LibriVox Forum

Can we avoid using the term juvenalia as a genre? This is derogatory. It is used by English literature departments to dismiss anything that doesn't fit "proper" fiction. Gamebooks, kids' books, pulp fiction, TV tie ins, are all dismissed by the English literature cognoscenti as juvenalia.

Just a hate of mine.

We don't have it as a genre.

We've got Children's Fiction / Nonfiction for works written for children.

THat is good; just thought that I saw it somewhere. Thank you.

You might have seen it on one of the sites that use our recordings - we have no control over any of them, and they have no control over us.

Anne

lightcrystal wrote: ↑November 5th, 2021, 9:59 am Can we avoid using the term juvenalia as a genre? This is derogatory. It is used by English literature departments to dismiss anything that doesn't fit "proper" fiction. Gamebooks, kids' books, pulp fiction, TV tie ins, are all dismissed by the English literature cognoscenti as juvenalia.

Just a hate of mine.

I understand your position, but the term is sometimes/often used simply for literature designed for the young (with no judgment made.)

Myself, I use the term to identify an author's earliest work which was not published (or published at the local level as in a high school publication.) My juvenalia should be burned. It's awful stuff. Maybe this is the year I throw it into the fireplace.

Maybe it was in reference to Lesley Castle ? Which was part of Jane Austen's teenage writings which were bundled together (by her or by her nephew ?) Under the title Juvenalia. So it was a title, not a judgement.

Anne