I'm running into difficulties in my fourth wing. I think I need to create a sixth wing, and set it between the fourth and fifth wings, and then re-distribute several of my texts. The foyer would be an equilateral heptagon, one side of which is the entrance, and from the others, wings would branch off like a child's drawing of a sun.
The first three wings are author-centric, and the children are classified or mediated through the author's own system, social theories, or literary style. These texts often spring from the author's memory as a mode of self-expression, the agent-child being the most immediate (imbued with the author's own sometimes godlike agency), and the observed child the most distant and powerless.
1. The agent child wing, attended by Maisie, now contains three texts: Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art," Ovid's Metamporphoses, and Bruno Latour's Reassembling the Social. These are descriptions of children with voice and power, or theories that would allow for a textual child with agency in the text, as far as any figure in the text is allowed.
2. The remembered child wing, attended by Hartley Coleridge, remains unoccupied for now.
3. The diagnosed/observed child wing, unattended, is also unoccupied.
The last three wings are reader-centric, and the texts here are designed (or simply used) didactically for edification or education. The children, if present in the text, face constant judgment by the narrator or reader, and must walk a strait path to garner sympathy, especially in sentimental novels. The three wings follow a range of educational theories, and might be rearranged by the age of the intended audience.
4. The classroom wing is unattended, but the entrance has a height (shortness) requirement. To enter it, the reader must become a child: malleable and naive. These texts do not contain images of children, but present settings in which reader/children can learn a set of principles, and the ordering of the adult world. These texts include Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, and soon also possibly Olaudah Equiano. They are not necessarily intended for children, but can be staples of early reading because of the principles they propone. The educational theory is the older one - that all a child's occupations should prepare her/him for adult life. It is marked by a kind of human realism, but not historical truth. This is not Hogwarts.
5. The object child wing, attended by Jo the street sweeper, is full of pathos and pity for unfortunate children who either must lose their innocence, or already have. Readers don't necessarily identify with these children, but are certainly meant to sympathize, and adjust their own behavior accordingly. These texts include most Dickensian children, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, and The Souls of Black Folk. The intended reader is not a child, but the adult whose behavior could potentially affect children. These are the Hunger Games.
6. The empty child wing is unattended, but the door is Atreyu's mirror gate. In this wing, the reader of any age sees himself as the child or main character. The adult becomes a child, and the child is free to be silly or carefree or frightened. This is my favorite wing, because it's often full of play and bright imagery. This wing contains many fairytales, but not all. It's a place of sometimes heavy allegory where the emphasis is not on the mask the reader is wearing, but on the things he sees through it. It is also a place to learn ageless truths. This is Hogwarts, and Narnia, and Wonderland, and Fantasia. So far, this wing contains Wilde's fairytales, like "The Happy Prince."
This system of textual classification is purely preliminary, and invented off the top of my head. Like Hogwarts, my head's connecting stairways shift, and are intended to do so, to bring the texts into communication with each-other. A text can belong in more than one wing.
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