ESC: English Studies in Canada

Abstract:

Few critics or scholars have considered juvenilia as a genre. When they have given any thought to the juvenile writings of such major authors as Jane Austen or the Broutës, it has generally been in terms of mere apprentice work. The apprenticeship model can be replaced, however, with a play model that both prevents the critic from imposing the teleological framework of apprenticeship on juvenilia and allows him/her to approach them on their own terms. These early writings can, thus, be read and studied with the pleasure and seriousness that they deserve.