The concept of Children’s literature. Statement of an issue
https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2020-2-12-24
Abstract
This article aims to characterize the specifics of the concept of children’s literature in terms of sociological and structural criteria. The article compiles the main arguments in favor of the existence of the concept, analyzes their validity. The addressee category as the main criterion is recognized as insufficient. The type of the character, narrator, point of view, chronotope are considered in the subject-object organization of the epic and lyric texts. Opinions on the artistic means of children’s literature are given as well. So, in children’s literature, a child as a type of character or of a visually smaller character prevails, that type does not change externally and internally, but he is able to change the world around him. The narrator has a strongly pronounced point of view. The chronotope in children’s literature is simplified by creating worlds with a simpler social organization, referring to the past or “another reality”, the main actions occur in toposes familiar to a child. As a result of the work, an assumption is made that the most part of children’s literature is two-addressable, as well as that there is the need to combine several criteria to form a “children’s discourse”. Examples include works of various genres recognized as a literature for children.
About the Author
E. Yu. Leonova
Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Ekaterina Yu. Leonova, postgraduate student
bld. 6, Miusskaya Square, Moscow, 125993
References
1. Arzamastseva, I.N. (2001), Russkie detskie pisateli XX veka: Biobibliograficheskii slovar’ [Russian children`s writers of the 20th century . Biobibliographical dictionary]. Ed. board: Arzamasceva, I.N. et al., 3rd ed., Flinta, Nauka, Moscow, Russia.
2. Arzamastseva, I.N. (2013), Detskaya literatura [Children`s literature], Textbook, Akademiya, Moscow, Russia.
3. Belousov, A.F. (1995), ”Memories of Igor Malsky ‘Crooked mirror of reality’. To the question of the origin of ‘sadistic poems’”, Lotmanovskii sbornik. 1, E.V. Permyakov (compl. ed.), Garant, Moscow, Russia, pp. 681–691.
4. Frolov, K. A., (2003), Language specificity of texts in fiction for children, Abstract of Ph.D. dissertation, Tver State university, Tver, Russia.
5. Givargizov, A. (2012), Kogda nekogda [When there is no time], Samokat, Moscow, Russia.
6. Karpuhina, V. N. (2015), “Discourse of children’s fiction in the processes of institutionalization of society” [Online], Sibirskii filologicheskii zhurnal, no. 2. available at: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/diskurs-detskoy-hudozhestvennoy-literaturyv-protsessah-institualizatsii-obschestva (Accessed 14 December 2019).
7. Kryazheva, A. L. (2010), Osobennosti verbalizacii ponyatiya “child/rebenok» v razlichnyh diskursah v anglijskom i russkom yazykah [The verbalization features of the concept “child / child” in various discourses in English and Russian], MGOU, Moscow, Russia.
8. Leonova, T.G. (1982), Russkaya literaturnaya skazka 19 v. v ee otnoshenii k narodnoi skazke: Poeticheskaya sistema zhanra v istoricheskom razvitii [Russian literary fairy tale of the 20th century in its relation to a folk tale. Poetic system of the genre in the historical development], Tomsk University Publishing House, Tomsk, Russia.
9. Loiter, S.M. (2002), Russian children’s literature of the 20th century and children’s folklore: problems of interaction, D. Sc. Thesis, Petrozavodsk, Russia.
10. Markova, D. (2012), “Short childhood”, Voprosy Literatury, no. 5, pp. 89–109.
11. Meshcheryakova, M. I. (1997), Russkaya detskaya, podrostkovaya i yunosheskaya proza 2 poloviny XX veka: problemy poetiki [Russian children’s, adolescent and youth prose of the 2nd half of the 20th century. Issues of poetics], Megatron, Moscow, Russia.
12. Mead, M. (1988), Culture and the world of childhood. Selected works. Transl. and comm. by Yu.A. Aseev. Compl. and afterword by I.S. Kon (ex. ed.). Nauka, Moscow, Russia.
13. Mineralova, I.G (2002), Detskaya literature [Children’s literature], Academic manual for university students, Vlados, Moscow, Russia.
14. Morits, Yu.P. (2017), “The boy walked, the owl flew…”, Krysha ekhala domoi: stihi-hi-hi dlya detei ot 5 do 500 let [The roof was driving home. Poems for children from 5 to 500 years old], Vremya, Moscow, Russia.
15. Ovchinnikova, N.V. (2003), Russkaya literaturnaya skazka XX veka: istoriya, klassifikatsiya, poetika [Russian literary fairy tale of the 20th century. History, classification, poetics], 2nd ed., Flinta, Nauka, Moscow, Russia.
16. Poleva, E.A. (2013), “Pedagogical views of the children’s writer G. Oster and the features of their expression” [Online], TSPU Bulletin, no. 6 (134), available at: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/pedagogicheskie-vzglyady-detskogo-pisatelya-g-osterai-osobennosti-ih-vyrazheniya (Accessed 14 December 2019).
17. Popova, S.V. (2005), The world of childhood and its artistic embodiment in Mordovian prose of the 1950–1990s, Abstract of Ph.D. dissertation, Saransk, Russia.
18. Setin, F. I. (1990), Istoriya russkoi detskoi literatury, konets X pervaya pol. XIX v. [The history of Russian children’s literature, the end of the 10th – first half of 19th cent.], Prosveshchenie, Moscow, Russia.
19. Tyupa, V. I. (2008), “Discourse Formation”, Tamarchenko, N. D. (ed), Poetika: slovar’ aktual’nyh terminov i ponyatii [Poetics. A dictionary of relevant terms and concepts], Izdatel’stvo kulaginoi, Intrada, Moscow, Russia. p. 99
20. Vygotskii, L.S. (1997) Voobrazhenie i tvorchestvo v detskom vozraste [Imagination and creative work in childhood], Soyuz, Moscow, Russia.
Review
For citations:
Leonova E.Yu. The concept of Children’s literature. Statement of an issue. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2020;(2):12-24. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2020-2-12-24
Views:
410
Email this article 