History of children’s and youth literature
From his origins as a social being, man has always had the need to tell stories to himself and others, as a form of communication and empathy. Before written literature, there have been many centuries of oral literature and there was no differentiation between literature for older and children’s literature.
Some authors date back to classical Greece, specifically at the end of the S. VII a.C., To see in the fables of Aesop, the first precedents of children’s literature, both because of its moralizing character and for being the genesis of many "modern" stories. It is enough. Already in the Middle Ages, we have the book of Count Lucanor (Don Juan Manuel) or the Llibre de les Bèsties (Ramón Llull) as possible precedents of this eminently youth literature (Gamero, 2019).
But we will have to wait until the S. XVI, with the rise of cavalry novels to give a literature that could be called entertainment. Until then, the few boys who learned to read- and the very few girls- did it with religious texts or adult books (read.It is 2017).
As has been advanced, despite the fact that written literature took centuries to fix the stories of the oral tradition of their peoples, since ancient. One of these first collections that collected these traditional stories was carried out by Giambattista Basile, which published in 1634 two volumes, graduates how much of Li Cunti Overo the Peccerille’s treaty, where he included stories such as "Cinderella" or "Rapunzel" (Gamero, 2019). Precisely in these volumes Charles Perrault was based and inspired to write his own collection. Most of the stories and stories collected by the French author came to form such an intrinsic part of popular culture that they inspired the Grimm brothers. Thus we have reached as famous stories as the cat with boots, thumb, red riding hood or sleeping beauty (Gamero, 2019).
However, the first books that were written and thought for children would not be written with an enganimiento eagerness but in order to instruct and educate. Thus, in 1658, a curious book was published, the Orbis Pictus- which can be translated as “the world into images- by Juan Amos Comenius, philosopher and theologian considered as the father of modern education, which can be considered as the first book Illustrated for children, although its end was completely educational and did not think Comelius that his work had an intention of entertainment.
We will have to wait until the S. XVIII For children’s literature to reach the status of hobb. Although the various authors consider that the father of children’s literature would be John Newbery who with his work to Little Pretty Pocket-Book, published in 1744, would write the first book without didactic intention and whose sole objective was entertainment. This work was a brief pocket booklet with very simple colored and rhyme illustrations, each dedicated to a letter from the alphabet.
A century later, in the S. XIX, we have Hans Christian Andersen who will collect a series of fairy tales (La Sernita, Snow White, the new suit of the emperor or thumb, etc.) – the same as the brothers Grimm would.T.A. Hoffmann that would also publish a collection of children’s stories, including the Nutcracker and the King of Mice. At the end of this 19th century, in 1865, a book was published that would change the way to make children’s literature and that would inspire subsequent authors. We refer to Alicia in the Wonderland of Lewis Carroll. The mixture of imagination, originality and eccentricity of it, together with mathematics, logic or language made it a masterpiece.
Children’s and youth literature had a great boom at the end of the 19th and early twentieth century with titles such as Louisa May Alcott, Tom Sawyer’s adventures and the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the adventures of Pinocchio de Carlo Collodi, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasury Island, Rudyard Kipling’s jungle book, the wonderful Magician of L of L. Frank Baum, Pedro Conejo’s story by Beatrix Potter, or Peter Pan and Wendy de J.M. Barrie in 1911, for putting only some examples.
The twentieth century will not remain at the Zafa, in which writers of children’s and youth literature have reached not only a great mastery with their characters and plots elaborated but also the favor of the public to which their books were directed, sometimes becoming true media phenomena. Thus we will name Mary Poppins, the endless story, the chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter or the Twilight Saga
In short, as he affirms. Gamero (Gamero, 2019) "Children’s and youth literature today is a source of entertainment and freedom for the youngest".
Leave feedback