constructing childhood: a brief history of children’s literature

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