Publication details
"The Mouse of Feeling." A sentimental mouse in Dorothy Kilner´s The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse (1784)
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Hradec Králové Journal of Anglophone Studies |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://pdf.uhk.cz/hkjas/ |
| Field | Linguistics |
| Keywords | sentimentalism; Kilner; literature for children; animals in literature |
| Attached files | |
| Description | The paper discusses themes and topics present in one of the best-known works of children’s literature that appeared in the second half of the Eighteenth Century in Britain, and also one of the first which employs an animal narrator. In this episodic story, the mouse, Nimble, and his brothers travel through various households experiencing a series of misfortunes while interacting with child and adult inhabitants of the homes, overhearing their conversations, and making moral judgments on them. However, the novel cannot be viewed only as an instructional, didactic text for children; it also reflects the tendencies seen in the British literature of the period, especially the influences of sentimentalism and the popularity of picaresque novels, as well as the emerging interests in animal rights. |