A Study on early children’s fairy tales of Dong-A Ilbo in the 1930s

Abstract

This paper examined the differentiation of children, the appearance of children’s literature, writers of early children’s fairy tales published in Dong-A Ilbo and the contents in the 1930s.BR In 1922, the school system was created after the declaration of the 2nd Joseon Educational Ordinance. In early days, the age category was ambiguous, but in the middle and late 1920s that a proper educational system was constructed, age groups for the school system were established. This led to a discussion on the production of literary works appropriate for age groups of children among many theorists ranging from Hong Eunseong in 1929 to Lee Gujo in 1940.BR In this situation, age groups of children were divided into infancy, childhood and boyhood by the literary world. Also, literature was divided into early children’s literature, children’s literature and juvenile literature according to the characteristics of each age group. Then the increase in kindergarten pupils, various cultural events at kindergartens and child education views established by modern women in the 1930s promoted new awareness of infancy and growth of early children’s fairy tales and especially, kindergarten songs or kindergarten fairy tales for kindergarten pupils are the examples.BR On the other hand, a variety of early children’s fairy tales writers ranging from established writers to rising writers published their works in Dong-A Ilbo. In particular, Jeong Woo-Hae, Lim Wonho and Lee Gujo, who created many works actively in the 1930s, were highly interested in children’s stories. Besides, it was ambiguous to differentiate early children’s fairy tales from early children’s novel and the genres were named, based on writers’ creative consciousness. In general, early children’s fairy tales are based on realism rather than romanticism contained in fairy tales.BR Most of them were life stories to attract interest and improve understanding. This implies the educational meaning to consider specificity of infants and growth development processes. Moreover, early children’s fairy tales dealt with improvement in living habits of children, improvement in morality, wise life, stories in life, friendship, family love and curiosity about natural phenomena.