Poetics of Children's Literature

Abstract

In this study, the author isolates the conventions and moral aims that have structured children's literature, from the fairy tales collected and reworked by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm - in particular, Little Red Riding Hood - through the complex manipulations of Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, to the subversion of the genre's canonical requirements in the chapbooks of the 18th century and in the formulaic Nancy Drew books of our own day. The author explores not only how society has shaped children's literature, but also how society has been reflected in the literary works it produces for its children - how its ideals and prejudices have been set forth, often without disguise, to serve as lessons for future citizens. Children's literature is the only branch of literature that, in our day, still retains the overt purpose of instruction, and that still is required to present to its reader a moral. Exploring the relationship between children's literature and society, this book charts the cultural manipulations that shape writing for children and the literary devices by which authors make room for creativity amid the strictures of a sternly codified literary system.