Pastoralism And Idealized Childhood: The Wind In The Willows And Victorian Nostalgia

As a classic children’s book, ever since its publication, The Wind in the Willows has been favored by both children and adults. It is one of the books that appeared during the Golden Age of Children’s literature from the 1860 s to the Edwardian era. In the book, Kenneth Grahame delineates a pastoral world with the four friendly animals. In contrast to its popularity among readers, the western academic circle’s interest in this novel came as late as the 1970 s, and in China, it has not caught much attention even today.Through a close reading, and against the Victorian cultural background and major intellectual trends, the author analyzes the topic of nostalgia in The Wind in the Willows from two aspects—returning to the pastoral past and constructing an idealized childhood. In this thesis, the author examines how Grahame constructs an imagined perfect past. The main body of the thesis is composed of three chapters. In Chapter One, the author studies how Grahame builds the pastoral world by applying the features in the tradition of pastoral literature to the delineation of the natural scenery and the life of the four main characters. Then, the author analyzes how Grahame depicts these animal-like and childlike characters and the world of childhood, after which the author explores how the motifs of home and return-home are presented in this childhood. In Chapter Two, by following the etymological definition of nostalgia—returning home, which in this work is presented as returning to a home in pastoral world, a spatial manifestation of nostalgia, and in childhood, a temporal manifestation of nostalgia, both of which are lost in the present, the author analyzes how these two aspects are revealed in the four main characters’ experience so as to prove that behind these two motifs lies a deeper psychological impetus—nostalgia. Chapter Three investigates the historical and cultural causes for the widespread nostalgia in Victorian literature. Finally, this thesis contends that this nostalgia is an emotional response to the unsettling times and an uncertain future. Facing rapid changes, the Victorians were more conservative than their precursors in the Romantic period; they built a psychological sanctuary in an imagined and idealized past as their way to escape the baffling realities in the Victorian times.As few studies have combined an investigation into the traces of idyllic literature and the dominant Victorian frame of mind with an analysis of the Victorian nostalgia in children’s literature, this thesis blazes a new path by setting Victorian children’s books against the pastoral tradition and broad cultural and historical background in Victorian times. It also proves the significance of children’s literature in Victorian literary history.