How exactly should Carroll be treated in a critical sense? Alice

Shut up like a telescope

>>8694341
> Alice in Wonderland is children's lit

No, not anymore.

>>8694391
I think it was always too dismissive tol abel it children's literature. Maybe lit that could be read by a child, but Alice is thoroughly enjoyable as an adult in a way other chidlit isn't

>>8694341
Victorian and Edwardian children's lit classics are completely equal to the "adult" books of the day, and they were all aimed at a dual audience of adults and young readers. There are lots of narrator jokes and references intended for the adult reader, and the structure and themes of something like Wind in the Willows or Alice or Peter Pan are excellent and well-developed. Heck, many of the "children's classics" weren't written for kids at all, but somehow got co-opted because they had fantastical elements (Gulliver's Travels).

>>8694341
>children's lit
>children's film
>children's this or that

I hate this distinction and I wish it would have never come about. Alice in Wonderland, the Hobbit, Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, and the works of W.S. Gilbert are all meant to be family works that everyone could enjoy for different reasons. The 20th century has seen the flowering and then death of family entertainment and today we don't even have families consuming media together anymore because there's a television in every room.

Alice in Wonderland is important because it's a Victorian satire (most victorian authors we read today are ones that loved to satire themselves) specifically about logic and reason being taken to ridiculous practices. Carroll was doing on the page what Gilbert and Sullivan were doing on the stage.