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CHILDREN’S LITERATURE CHL2601 ASSESSMENT 7
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE CHL2601 ASSESSMENT 7 NB PLEASE PARAPHRASE YOUR OWN WORK TO AVOID PLAGIARISM
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CHILDREN’S LITERATURECHL2601
ASSESSMENT 7
NB PLEASE PARAPHRASE YOUR OWN WORK TO AVOID PLAGIARISM
QUESTION 1
Children’s literature as a separate genre is relatively a new phenomenon since it was considered
subordinate until the middle of the eighteenth century. Only after the system of adult literature had
been fully established, literature for children began to develop as its independent part. According to
Peter Hunt, children’s books began to move from the didactic to the recreational by the 1850s, and
by the 1950s, children’s literature was fully recognized as a distinctive area of the literary world.
Since then, it has developed and expanded significantly. The criticism of children’s literature as an
academic discipline has developed only during the last 30 years. However, the first signs of interest
in the cross-cultural influence and the international spreading of children’s literature appeared much
earlier within the discipline of Comparative Literature. Children’s literature is any narrative written
or published for children and we include the ‘teen’ novels aimed at the ‘young adult’ or ‘late
adolescent’ reader.”
The history of children’s literature is closely connected with the development of the notion of
childhood, and the changes it underwent during the last two centuries were directly reflected in the
production of children’s books. As John Rowe Townsend suggests, “before there could be children’s
books, there had to be children – children, that is, who were accepted as beings with their own
particular needs and interests, not merely as miniature men and women”. Thus, before children’s
literature could develop as a separate genre, two conditions had to be fulfilled. Firstly, the
awareness that childhood is essentially different from adulthood and therefore requires special
treatment; secondly, the social conditions that enabled children to learn to read and be educated.
LORA TUTORING
0734281553
, Nevertheless, children read and enjoyed books long before there were books actually produced for
them. The beginnings of children’s literature lay in times long before the first stories actually meant
for children appeared, and before the first books were written down.
In the medieval times, not specialties of childhood were accepted due to the established theological
concept and the harsh conditions of life. Thus, the differences between the children and adults were
not recognized. In those times, no real distinction was made between the entertainments for
children, so children simply used the adult works that were attractive for them. “In the Middle Ages
‘children’s literature’ … was simply the literature of the entire culture”. Literature existed mainly in
the form of fables, folk stories, and legends that were passed from generation to generation in oral
form. Children were listening to these tales around cottage fire and when they grew up, they told
the same stories to their own children. Although not originally meant for children, such stories were
acquired by them quickly, as they were full of wonders and mystery that children always liked. Oral
tradition continued playing an important role much later, when the first literature was written down
by the monks. Since there were very few children who had the chance to see a manuscript or book,
the oral literature was the only one for poor children.
With the invention of the printing press, books became more accessible and children in general
became more literate. However, during the sixteenth century, still there were no books just for
children and their enjoyment. The society believed that “the young should read only what would
instruct and improve them”. The books for children written in these times were purely didactical, e.
g. rhymes for learning numbers or days of the week, grammar books, books of manners, or religious
writings. Therefore, children continued adopting books they liked, such as Aesop’s Fables. Although
William Caxton did not originally mean them for children, they soon became very popular among
them. One of the first books for children that were not purely didactical and showed more human
attitude to them was John Amos Comenius’s famous Orbis sensualium Pictus in 1658.
The seventeenth century saw the rise of religious writings for children and new models such as
catechism and stories about young innocent dying children were introduced. The Puritanism
emphasized the importance of salvation, children were seen as born sinful, as souls to be saved or
damned. As a result, education had a form of warnings and threats, children were constantly
reminded of the pain and suffering in hell. This attitude was directly reflected in the books available
to them in those times. They were mainly books of manners, primers and the Bible, or Puritan tales
full of horror also used by adults. This developed into the idea of childhood as an independent stage,
which was accepted more and more, just like the children became irreplaceable part of families and
society.
The eighteenth century meant a breakpoint for children’s literature. It brought a completely
different attitude to children and their education. Children at that time were recognized to have
special characteristics, and therefore special needs. Consequently, a new kind of children’s books
appeared — secular literature. Its main goal was to amuse and entertain children, rather than
educate those. One of the first books of this kind was John Newberry’s Little Pretty Pocket book
published in 1744, which is sometimes referred to as the ‘first children's book.’ At this time also the
first collections of fairy tales appeared. Probably the most famous one was Charles Perrault’s Tales
of Mother Goose translated into English by Robert Samber and published by John Newberry in 1729.
Some of the eight original stories are still popular among children, such as Sleeping Beauty or
Cinderella. Despite the popularity of fairy tales, there were still critical voices against them pointing
out the lack of morals and no religion found in the tales, as well as supernatural beings [6]. However,
even though not accepted as appropriate reading matter for children by the educationalists in the
LORA TUTORING
0734281553
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