the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Catherine Ann Turner Dorset : The Peacock ‘at Home’: A sequel to the Butterfly's Ball

‘...Other tales, in which beasts and birds compose the Dramatis Personae, are to be considered as burlesque satires, intended to make human actions and passions ridiculous, by ascribing them to the brute creation. Such are [Edmund] Spenser’s Mother Hubbard’s Tale [1591] (none of his best productions) - the old popular Tale of Reynard the Fox, (What has become of my Father’s copy of it?) and the once admired children’s books, The Peacock at Home, The Lion’s Masquerade, The Cat’s Gala, The Lobster’s Voyage to the Brazils etc. which, though sufficiently humorous and entertaining, are not, I suspect, very wholesome aliment for children, whose sense of the ridiculous is generally, quite strong enough of itself. ...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge      Print: Book

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