History of the Child

<p><strong>Penelope Shuttle's <em>History of the Child</em> is a highly evocative exploration of childhood, memory, and imagination, blending personal and historical perspectives. </strong>The book's themes include parenting, grief, nature, emotional recovery and connections to the past, guided by the idea of childhood as a transformative and rebellious space.</p><p>The first of the book's four sections features poems about Katherine of Aragon, the Vestal Virgins, Stanley Spencer and Wallace Stevens, with a focus on grief, nature, and animals. ​The second, <em>Book of Lullabies</em>, steps closer to the theme of the child, with poems about memory, inwardness, climate change, sexuality in older age, and the natural world. The third part, <em>History of the Child</em>, is a journey back to Penelope Shuttle's own childhood, blending personal memories with imagined perspectives to explore psychological crises, emotional recovery, and the traumas of childhood. ​ It introduces an 'alternative girl child self', inspired by Persian legends, by her late husband Peter Redgrove's dream of such a girl ('my death, and she is my soul'), and by a friend's fanciful wish. The culminating fourth section is a playful sequence about a little table, inspired by her mother and her childhood. ​ The table symbolises connection to her mother, who lived to be 100 years old, and their shared history.</p><p><em>History of the Child</em> is guided by themes of memory, imagination, foreboding, magic, history and humour, and seeks to articulate the essence of 'being' through fiery language and elemental imagery. ​ She draws inspiration from Donald Winnicott's concept of the 'potentive space' where play, fantasy and reality intersect.</p>