Cirrus@Austlit

History of Children’s Literature is the second unit in the Children’s Literature discipline sequence. This unit builds on EDU1GCL - Genres in Children’s Literature - taking students back to the roots of story telling and examining the beginnings of children’s literature. It examines the forms and themes of traditional literatures and their influence on the development of texts for children, especially in the ‘Golden Age’ of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The unit investigates the origins and generic features of traditional literatures such as myths and legends, folk and fairy tales, and hero tales, and their influence on the emergence of genres like fantasy and realism in modern children’s literature. The unit also examines the emergence of a social construct of childhood through the growing awareness, over time, of children as a distinct social group, as a publishing market, and as a responsibility of ‘adult carers’.

Course Aims:

This subject is intended to:

• Examine the forms and structures of traditional literatures, and how they

are influenced by the cultural and social constructs of the society and time in which they developed.

• Explore the dynamism of stories from historical to modern times.

• Continue to develop students' awareness of current schema for

interpreting and responding to children’s literature

• Consider the social, historical and cultural construction of the concept

of childhood.

By the end of this unit students should be able to:

• Recognize and interpret current and future trends and developments in

various genres of literature for children;

• Evaluate critically the derivative nature of stories and story-telling;

• Be able to identify retellings and revisions of traditional and

‘classic’ stories;

• Discern archetypes, symbols, structures and motifs from traditional

literatures present in current children’s and young adult literature;

• Critique specific texts in terms of theoretical perspectives and

historical contexts.