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Peter Pan is a fictional character created by J. M.
Barrie, best known from the stage play and children's book of
the same name. He is a little boy who refuses to grow up, and spends his time having magical adventures.
Overview
Barrie created Peter Pan in stories he told to the sons of his friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with whom Barrie had forged a
special relationship.
The character's name comes from Peter, at the time the youngest of the Llewelyn Davies boys, and from Pan, the Greek god of the woodlands. It has also been suggested that the
inspriation for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at the age of thirteen deeply
affected Barrie's mother. According to Andrew Birkin, author of J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, the death was "a
catastrophe beyond belief, and one from which she never fully recovered"..."If Margaret Ogilvy drew a measure of comfort from the
notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration."
Peter Pan first appeared in print in a 1902 book called The Little White Bird,
a fictionalised version of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children, and was then used in a very successful
1904 stage play, Peter Pan, or The
Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered in London on December 27, 1904. In 1906
the portion of The little White Bird which featured Peter Pan was published as the book Peter Pan in Kensington
Gardens, which was illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Barrie then
adapted the play into the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy (but most often now published
as Peter Pan).
The name "Wendy" became popular because of its use in Peter Pan.
There is a statue by George Frampton of Peter Pan, playing a set of pipes, in Kensington Gardens, London.
Storyline
Warning: Plot details
follow.
In Peter Pan, both the play and the novel, the girl Wendy is invited to Neverland to be a mother for Peter's gang of Lost Boys. Many adventures ensue, often involving Peter's nemesis
Captain Hook, before Wendy decides that her place is at home with her
family.
Themes
The most apparent thematic thread in the story concerns growing up (or not). With the character of Peter wanting to
remain a child forever and avoid the responsibilities of adulthood.
Some commentators also see the story as containing a sexual theme. Wendy's sexual awakening, and Peter's Freudian feelings for
a mother figure, along with his flight, and conflicted feelings for Wendy and Tinkerbell, each representing different idealized
women, loom large in the narrative.
Adaptations
Peter Pan has been adapted for stage and screen many times. Following Barrie's original stage version, and for
practical reasons, Peter is usually played by a woman, but in the 2003 live-action film by a boy, see below.
Several musical versions of the play have been produced, of which the best known are Jerome Kern's 1924 version, Leonard Bernstein's 1950 version, and the 1954 version mounted by Jerome Robbins with songs by two writing teams, Mark Charlap with Carolyn Leigh, and Jule Styne with Betty Comden and
Adolph Green.
The 1954 version became widely known as a vehicle for Mary Martin and for
a series of female gymnasts, including Cathy Rigby.
In 1953 Disney released its animated film version of Peter Pan with music by Sammy Cahn,
Frank Churchill, Sammy Fain, and Ted Sears.
In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the 1924 version of the film "culturally significant" and selected it for
preservation in the National Film Registry.
In P. J. Hogan's 2003 live-action film version Peter Pan is played by the
teenage boy Jeremy Sumpter, and Hook by Jason Isaacs.
Sequels
Several people have attempted to create sequels to the story, generally failing to capture whatever it was that made the
original such a success.
Gilbert Adair's novel
Peter Pan and the Only Children was published in 1987. It had Peter living with a
new gang of Lost Boys under the ocean, recruiting new members from children who fall from passing ships.
Steven Spielberg's film
Hook had a grown-up Peter (played by Robin Williams) lured back to Neverland by Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts) to fight the returned Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman).
In 2002, Disney released Return to
Neverland, a sequel to the 1953 Disney adaptation, in which Wendy's daughter Jane becomes involved with Peter Pan. This
sequel is set during the Blitz, and deals with issues about children being forced
to grow up too fast.
Copyright status
The government of the United Kingdom has enacted what amounts to a
perpetual copyright (with a compulsory licence provision) on the works of the Peter Pan cycle. The exact phrasing is in section
301 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:
"301. The provisions of Schedule 6 have effect for conferring on trustees for the benefit of the Hospital for Sick Children,
Great Ormond Street, London, a right to a royalty in respect of the public performance, commercial publication, broadcasting or
inclusion in a cable programme service of the play 'Peter Pan' by Sir James Matthew Barrie, or of any adaptation of that work,
notwithstanding that copyright in the work expired on 31 December 1987." (source )
(It is worth noting that this does not cover the Peter Pan sections of The Little White Bird, which is not a
derivative of the play.) The only time this UK copyright will expire is when Great Ormond
Street Hospital ceases to exist, or this section is repealed. With the beneficiary being a children's hospital, it is hard to
imagine a future government taking such an action.
This is different from the pseudo-perpetual copyright created through successive copyright term extensions in that the United Kingdom lacks a
monolithic constitution and
thus lacks a "limited times" clause, allowing the UK Parliament to say "This copyright is hereby perpetual, and royalties go to
this specific hospital."
On December 20, 2002, writer
Emily Somma filed a preemptive
lawsuit against the hospital to protect her derivative work, After the Rain: A New Adventure for Peter Pan. The hospital
previously warned her that her book would be in violation of its copyrights. Somma argues that the characters are now in the
public domain.
References
- James Matthew Barrie and Scott Gustafson (illustrator): Peter Pan: The Complete and Unabridged Text. Viking Press,
October 1991 (ISBN 0670841803).
- J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys by Andrew Birkin
External links
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