Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Graz, language: English, abstract: Since the 1970s, scholarly interest in children's literature has grown, and numerous studies looking into the complexity and thematic and structural depth of the texts have been published. Simultaneously, the notion of metareferentiality has sparked interest among scholars from various disciplines. Metareferentiality, though not unique to the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, is said to be one of the key cultural phenomena of our time. And yet, these two fields of interest, namely children's literature and metareferentiality, have only very rarely been studied in the same context. Metareferential elements in children's books are often seen as phenomena of dream worlds. Thus, they allow a traditional, non-critical reading in which the metareferential elements do not necessarily trigger medial awareness in the readers but can be explained logically and within the framework of the represented story worlds. Consequently, the epistemological status of reality would not be threatened by these texts. However, as this paper aims to prove, such a reading (for instance) of the Alice-stories, Die Unendliche Geschichte and The Book of Lost Things, although undeniably possible, falls short of the true scope of the texts. As will be shown, all four books address the question of the status of fiction with reference to its opposition to reality, albeit in different ways. In their treatment of the subject, they are clearly metafictional texts with epistemological and ontological concerns that require experienced readers to fully grasp their messages. Nevertheless, they are still publicly perceived as children's literature and are enjoyed by children and adults alike. After some general remarks on the genre of children's literature and on metareferentiality, this paper focuses on a particular form of metarefere
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, University of Graz, language: English, abstract: Since the 1970s, scholarly interest in children’s literature has grown, and numerous studies looking into the complexity and thematic and structural depth of the texts have been published. Simultaneously, the notion of metareferentiality has sparked interest among scholars from various disciplines. Metareferentiality, though not unique to the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, is said to be one of the key cultural phenomena of our time. And yet, these two fields of interest, namely children’s literature and metareferentiality, have only very rarely been studied in the same context. Metareferential elements in children’s books are often seen as phenomena of dream worlds. Thus, they allow a traditional, non-critical reading in which the metareferential elements do not necessarily trigger medial awareness in the readers but can be explained logically and within the framework of the represented story worlds. Consequently, the epistemological status of reality would not be threatened by these texts. However, as this paper aims to prove, such a reading (for instance) of the Alice-stories, Die Unendliche Geschichte and The Book of Lost Things, although undeniably possible, falls short of the true scope of the texts. As will be shown, all four books address the question of the status of fiction with reference to its opposition to reality, albeit in different ways. In their treatment of the subject, they are clearly metafictional texts with epistemological and ontological concerns that require experienced readers to fully grasp their messages. Nevertheless, they are still publicly perceived as children’s literature and are enjoyed by children and adults alike. After some general remarks on the genre of children’s literature and on metareferentiality, this paper focuses on a particular form of metareferentiality, namely the representation and treatment of the reality—fiction opposition in the selected works, highlighting similarities and differences and describing their means and tools. This is succeeded by an analysis and comparison of these novels in several aspects of the reality—fiction opposition, i.e.: the structural depiction and framing of these two realms; how transgressions of the borders take place and which problems arise from this; how language comes into play to highlight or blur the reality—fiction opposition; and how this is connected to truth and lies, and ‘true’ identity and ‘false’ illusion, respectively.
Children's literature continues to be one of the most rapidly expanding and exciting of interdisciplinary academic studies, of interest to anyone concerned with literature, education, internationalism, childhood or culture in general. The second edition of Peter Hunt's bestselling International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature offers comprehensive coverage of the subject across the world, with substantial, accessible, articles by specialists and world-ranking experts. Almost everything is here, from advanced theory to the latest practice – from bibliographical research to working with books and children with special needs. This edition has been expanded and includes over fifty new articles. All of the other articles have been updated, substantially revised or rewritten, or have revised bibliographies. New topics include Postcolonialism, Comparative Studies, Ancient Texts, Contemporary Children's Rhymes and Folklore, Contemporary Comics, War, Horror, Series Fiction, Film, Creative Writing, and 'Crossover' literature. The international section has been expanded to reflect world events, and now includes separate articles on countries such as the Baltic states, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Iran, Korea, Mexico and Central America, Slovenia, and Taiwan.
This book provides an introduction to some of the critical theories useful in the study of children's literature. The 14 chapters examine the context, application and relevance to this area of concepts such as feminism, ideology, psychoanalysis and literacy studies.
