"The Mouse of Feeling." A sentimental mouse in Dorothy Kilner´s The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse (1784)

ČOUPKOVÁ, Eva. "The Mouse of Feeling." A sentimental mouse in Dorothy Kilner´s The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse (1784). Hradec Králové Journal of Anglophone Studies. 2014, 1/2014, No 2, p. 12-18. ISSN 2336-3347.

Basic information

• Original name: "The Mouse of Feeling." A sentimental mouse in Dorothy Kilner´s The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse (1784)
• Authors: ČOUPKOVÁ, Eva (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Hradec Králové Journal of Anglophone Studies, 2014, 2336-3347.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 60200 6.2 Languages and Literature
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14640/14:00077728
• Organization unit: Language Centre
• Keywords in English: sentimentalism; Kilner; literature for children; animals in literature

Abstract

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.