ENGL 2810Y Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Nicholas Orme, Protestantism, Morality
23 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
Children"s literature is the only literary genre which is not produced by members of its own audience: it is instead produced by adults for children. As a result, the history of children"s literature is deeply rooted in evolving adult perceptions of what children should be reading, and of how this material will shape those children into acceptable social beings. The history of children"s literature as a genre is marked by the tensions between the impulse toward imaginative play on the one hand and the dictates of moralism and proper" socialization on the other. And we"" also look at the ways in which picture book texts and rhymes recall the oral world of the pre-literate child and the kind of playing with language that the young child naturally engages in. Tracing the development of children"s literature in the last 300 years is really tracing the development of an idea of childhood.
