The Lost Child in Literature and Culture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: The Figure of the Child

   • Mark Froud

   Pages 1-12

3. The Child in the Story

   • Mark Froud

   Pages 13-43

4. The Child Lost in History

   • Mark Froud

   Pages 45-67

5. The Child Lost in Our Time

   • Mark Froud

   Pages 69-112

6. The Uncanny Child, a Ghostly Return

   • Mark Froud

   Pages 113-139

7. The Hole in Language

   • Mark Froud

   Pages 141-186

8. Back Matter

   Pages 187-198

   PDF

This book is an extensive study of the figure of the lost child in English-speaking and European literature and culture. It argues that the lost child figure is of profound importance for our society, a symptom as well as a cause of deep trauma. This trauma, or void, is a fundamental disruption of the structures that define us: self, history, and even language.

This puts the figure of the child in context with previous research that the modern conception of ‘a child’ was formed alongside modern conceptions of memory. The book analyses the representation of the lost child, through fairy tales, historical oppression and in recent novels and films. The book then studies the connection of the lost child figure with the uncanny and its centrality to language. The book considers the lost child figure as an archetype on a metaphysical and philosophical level as well as cultural.

• Lost child in Literature
• Uncanny child
• modern concept of the child
• lost child in folk tales
• child in society

“The Lost Child in Literature and Culture is a well-researched book which takes its readers on a journey across disciplines, countries and eras in order to remind us of real-life abducted, victimised, murdered, stolen and lost children and to explore how those cases connect to the imaginary and symbolic. The study is as much about the lost child within us as it is about what the symbol tells us about the world we live in.” (Nataša Kampmark, Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia JEASA, Vol. 8 (2), 2017)

• Independent Scholar, Corsham, United Kingdom

  Mark Froud

Mark Froud is an Independent Scholar. His Doctorate was through University of the West of England, UK and his Masters of Research at Bath Spa University, UK. His publications include essays in two international collections The Tapestry of the Creative Word in Anglophone Literatures and Another life = Une autre vie.

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