Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems
Food and eating are recurring themes throughout Laura Richards’s children’s poems. This essay examines how several of Richards’s poems bring together food and education, specifically in conjunction with excess, grotesquerie, and otherness. Reading foods as gesturing beyond themselves and as signifyi...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
European Association for American Studies
2024-12-01
|
| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22832 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1841558113524645888 |
|---|---|
| author | Antonia Purk |
| author_facet | Antonia Purk |
| author_sort | Antonia Purk |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Food and eating are recurring themes throughout Laura Richards’s children’s poems. This essay examines how several of Richards’s poems bring together food and education, specifically in conjunction with excess, grotesquerie, and otherness. Reading foods as gesturing beyond themselves and as signifying on social relations, I argue that excessive food consumption and the ingestion of “wrong” foods are tied to a warning of greed and over-indulgence and to discouraging ambitions to transgress social boundaries in terms of race and class. By discussing choice poems, I show how the excesses of food, physical violations of bodies, and nonsense allow the poems to issue racist and classist warnings without unleashing the possibility of violence into their white readership’s reality, when they dissolve the chaos of excess in and on the distanced body of the animal or the racial Other. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-5d69cda58fe64783909cb94dfdeac639 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1991-9336 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | European Association for American Studies |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Journal of American Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-5d69cda58fe64783909cb94dfdeac6392025-01-06T09:11:17ZengEuropean Association for American StudiesEuropean Journal of American Studies1991-93362024-12-0119410.4000/12watBetween the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s PoemsAntonia PurkFood and eating are recurring themes throughout Laura Richards’s children’s poems. This essay examines how several of Richards’s poems bring together food and education, specifically in conjunction with excess, grotesquerie, and otherness. Reading foods as gesturing beyond themselves and as signifying on social relations, I argue that excessive food consumption and the ingestion of “wrong” foods are tied to a warning of greed and over-indulgence and to discouraging ambitions to transgress social boundaries in terms of race and class. By discussing choice poems, I show how the excesses of food, physical violations of bodies, and nonsense allow the poems to issue racist and classist warnings without unleashing the possibility of violence into their white readership’s reality, when they dissolve the chaos of excess in and on the distanced body of the animal or the racial Other.https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22832nonsenseliterary food studiesmannersanimals in children’s literatureracial Other in children’s literature |
| spellingShingle | Antonia Purk Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems European Journal of American Studies nonsense literary food studies manners animals in children’s literature racial Other in children’s literature |
| title | Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems |
| title_full | Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems |
| title_fullStr | Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems |
| title_full_unstemmed | Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems |
| title_short | Between the Joys of Nonsense and the Excess of the Other: Foodways in Laura E. Richards’s Children’s Poems |
| title_sort | between the joys of nonsense and the excess of the other foodways in laura e richards s children s poems |
| topic | nonsense literary food studies manners animals in children’s literature racial Other in children’s literature |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/22832 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT antoniapurk betweenthejoysofnonsenseandtheexcessoftheotherfoodwaysinlauraerichardsschildrenspoems |