The Kindness of Strangers (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: John Boswell
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Social history
- Time of Work: The first century A.D. to A.D. 1400
- Setting: Western Europe
- Genres: Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: History, Social issues, Prostitution or prostitutes, Abandoned children, Guilt, Poverty or poor people, Christianity, Adoption or adopted children, Abortion, Abandonment, Western Europe or western Europeans
- Locales: Europe
The starting point of John Boswell’s study is a scenario familiar, in one form or another, to almost all modern Europeans or Americans. It is the scenario of the abandoned child, of Oedipus or Moses, of Romulus and Remus or Shakespeare’s Perdita. Details vary, but in all such stories much the same thing happens: A child is born, but (because of ominous prophecies, family needs, or orders from above) it cannot be kept. It is accordingly exposed or abandoned, the intention being apparently that it should die, but without its parents incurring the guilt of direct murder. Instead it is...
[The entire page is 1889 words long]
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