Alice e Peter (e gli altri). Il doppio ruolo degli spazi fantastici nella letteratura per l’infanzia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13129/2281-8138/2026.0.135-151Keywords:
Fantastic spaces, Children’s literature, Self-determination, Imaginary, ModernityAbstract
This study explores how the fantastical worlds created by authors such as Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barrie function as both realms of escapism and tools for cultural and social control. Using a mediological and sociological framework, the analysis interprets the adventures of characters like Alice and Peter Pan as metaphors for the tension between individual self-determination and societal expectations. The research delves into how these narratives mirror the complexities of modernity, reflecting broader cultural and social transformations during the 19th and 20th centuries. Initially aimed at young readers, these stories reveal deeper symbolic meanings that transcend their genre, offering multiple layers of interpretation. The study also highlights how the influence of these works extends into cross-media adaptations, continuing to shape modern cultural representations and thought.
References
Abruzzese A. (1979), La Grande Scimmia. Mostri, vampiri, automi, mutanti. L’immaginario collettivo dalla letteratura al cinema e all’informazione, Roma, Napoleone.
Abruzzese A. (2001), L’intelligenza del mondo. Fondamenti di storia e teoria dell’immaginario, Roma, Meltemi.
Amendola A., Tirino M. (a cura di) (2021), 10 keywords. La matrice narrativa e la digital society. Saggi di mediologia della letteratura, Scafati (SA), Francesco D’Amato.
Barrie J. M. (1904), Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, London, Hodder e Stoughton, trad. it. Peter Pan. Il bambino che non voleva crescere, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1992.
Barrie J. M. (1906), Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, London, Hodder e Stoughton, trad. it. Peter Pan, Milano, Rizzoli, 2015.
Barrie J. M. (1911), Peter and Wendy, London, Hodder e Stoughton, trad. it. Peter Pan, Milano, Rizzoli, 2015.
Brooker, W. (2004). Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture. New York: Continuum.
Camporesi P. (1983), La carne impassibile: salvezza e salute tra Medioevo e Controriforma, Milano, Il Saggiatore.
Camporesi P. (1987), La casa dell’eternità, Milano, Garzanti.
Carroll L. (1865), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, London, Macmillan, trad. it. Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie. Edizione annotata a cura di Martin Gardner, Milano, Rizzoli, 2015.
Carroll L. (1871), Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, London, Macmillan, trad. it. Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie. Edizione annotata a cura di Martin Gardner, Milano, Rizzoli, 2015.
Castells M. (1996), The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture: Vol. 1 - The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Ltd., trad. it. La nascita della società in rete, Milano, Università Bocconi, 2002.
Cataluccio F. (1992), Il dramma dell’immaturità. Introduzione a Peter Pan, in Barrie J. M., Peter Pan. Il bambino che non voleva crescere, Milano, Feltrinelli.
Ceccherelli A. (2007), Oltre la morte. Per una mediologia del videogioco, Napoli, Liguori.
Ceccherelli A., Ilardi E. (2021), Figure del controllo. Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes e Dracula nell’immaginario transmediale del XXI secolo, Milano, Meltemi.
Codeluppi V. (a cura di) (2013), Mostri. Dracula, King Kong, Alien, Twilight e altre figure dell’immaginario, Milano, Franco Angeli.
Cohen M. N. (1996), Lewis Carroll: A Biography, New York (NY), Vintage Books.
Cometa M. (2016), Archeologie del dispositivo. Regimi scopici della letteratura, Palermo, Pellegrini.
Cometa M. (2017), Perché le storie aiutano a vivere. La letteratura necessaria, Milano, Raffaello Cortina Editore.
Croce B. (1914), La letteratura della nuova Italia (vol. V), Bari, Laterza.
Darton F. J. H. (1932), Children’s Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life, Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press.
Debray R. (2000), Introduction à la médiologie, Paris, PUF, trad. it. Introduzione alla mediologia, Milano, Meltemi, 2024.
Freud S. (1930), Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, Wien, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, trad. it. Il disagio della civiltà. In Opere, vol. 10, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1978.
Gardner M. (1960), The Annotaded Alice. London e New York: Norton e co., trad. it. Introduzione a The Annotated Alice. In L. Carroll, Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie, Milano, Rizzoli, 2015.
Gauchet M. (1985), Le Désenchantement du monde. Une histoire politique de la religion, Paris, Gallimard, trad. it. Il disincanto del mondo. Una storia politica della religione, Torino, Einaudi, 1992.
