Constructing Childhood: The History of Early Children

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 passé
  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