Children’s literature is an excellent way to educate children, on everything from social behavior and beliefs to attitudes toward education itself. A major aspect of children’s literature is the importance of books and reading. Books represent adult authority. This book examines the role that books, reading and writing play in children’s fantasy fiction, from books that act as artifacts of power (The Abhorsen Trilogy, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Harry Potter) to interactive books (The Neverending Story, Malice, Inkheart) to books with character-writers (Percy Jackson, Captain Underpants). The author finds that although books and reading often play a prominent role in fantasy for children, the majority of young protagonists gain self-sufficiency not by reading but specifically by moving beyond books and reading.
The first book to assess critically mystery in children's literature, this collection charts a development from religious mystery through rationally solved detective fictions to insoluble supernatural and horror mysteries. Written by internationally recognised scholars in the field, these thirteen original essays offer challenging and innovative readings of both classic and popular mysteries for children. This volume will be essential and stimulating reading for anyone with an interest in children's literature or in mystery fiction.
Just as a work of self-reflexive 'metafiction' - and the experience of reading it - differ from other types of literature, the work and the experience of viewing films that adapt metafiction are distinct from those of other films, and from other film adaptations of literary works. This book explores the adaptation of children's metafictions, including works such as Inkheart, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and the Harry Potter series. Not only are the plot devices of books and reading explored on screen in these adaptations, but so is the nature of transmedial adaptation itself - the act of representing one work of art in another medium. Analysing the 'work' done by children's metafiction and the experience of reading it, Casie E. Hermansson situates the adaptations of these types of books to film within contemporary adaptation criticism.
Victorian literature for audiences of all ages provides a broad foundation upon which to explore complex and evolving ideas about young people. In turn, this collection argues, contemporary works for young people that draw on Victorian literature and culture ultimately reflect our own disruptions and upheavals, particularly as they relate to child and adolescent readers and our experiences of them. The essays therein suggest that we struggle now, as the Victorians did then, to assert a cohesive understanding of young readers, and that this lack of cohesion is a result of or a parallel to the disruptions taking place on a larger (even global) scale.
Victorian literature for audiences of all ages provides a broad foundation upon which to explore complex and evolving ideas about young people. In turn, this collection argues, contemporary works for young people that draw on Victorian literature and culture ultimately reflect our own disruptions and upheavals, particularly as they relate to child and adolescent readers and our experiences of them. The essays therein suggest that we struggle now, as the Victorians did then, to assert a cohesive understanding of young readers, and that this lack of cohesion is a result of or a parallel to the disruptions taking place on a larger (even global) scale.
In this book, members of the ChiLPA Project explore the children's literature of several different cultures, ranging from ancient India, nineteenth century Russia, and the Soviet Union, to twentieth century Britain, America, Australia, Sweden, and Finland. The research covers not only the form and content of books for children, but also their potential social functions, especially within education. These two perspectives are brought together within a theory of children's literature as one among other forms of communication, an approach that sees the role of literary scholars, critics and teachers as one of mediation. Part I deals with the way children's writers and picturebook-makers draw on a culture's available resources of orality, literacy, intertextuality, and image. Part II examines their negotiation of major issues such as the child adult distinction, gender, politics, and the Holocaust. Part III discusses children's books as used within language education programmes, with particular attention to young readers' pragmatic processing of differences between the context of writing and their own context of reading.
Technology and Identity in Young Adult Fiction is not a historical study or a survey of narrative plots, but takes a more conceptual approach that engages with the central ideas of posthumanism: the fragmented nature of posthuman identity, the concept of agency as distributed and collective and the role of embodiment in understandings of selfhood.
Children's classics from Alice in Wonderland to the works of Astrid Lindgren, Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling and Philip Pullman are now generally recognized as literary achievements that from a translator's point of view are no less demanding than 'serious' (adult) literature. This volume attempts to explore the various challenges posed by the translation of children's literature and at the same time highlight some of the strategies that translators can and do follow when facing these challenges. A variety of translation theories and concepts are put to critical use, including Even-Zohar's polysystem theory, Toury's concept of norms, Venuti's views on foreignizing and domesticating translations and on the translator's (in)visibility, and Chesterman's prototypical approach. Topics include the ethics of translating for children, the importance of child(hood) images, the 'revelation' of the translator in prefaces, the role of translated children's books in the establishment of literary canons, the status of translations in the former East Germany; questions of taboo and censorship in the translation of adolescent novels, the collision of norms in different translations of a Swedish children's classic, the handling of 'cultural intertextuality' in the Spanish translations of contemporary British fantasy books, strategies for translating cultural markers such as juvenile expressions, functional shifts caused by different translation strategies dealing with character names, and complex translation strategies used in dealing with the dual audience in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales and in Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