Gehlen A. (1957), Die Seele im technischen Zeitalter. Sozialpsychologische Probleme in der industriellen, Hamburg, Rowohlts Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, trad. it. L’uomo nell’era della tecnica. Problemi socio-psicologici della civiltà industriale, Roma, Armando Editore, 2003.
Grassi V. (2012), Mitodologie. Analisi qualitativa e sociologica dell’immaginario, Napoli, Liguori.
Gray M., Horton I. (2022), “Ways of Seeing Comics: Art-Historical Approaches to the Form”, in Gray M., Horton I. (eds.), Seeing Comics through Art History. Alternative Approaches to the Form, London, Palgrave Macmillan Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93507-8_1.
Jesi F. (1981), Letteratura e mito, Torino, Einaudi.
Kavey A. B., Friedman L. D. (eds) (2009), Second Star to the Right. Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination, New Brunswick (NJ), Rutgers University Press.
Kérchy A. (2016), Alice in Transmedia Wonderland: Curiouser and Curiouser New Forms of a Children’s Classic. Jefferson: McFarland.
Kidd B. K. (2011), Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature, Minneapolis (MN), University of Minnesota Press.
Kim J. (2014), Tea Parties, Fairy Dust, and Cultural Memory: The Maintenance and Development of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan Over Time [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1404780148.
Littlefield H. (1964), “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism”, American Quarterly, vol. 16, n. 1: 47-58.
Logan J. (2013), Peter and Alice, London, Oberon Books.
Marzo P. L., Mori L. (2019), Le vie sociali dell’immaginario. Per una sociologia del profondo, Milano, Mimesis.
McLuhan M. (1964), Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man, New York, Macmillan, trad. it. Gli strumenti del comunicare, Milano, il Saggiatore, 2002.
Meyers E. M., McKnight J. P., Krabbenhoft L. M. (2014), “Remediating Tinker Bell: Exploring Childhood and Commodification through a Century-Long Transmedia Narrative”, Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, 6(1): 95-118. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jeu.2014.0001.
Miller J.-A. (ed.) (2003), De Jacques Lacan à Lewis Carroll, Ornicar?, n. 50.
Moretti F. (1999), Il romanzo di formazione, Torino, Einaudi.
Moretti F. (2013), Distant reading, London, Verso.
Morin E. (1956), Le Cinéma ou l’homme imaginaire, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, trad. it. Il cinema o l’uomo immaginario. Saggio di antropologia sociologica, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2016.
Ong W. J. (1982), Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word, London, Methuen e co., trad. it. Oralità e scrittura. Le tecnologie della parola, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1986.
Ortoleva P. (2019), Miti a bassa intensità. Racconti, media, vita quotidiana, Torino, Einaudi.
Palumbo F. D. (2018), Alice allo specchio. Deleuze, Carroll e la psicoanalisi, Napoli, Orthotes.
Ragone G. (2015), “Radici delle sociologie dell’immaginario”, Mediascapes, 4: 63-75.
Ragone G. (2019), Per la mediologia della letteratura. Dieci saggi, Canterano (RM), Aracne.
Ragone G., Tarzia F. (a cura di) (2023), Storia e teoria della serialità. Vol. I - Dal canto omerico al cinema degli anni Trenta, Meltemi, Milano.
Roda V. (a cura di) (2021), Il tema del doppio nella letteratura moderna, Bologna, Bononia University Press.
Rose J. (1984), The Case of Peter Pan or The Impossibility of Children’s Fiction, London, Palgrave Macmillan.
Roth C. (2009), “Looking through the Spyglass: Lewis Carroll, James Barrie, and the Empire of Childhood”, in Hollingsworth C., Alice Beyond Wonderland: Essays for the Twenty-first Century. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Susina J. (2010), The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature, New York and London, Routledge.
Tarzia F., Ilardi E. (2015), Spazi (s)confinati. Puritanesimo e frontiera nell’immaginario americano, Roma, Manifestolibri.
Touraine A. (1992), Critique de la modernité, Paris, Fayard, trad. it. Critica della modernità, Milano, Net, 2005.
Virilio P. (1998), La bombe informatique, Paris, Editions Galilée, trad. it. La bomba informatica, Milano, Raffello Cortina Editore, 2000.
Witen M., Morgenstern J. D. (eds.) (2024), Modernism in Wonderland: Legacies of Lewis Carroll, New York (NY), Bloomsbury Academic.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
