Transcript Early History of Children`s Lit

Constructing Childhood:
A Brief History of
Children’s Literature
English 305
Dr. Roggenkamp
What is “children’s literature?”
What is “childhood?”
• Meaning of “childhood” is 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 views of
“childhood”—or ideal view
• Examine society’s concept of
self
• Interrogate individual author’s
relationship to broader cultural
context
• 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:
Historical Highlights of Western Civilizations
• 400 years ago: children born in state of sin;
childhood reading about religious guidance,
indoctrination
• 250-300 years ago: “invention of childhood” as
modern concept; children’s minds “a blank slate”—
fill with proper information
• 200 years ago: children naturally innocent; moral
compass to society
• 40 years ago: children need to read about harsh
realities of life
Middle Ages / Medieval Era
(500 – 1500)
• Low literacy—class-based
• Childhood generally ignored—short
and not so sweet
• Medieval epics, romances, histories
for adults also held children’s interest
(e.g. Beowulf, King Arthur, Robin
Hood, lives of saints, historical
legends, etc.)
• Mingle “reality” with magic, fantasy,
enchantment; animal characters
European Renaissance, Religious
Reformation (1500 – 1650)
Printing Press (mid 15th century):
• Most important technical innovation
since wheel
• Print books in quantity—reduce time,
labor, cost
• Increased literacy, promoted education,
disseminated knowledge and practice
of reading
• New merchant middle class—value
education, literacy
• Protestantism
Image: Replica of early Gutenberg press
Protestantism & Roots of “Modern
Childhood”
(English & American colonial Puritans; 17th & early 18th
centuries)
• Ideal of universal literacy
• Children products of original sin; a
time to 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); The Day of
Doom (1662)
• Anti-Catholic account of
“Bloody Mary” reign
• Poem of damnation of world
• Horrific scenes of violence,
mutilation, murder
Images: Thomas Foxe, Book of Martyrs, 1563;
Michael WIgglesworth, The Day of Doom, 1662
Enter “Modern Childhood”:
The Enlightenment (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
• Whole new construction of childhood—
distinct and special phase of life
Image: John Locke
Enter “Modern Childhood”:
Romanticism (late 18th/early 19th centuries)
• Children naturally innocent,
moral – “The child is the father
of the man” (William
Wordsworth)
• Books should free children’s
imaginations—not be based in
idea of natural sinfulness NOR
based in logic
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Emile (1755)—Children should
be raised in natural settings,
free to imagine
Image: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Late 18th/Early 19th Centuries: Folktales, Fairy
Tales, and the New Child
• Complicated role of “fairy tales”
• Enlightenment culture disapproves of
folktales for children—too “childlike,” not
LOGICAL
• But Romantic poets/philosophers
(Wordsworth, Coleridge, et al.) argue we can
learn from children’s imaginations and from
“primitive” stories
• “Fairy tales” deemed appropriate only for
children
Image: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Child With an Apple, late 18th
century
Late 18th/Early 19th Centuries:
Folktales, Fairy Tales, and the New
Child
• 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
Late 18th/Early 19th Centuries: Folktales, Fairy
Tales, and the New Child
• 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 Victorian
sensibilities, 19th century ideas
about morality, politics, social
class, etc.
Image: Little Brother & Little Sister and Other Tales by the
Brothers Grimm, illus. Arthur Rackham, 1917