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Constructing Childhood: The History of Early Childrens Literature and the Place of Fairy Tales

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Complicated role of 'fairy tales' in literary history of 18th, 19th centuries ... 'Fairy tales' eventually deemed appropriate only for children and 'the folk' ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Constructing Childhood: The History of Early Childrens Literature and the Place of Fairy Tales


1
Constructing Childhood The History of Early
Childrens Literature and the Place of Fairy Tales
  • English 507
  • Dr. Karen Roggenkamp
  • Image Orbis Sensualium PictureFacsimile of 1672
    English Edition

2
What is childrens literature? What is
childhood?
  • Meaning of childhood is ideologicalsocially
    constructed, constantly evolving
  • Books for children reflect dominant cultural
    ideals
  • Reinforce ideas about behavior, morality, gender
    roles, class structure, etc.shape reader
  • Reflect ideological lens of writer, culturenot
    created in vacuum
  • Image Rosemary Adcock, Orphan Series

3
Analyze childrens literature in order to . . .
  • Uncover cultures ideal views of childhood
  • Examine societys concept of self
  • Interrogate individual authors relationship to
    broader cultural contexts
  • Viewed across time, provides insight into our own
    concepts of childhood and normalcy
  • Image Arthur B. Houghton, Mother and
    Children Reading, 1860

4
What did childhood mean? Key shifts
  • Augustinian paradigm (17th Century, Puritans)
    Children innately corrupt, sinful animalistic
    nature (self will) must be constrained spiritual
    objectives instruction through punishment
  • Educationalist paradigm (18th century Locke)
    Childrens minds offer a blank slate (tabula
    rasa) on which to write neither good nor evil by
    nature intellectual and moral objectives
    instruction through logic and reason literature
    to instruct and delight
  • Natural Educationalist paradigm (18th-19th
    centuries Rouseau) Children innately pure,
    wise childlikeness (self will) must be
    developed and protected from corrupting social
    institutions emotional and moral objectives
    instruction through non-directive means
  • 40 years ago children need to read about harsh
    realities of life

5
Childrens Lit in Ancient World (roughly 50
BCE / BC - 500 CE / AD)
  • Oral tales heard, not read
  • Hybrid audiencechildren and adults alike
  • Aesops Fablesanimal tales with pointed
    moralsnot just for children
  • Guide/shape citizenry entertain
  • Image John Ogilby, The Fables of Aesop, 1673-75

6
Middle Ages(500 1500)
  • Low literacyclass-based
  • Childhood generally ignoredshort and not so
    sweet
  • Little adultscf. portraiture
  • Medieval epics, romances, histories for adults
    also held childrens interest (e.g. Beowulf, King
    Arthur, Robin Hood, lives of saints, historical
    legends, etc.)

7
Medieval Fables(500 1500)
  • Mingle reality with magic, fantasy,
    enchantment animal characters
  • Literature rich with childlike elements
    (wonder, mystery, fantasy, etc.)
  • Gesta Romanorum (Deeds of the Romans), late 13th
    century moral tales animal tales familiar
    story plots for centuries to come (Boccaccio,
    Chaucer, Shakespeare)
  • Image Early Manuscript, Gesta Romanorum

8
European Renaissance(1500 1650)
  • Printing Press (mid 15th century)
  • Print books in quantityreduce time, labor, cost
  • Increased literacy, promoted education,
    disseminated knowledge and practice of reading
  • Eventually change nature of childhood, childrens
    literature, and fairy tales
  • Image Replica of early Gutenberg press

9
Bad Boys and Girls Protestantism, 17th-century
Puritans, Roots of Modern Childhood
  • Ideal of universal literacy
  • Children products of original sin prepare for
    adult religious experience
  • Instructional books, conduct books
  • Primers teach reading, but also turn innately
    sinful children into spiritual beings
  • Themes of death, damnation, conversion
  • Image From New England Primer, circa 1690

10
A little light bedtime reading . . .
  • Popular reading for Protestant children
  • Book of Martyrs (1563), Anti-Catholic account of
    Bloody Mary
  • The Day of Doom (1662), poem of damnation of
    world
  • Images Thomas Foxe, Book of Martyrs, 1563
    Michael Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom, 1662

11
Children can be Reasonable, too The
Enlightenment (late 17th, 18th centuries)
  • John Locke (1632-1704)
  • Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
  • Young mind as tabula rasa (blank slate)
  • Children not burdened by original sin
  • Logical beings awaiting proper educationrational
    writings
  • Whole new construction of childhooddistinct
    phase of life
  • Image John Locke

12
Romanticism (late 18th, early 19th centuries)
Enter Innocence
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Emile (1755)Children should be raised in natural
    settings, free to imagine
  • Children naturally innocent, moral The child
    is the father of the man (Wordsworth)
  • Books should free childrens imaginations
  • Romantics influence writers of Golden Age
  • Image Jean-Jacques Rousseau

13
Folktales, Fairy Tales, and the New Child
  • Complicated role of fairy tales in literary
    history of 18th, 19th centuries
  • Romantic interest in folktalescollect
    authentic culture
  • But Enlightenment thinkers disapprovefolk
    culture too childlike and fantastic
  • Fairy tales eventually deemed appropriate only
    for children and the folk (peasant, simple,
    lower class)
  • More educated could be intellectually interested
    in folk culture and the LITERARY tale

14
Key Figures of Literary Fairy Tale
  • Charles Perrault (1628-1703)
  • Tales from Times Past or, Tales of Mother Goose
    (1697)
  • Retellings literary renderings of Cinderella,
    Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, etc.
  • Some explicitly directed toward children
  • Image Histoires ou Contes du temps passĂ©
    avec des moralitez, 1697

15
Key Figures of Literary Fairy Tale
  • Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
  • Nursery and Household Tales (1812-1815) directed
    explicitly toward children
  • Clean up folktales develop Perraults
    literary fairy tales
  • Rewrite to fit 19th-century sensibilities and
    ideas about morality, politics, social class,
    etc.
  • Image Little Brother Little Sister and
    Other Tales by the Brothers Grimm, illus. Arthur
    Rackham, 1917
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