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

1. 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

3. 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

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): 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

5. �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

6. 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.)

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 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

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 education�rational writings Whole new construction of childhood�distinct 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 children�s 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 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

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 pass� 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 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