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FINAL Current Developments at the Intersection of British Children ONLINE VERSION
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can be read as an adventure story with fantastic elements. Two other classics of the eighteenth century, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), were not written for children, either. 8 From this arises an initially paradox situation. In the eighteenth century, the young and still developing genre of children’s literature had three bestsellers 9 - The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels - sold as books for adults. Yet, providing a quest, fantastic or exotic adventures and a happy ending, they appealed to the young, who skipped the political and sociocritical dimension. Soon, abbreviated, “defused” versions of these novels could be obtained, tailored to the new target group. From a political satire for adults, Gulliver’s Travels were thus cut in length in order to obtain a tightened fantastic adventure story for children. According to Darton, “[c]hildren’s books did not stand out by themselves as a clear but subordinate branch of English literature until the middle of the eighteenth century”. 10 For him, a landmark of children’s literature, this time intended and written for them, was the publication of John Newbery’s A Little Pretty Pocket Book (1744). In London, John Newbery was a pioneer in the newly developing field of publishing for children. When devising attractive offers for children’s books, he relied on modern merchandising strategies. With certain books came gender-specific toys, encouraging a purchase of the “product” book. In contrast to the stern and austere seventeenth-century Puritan books for children, Newbery’s 5 See Thwaite, Primer, p. 23 as well as Darton, Children’s Books, p. 51. 6 Thwaite, From Primer to Pleasure, p. 1. 7 Ibd., p. 4. 8 Darton, Children’s Books, p. 106. 9 Ibd., p. 8. 10 Ibd., p. 1. 47 concept consisted of making reading - and education along with it - enjoyable. 11 In honour of his achievements for the development of children’s literature and the impulses he gave to this genre, the “John Newbery” Medal was created in the USA in 1921 in order to annually distinguish America’s most meritable book for children. With the close of the eighteenth century, religious strife slowly gave way to secularisation. Religion was to be complemented by the values of the Age of Reason, such as logic and empiricism. Consequently, the spectrum of topics for children’s books opened up. Spiritual literature, with its focus on afterlife and salvation, fell behind worldly education and learning. Rousseau’s pedagogical oeuvre Émile (1762) and Locke’s theoretical tracts had great influence on the ideal education of that time. As the pioneer Newbery had propagated earlier referring to reading, it was now demanded that education be a joyful experience. 12 However, logic and empiricism tend to exclude or hinder imagination, so the Age of Reason was far from being the ideal breeding ground for fantasy. Only after the heyday of the Enlightenment did fantasy slowly begin to be admitted to and tolerated in literature for children, until such a point where, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, it even played an important market role. Critics call the period spanning from about 1860 to 1930 the Golden Age of children’s literature. 13 During these eventful 70 years most of today’s classics were conceived and published and fantasy managed to leave its marginal position. Arguably, the achievements of this fruitful era with a qualitatively high output have not yet been met again. In 1863, a milestone publication rang in the Golden Age of children’s literature when the English clergyman 14 Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) published The Water-Babies: A Fairy Download 1.22 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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