Miraculous Bridges: Crossing Genre Boundaries Via His Dark Materials

Abstract

This thesis analyses the manner in which His Dark Materials exceeds the boundaries of children’s literature to become a successful crossover, and the way in Lyra’s adventures both map and distort a biblical template. In it I explore the extent to which Pullman’s trilogy has been shaped by another famous children's fantasy series, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, and also by more general issues arising out of the historical development of children's literature as a genre. I consider Pullman's antagonistic relationship to Christianity, and the theology without a God that he offers in its place, while also pointing out his indebtedness to aspects of the Christian tradition. I finally analyse His Dark Materials, not as a series based on Milton's Paradise Lost, but as an epic in its own right. I have not attempted to analyse the narrative on its primary level, as a children's adventure story, yet all of my explorations of His Dark Materials are based in an awareness of the trilogy as a work of children's literature, and are intended in part to illustrate how the genre accommodates such a complex and ambitious work,