Recasting the Past: The Middle Ages in Young Adult Literature (review)

In a recent discussion on the Child Lit list-serve Monica Edinger raised an interesting question about the purpose and role of historical fiction in education. In today's interdisciplinary pedagogical world, no one disputes the benefits of historical fiction in both history and literature courses. Edinger's question was a much simpler, technical one: how are we supposed to know if the works of historical fiction we use are accurate? And if not, what misconceptions are being solidly lodged in our students' minds forever? Rebecca Barnhouse's Recasting the Past: The Middle Ages in Young Adult Literature provides detailed answers to these questions as they relate to that specific period. Each chapter discusses a different topic or recurring theme in young adult historical fiction that features the Middle Ages as its context. In 101 pages directed specifically to high-school and college level teachers of literature, Barnhouse covers everything from portrayals of books, literacy, and religious diversity, to the retelling of famous tales and fictionalized portrayals of historical figures. She provides a detailed discussion of the difference between medieval historical fiction and fantasy novels with a medieval flavor. She even throws in an appendix full of classroom activities and questions for discussion that are sure to heighten students' interest in the period.

Barnhouse's guiding principle is historical accuracy. Like a literary William of Baskerville, she patiently plows through some twenty books, reporting even the minutest historical fallacy. In some ways, Recasting the Past can be seen as a godsend because it answers all the technical questions we face when including historical fiction in our reading lists. We may now safely know which book truly benefits our students' understanding of history and which forever pollutes their minds with historical misconceptions. However, there is an underlying current of thought that could be disturbing to a romantically inclined educator. Barnhouse takes a rationalist, scientific approach reminiscent of the Augustans and the didactic Rationalists of the nineteenth century. This approach might undermine Barnhouse's good, purist intentions.

Barnhouse's main point of contention is unrealistic characterization that exhibits an author's "modern attitudes about such topics as literacy and tolerance for diversity" (ix). In the best historical fiction, she explains, "characters act and react in ways that are fitting their own time and place, not for modern America" (x). What can be more ridiculous, Barnhouse asks, than a young medieval girl interested in books and reading? Alyce, of Karen Cushman's The Midwife's Apprentice, for example, "values books and reading more than a girl in her situation probably would have" (7). In other words, according to Barnhouse, no medieval girl could nor would pursue literacy because it was not generally done. She explains that the few women who were literate, like Christine de Pisan, "are exceptions, and the general lot of medieval women differed enormously from theirs" (32). This is true, but does it mean that there could not have been more anonymous women who were as passionate about reading and writing as these famous freaks of history? Could one only write about Heloise, for example, if one wanted to provide young women today with a positive medieval role model because she is "real" and Alyce isn't? Barnhouse repeats this Gradgrindian attitude in every discussion, outlawing characters whose speech or actions are historically inaccurate and condemning their creators as anti-historical, didactic moralists, even if their only sin is the promotion of such worthy causes as feminism, literacy, or tolerance.

In chapter two, which is concerned with treatments of religion in the Middle Ages, Barnhouse contrasts Karen Cushman's "Fidelity to the Infidel" in Catherine, Called Birdy with Frances Temple's "unintentional" yet "straightforwardly didactic" portrayal of religious diversity in The Ramsay Scallop (12). Temple fails to meet Barnhouse's standards because she exhibits a level of patience, tolerance and respect toward non-Christians that is unrealistic. A real-life Elenor would never be as "culturally sensitive" as to try to form her inquiries...