Abstract

This study analyzed a sample of recommended children's Revolutionary War novels. The analysis of content found that most books contain a selective interpretation of the Revolution that ignores the complex debate among historians about the subject. Virtually all novels, for example, fail to discuss the dilemma faced by black Ameri- cans during the Revolution. An analysis of the narrative structure of the novels revealed the interdependence between that structure and novel content. Thus, changes in the conception of the Revolution as a historical event were invariably accompanied by changes in novel structure. Despite thjese changes, the overwhelming majority of novels are structured as a rite of passage in which the protagonists are transformed from weak, de- pendent adolescents to stronger, more independent adults. These changes in novel content and structure are discussed in relation to the socioeconomic and historical milieu in the society in which they were produced. One characteristic of the dominant approach to literary study and analysis has been to consider literature in terms of its capacity to generate emo- tional and intellectual responses in its readers. While this approach is cer- tainly important, Kelly (1974) has argued that defining literature solely in terms of its inherent power to compel responses has the effect of reducing the need to examine the complex forces that might otherwise be assumed to shape both the creation and effect of literature. An additional conse- quence of supposing that literary works are independent or autonomous of social and historical forces and processes is, according to Kelly, the belief that the study of literature could be conducted free from political and ideological influences thus permitting the claim that aesthetic judge- ments are largely independent of the critic's cultural context (p. 144). Believing that insufficient consideration of the socioeconomic and his- torical forces discussed by Kelly has limited our understanding of the complexities of literary creation for children, the present researcher ex- amined the evolution of the content and narrative structure of a sample of thirty-two recommended children's novels written about the American Revolution and published between 1899 and 1976. The analysis of con- tent reconstructed the historical conception, or interpretation, of the Rev- olution contained in the novels in order to understand how authors explain the Revolution as an historical event. The analysis of narrative