Foxing the child: The cultural transmission of pedagogical norms and values in Dutch rewritings of literary classics for children 1850-1950

This article examines the reciprocity between children's literature and educational ideals in Dutch rewritings of international literary classics published for children between 1850 and 1950. It analyses the assumed pedagogical power of rewritings of international literary classics for children from the perspective of three theoretical concepts: (1) cultural transmission as a strategy of educational ambition in its capacity to serve social initiation, (2) adaptation as a transformation strategy to adjust an artefact to a specific audience, and (3) gate keepership as the determining factor in the communication situation of literature for children. Comparing original masterpieces that were originally not, or not specifically, meant for children with their derivatives sheds light on the strategies that were used to mould narratives into pedagogical examples. It shows how protagonists were educated along the lines of the ever-changing pedagogical discourse brought about by historically variable concepts of childhood and displays the transition of the educational value of subjection to external mastery to the ideal of self-mastery of the child. Moreover, it shows how rewritings not only functioned as agents in the transmission of literary artefacts, but by means of that, also provided for the transmission of culture.