Broberg and Carlos and
Lisa Quintana always take an interest in what I am up to, arcane though it may be, and
my grandparents, John and Dolores Broberg and Charles and Barbara Carlson, were
simply the best a kid could have. We miss you every day, Grandpa C. My sister
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Elizabeth Carlson is a better writer than I am, and provides shining proof that there are in
fact some interesting career options for English majors outside of academia.
Finally, thank you to my parents for encouraging even my oddest interests, never
doubting me, and for honoring the autonomy of both their children. You gave me all the
best elements of a Romantic childhood, and you are, in the best sense, my muses. This is
for you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………...…..…x

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….....11

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...29

Chapter

I. “SOME SORT OF MASTERPIECE”: MARJORY
FLEMING, DAISY ASHFORD, AND THE CHALLENGE
OF INTERPRETING CHILD-AUTHORS……………………………...……31

Marginal Marjory: How a Child-Author Stumps the Critics….......….……...25
Daisy Ashford: Accidental Genius or Littlest Satirist?....................................55
Works Cited………………………………………………………………...…78
II. BLURRED EXPOSURE: SUBJECTIVITY AND THE
AGENCY OF THE CHILD-SITTER IN PHOTOGRAPHS
BY CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON AND JULIA
MARGARET CAMERON……..………………………………….…….……82

Works Cited………………………………………………………….........…108

III. “PLAGIARIZED FROM LIFE”: LITTLE LORD
FAUNTLEROY, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY,
AND FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT’S LITERARY
APPROPRIATION OF HER CHILD………………………………....…….110

Works Cited……………………………………………………………….…133

IV. “THE DAUGHTER THAT WAS ALL TO HIM”:
RECAPITULATION AND THE LEGACY OF
THE CHILD IN KIPLING’S JUST SO STORIES………………………..…135

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Works Cited………………………………………………………………….161

V. “FED UP WITH THE FAIRIES”: EMPIRICISM AND
THE ROMANTIC CHILD IN THE PHOTOGRAPHY
OF FRANCES GRIFFITHS AND ELSIE WRIGHT…………………….…164

Works Cited………………………………………………………………….190

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure
1. The Whisper of the Muse, by Julia Margaret Cameron……………….....……83
2. Little Red Riding-Hood, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson……………...……...85
3. The Beggar-Maid, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson…………………...……....86
4. Photograph of Evelyn Hatch, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson…….......……...87
5. On Duty, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson…...………………………………...90
6. The Turtle Doves, by Julia Margaret Cameron……….……...……………….93
7. Photograph of Alice Liddell at 18, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson…...……...96
8. Pomona, by Julia Margaret Cameron………………………………...……....97
9. Alethea, by Julia Margaret Cameron………………...……………………….98
10. Paul and Virginia, by Julia Margaret Cameron………...………………….105
11. The First Cottingley Fairy Photograph, by Frances
Griffiths and Elsie Wright………………………………………………170

12. Illustration from Princess Mary’s Gift Book………..……………………..181

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