to see with children's eyes
Very fascinating observation, lmp and a wonderful example of how to use the Letters and other of Tolkien's writing for fruitful consideration which extends our understand of him.
As with Estelyn, I also have not read the Sylvie and Bruno stories, but will immediately add them to my list of definite reads over the holidays, so I have nothing substantive to add at this time to your hypothetical.
I would, however, caution against too thoroughly applying the name of children's literature to either Carroll's work or TH, although there are valid points which can be made under that rubric. I remember a very erudite Tolkien fan on another site once engaging in the activity of crossing out all the "children's lines' in TH to discover a more serious vein running through the story.
Also, the Victorians did not, as we do, have a hard and fast division between them and some Victorian (and Edwardian) writing for children likely strikes us these days as shocking--Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market being one example. Another is Beatrice Potter's tales, which incorporate logic puzzles and conundrums for adults--or so I've been told by a colleague who teaches children's literature. And then there is J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
Perhaps only under the relentless pressure of a culture and literature which prioritised logic and rationality and empiricism would writers turn to find the value of fantasy and fairie in children's psyches.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away.
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