What Hercules has been doing in children’s literature since the 1970s

Here are the reflections I promised last week on some trends in how Hercules is used in children’s literature. I mentioned last week that the reflections were, then, in draft form. Turning the draft into a final version has taken longer than anticipated, one reason being that I initially made quite polemical comments that I’ve since put into a “spares” folder. I might do something with these comments further down the road...

Also, I’ve spent the past few days throwing myself into writing activities involving Hercules for autistic children. Reflecting on the trends in children’s literature is helping with these activities, so I find myself at a more advanced stage as I present my reflections than when I drafted them last week.

What is set out below is indebted to Lisa Maurice’s article published in late 2019 and also to the list Lisa shared with me of children’s books involving Hercules from 1970-2018 which provided the basis of the one I shared last week. Please see the last two postings for details! Where I include hyperlinks below, these are to relevant entries in the Our Mythical Childhood survey of works for children inspired by anything classical.

For a long time, Hercules could pose a problem. On the one hand, as the best-known of classical mythological figures, with a rich set of appropriations during the long “classical tradition,” Hercules was seen to epitomise Classics as forming part of the kind of knowledge that it was suitable to impart to children. Hercules, as the quintessential classical hero, could stand as “a mark of intellect and good education,” in Lisa Maurice’s words from her article of last year (2019: 81).

But – and here’s where the problem comes in – for all that Hercules was regarded as a suitable figure to learn about, and for all that he was considered to be one whose stories were seen to impart all sorts of virtues appropriate to a rounded education, there was also another side to Hercules. This side comprised the Hercules who perpetuated violence, including violence against those close to him, even his own children. One option – of absolving Hercules from blame in place of blaming others, such as the gods, notably Hera – only opens up a further set of moral issues such as around divine capriciousness.

For a long time, as Lisa explores in her article, what an author presenting Hercules for children would do was to omit, or to sanitise, certain aspects of the stories about Hercules. However, as Lisa shows, in the 1990s, the children for whom the books were written were potentially coming into contact with a different kind of Hercules: the Hercules of the Disney film and the TV series Legendary Journeys. These versions of Hercules were very much reflecting contemporary 1990s values but they had moved away from the elitism and focus on provision of knowledge and worthiness of Hercules in books for children.

Helped by a shake-up started by Disney and the Legendary Journeys, there is now a Hercules who has been adapted afresh over recent years as part of a new more inclusive approach to classical myth. Such is the Hercules who figures in various recent books for children. These books have not been concerned with imparting “correct” knowledge about classical myth.

While standard episodes that form part of ancient sources recur, a range of other characters, from classical myth and from other cultures sometimes wander into and out of this world. After centuries of standing as an epitome of where classics is, Hercules has got away from the discipline.

Heroism for all in a 2018 "Choose Your Own" Herculean adventure

These works include Hercules who has somehow entered the modern world, and where he is out of place. Here there is scope for the protagonists of particular novels to find themselves inhabiting the world of classical myth where, against a backdrop of creatures and heroes they work though their own identities and concerns and come of age. Such is the case in the “time travel” novel Helping Hercules by Francesca Simon, in Crib and the Labours of Hercules by Gerald Vinestock and in the Camp Hercules series by P.J. Hoover.

In Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore’s “Choose your Own” adventure involving Hercules from 2018 meanwhile, anyone can be a hero – and make choices and explore issues like friendship and empathy. This approach seems quite different from that taken in another “choose your own” book I wrote about here a couple of years back: by Anika Fajardo. In this book, the reader is tasked to make choices but if the choice is out of line with “the myth,” they end up defeated or killed.

But there is still space for learning about the classical world from books about Hercules. For example John Bankson’s book on Hercules from the series A Kid’s Guide to Mythology  uses Hercules as a vehicle for introducing aspects of the classical world which explore how, today, people engage with antiquity – including via a discussion of what we know, how we know it and the possible of more than one version.

As Tikva Schein writes in her analysis of the book for the survey entry on this book, Bankson “begins with a recognition that many versions of Hercules prevail and this story presents just one...The story is no longer merely about overcoming demons but is set in a wider context of how we relate to our past and the ancient world.”

How Hercules is used in books for children has changed, then. This change has come at a time when how children’s literature has used and engaged with classics has been changing. Hercules has moved away from a figure worthy of study as an exemplar of a mythological figure who can transmit knowledge about, and values of, classical antiquity. Hercules has moved towards a vehicle to explore issues relevant to children’s lives.

Hercules can still be used a route into engaging with classical antiquity but via a move away from single, linear view of the classical past and who can “own” that past.

These two issues – knowing about the past, and exploring issues in children’s lives – are key to my project. One thing this exercise has done is to bear out what I’d hoped – namely that an overview of Hercules in books for children can complement the activities for autistic children.