Morton N. Cohen
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Morton Norton Cohen (27 February 1921 – 12 June 2017) is an American author and scholar, and Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York, best known for his extensive studies of children's author Lewis Carroll, including his 1995 biography Lewis Carroll: A Biography.
Cohen was a prominent and vocal opponent of the "Carroll Myth", the idea advanced by some scholars that Carroll was not, as is popularly thought, a paedophile. Karoline Leach in In the Shadow of the Dreamchild (1999) wrote that Cohen and previous biographers misunderstood the norms and customs of the Victorian era, and that Carroll's adulation of children was not sexual but a reflection of the romanticisation of the child prevalent in that era. Contrariwise, a website setup by opponents of the tradition Carroll image, writes that he "was honest enough to see that the received image of 'Carroll' was indeed pedophilic, and to say so more bluntly than was comfortable to many", but notes "Inexplicably he lists the numbers of intimate woman-friends that Dodgson had through his life, yet still concludes that his existence revolved exclusively around friendships with small girls!"
Further reading
- Cohen, Morton N. Reflections in a Looking Glass: A Centennial Celebration of Lewis Carroll, Photographer, New York: Aperture, 1998. Print.
- Cohen, Morton N. Lewis Carroll: A Biography, London: Macmillan, 1995. Print.
- Cohen, Morton N., ed. Lewis Carroll: Interviews and Recollections, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. Print.
- Cohen, Morton N., and Anita Gandolfo, eds. Lewis Carroll and the House of Macmillan, Cambridge, London, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Print.