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Constructing Childhood: The History of Early Children’s Literature and the Place of Fairy Tales. English 507 Dr. Karen Roggenkamp Image: Orbis Sensualium Picture Facsimile of 1672 English Edition. What is “children’s literature?” What is “childhood?”.
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Constructing Childhood: The History of Early Children’s Literature and the Place of Fairy Tales English 507 Dr. Karen Roggenkamp Image: Orbis Sensualium PictureFacsimile of 1672 English Edition
What is “children’s literature?” What is “childhood?” • Meaning of “childhood” is ideological—socially 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, culture—not created in vacuum Image: Rosemary Adcock, “Orphan Series”
Analyze children’s literature in order to . . . • Uncover culture’s ideal views of “childhood” • Examine society’s concept of self • Interrogate individual author’s 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
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): Children’s 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
“Children’s Lit” in Ancient World(roughly 50 BCE / BC - 500 CE / AD) • Oral tales – heard, not read • Hybrid audience—children and adults alike • Aesop’s Fables—animal tales with pointed morals—not just for children • Guide/shape citizenry; entertain Image: John Ogilby, The Fables of Aesop, 1673-75
Middle Ages(500 – 1500) • Low literacy—class-based • Childhood generally ignored—short and not so sweet • “Little adults”—cf. portraiture • Medieval epics, romances, histories for adults also held children’s interest (e.g. Beowulf, King Arthur, Robin Hood, lives of saints, historical legends, etc.)
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
European Renaissance(1500 – 1650) Printing Press (mid 15th century): • Print books in quantity—reduce time, labor, cost • Increased literacy, promoted education, disseminated knowledge and practice of reading • Eventually change nature of childhood, children’s literature, and fairy tales Image: Replica of early Gutenberg press
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
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
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 education—rational writings • Whole new construction of childhood—distinct phase of life Image: John Locke
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 children’s imaginations • Romantics influence writers of Golden Age Image: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Folktales, Fairy Tales, and the New Child • Complicated role of “fairy tales” in literary history of 18th, 19th centuries • Romantic interest in folktales—collect “authentic” culture • But Enlightenment thinkers disapprove—folk 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
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 passé avec des moralitez, 1697
Key Figures of Literary Fairy Tale • Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm • Nursery and Household Tales (1812-1815) directed explicitly toward children • “Clean up” folktales; develop Perrault’s “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