GROTESQUE AND ABSURD IN THE LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN. CORRELATION OF CONCEPTS

2021 ◽  
pp. 12-20
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Yu. Leonova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Multiple Points ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
The Grotesque

The article considers the poetics of the grotesque and the absurd in the literature for children, in particular, the stories of T. Sobakin (“The Bald Monster”, “Motya”, “Then I Thought”), N. Nosov (“Dreamers”), M. Yessenovsky (“Ur-Yur-vyr”), as well as poems by A. Givargizov (“Unusual”), A. Orlova (“I am growing...”) and A. Usachev (“Vobla and the magazine”). Ideas about the wholeness of images and their harmony towards the created artistic reality are considered key characteristics for both concepts. So, absurd images are created by multiple points of view and contradictions between them, they clearly express the border between the ordinary and the implausible. The elements there are not completely combined and can be separated from each other by the means of imagination. Grotesque images in literature for children, created by objectifying individual elements or combining plans that do not contradict each other, are more natural and can also be visualized, and that is what distinguishes grotesque and absurdity from nonsense. The physicality and the variability of the image remain the most common ways of creating the grotesque in children’s literature. The grotesque and absurd does not depend on the fantastic assumption, which allows such images to exist both inside and outside the category of the fantastic.

scholarly journals Andrei Platonov and the discussion of the fairy tale in children's literature of the 1920s

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-136
Author(s):  
Aleksey O. Kostylev
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
New School ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
New Literature ◽  
The Way

The article is devoted to the discussion around the fairy tale, which found a place in the magazine «On the Way to a New School», the newspaper «Reader & Writer», its main provisions. In the 1920s pedagogues and children’s writers headed by Nadezhda Krupskaya revised old children’s literature and studied the theory of a new Soviet book for children, publishing articles and reviews. The connection between work in children’s literature and ideology, anti-religious propaganda is traced. Attention is drawn to the discussion of the category of the fantastic in a fairy tale among the authors of «On the Way to a New School», «Reader & Writer». Examples of new literature for children, its differences and similarities with the previous one are given. Andrei Platonov could also have known about the discussion around the genre of a fairy tale in 1926–1927 after moving to Moscow, as indicated by the epistolary, biographical facts and works of art, in particular the story «The Ethereal Path», the poem «About Electricity». The episodes from the novel «Chevengur» are considered in the context of this discussion.

scholarly journals Strange Encounter: Depicting An “Other” Reality for Young Readers

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
YOU Chengcheng
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Magic Realism ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Fantastic

This article explores fantastic encounters between humans and non-humans inChinese and Japanese Children’s literature. Naoko Awa’s collection of short storiesThe Fox’s Window and Other Stories is closely read to elucidate narrative features ofwhat I call as “strange encounter”, the magic realistic human-animal encounter inChinese and Japanese cultural context. Chinese supernatural literature and culturaltradition of yaoguai, which have been assimilated into Japanese culture (Japaneseyōkai), are referred to throughout my discussion.  Todorov’s approach to thefantastic, Judith Zeitlin’s study of Strange Tales of Liaozhai Studio, and RosemaryJackson’s study of fantasy are drawn upon to illuminate the meaning of encountersbetween men and animals. I argue that magic realism as a relatively new genrefor young readers, not only reflects the author’s individual creative experienceof the fantastic but also partakes in the sense of an “other” reality that resonatesthroughout a cultural community.Perjumpaan Ganjil: Gambaran suatu Realitas “Liyan” bagi Pembaca Muda.Artikel ini membahas perjumpaan fantastis antara ‘manusia’ dan ‘non-manusia’ didalam sastra anak Cina dan Jepang. Antologi cerita pendek karangan Naoko Awa TheFox’s Window and Other Stories akan dikupas untuk memaparkan fitur naratif yangdisebut sebagai ‘perjumpaan aneh’ (strange encounter), perjumpaan magis-realis antaramanusia dengan binatang dalam konteks kebudayaan Cina dan Jepang. Karya sastrasupernatural Cina dan keberadaan yaoguai yang telah diasimilasi dalam kebudayaanJepang (disebut youkai) menjadi sebuah referensi penting dalam artikel ini. Pendekatanfantasi dari Todorov, studi Judith Zeitlin tentang Strange Tales of Liaozhai Studio,dan studi fantasi dari Rosemary Jackson digunakan untuk memperjelas arti dariperjumpaan antara manusia dan binatang. Magis-realis sebagai sesuatu yang baru bagi pembaca muda tidak hanya merefleksikan pengalaman kreatif pribadi sang pengarang akan fantasi, tetapi juga berperan dalam pembentukan realitas “liyan” dalam sebuahkomunitas budaya.

scholarly journals Margaret Mahy and the Golden Age of Children's Literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Proffitt
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
The Secret Garden ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Margaret Mahy ◽  
Treasure Island

<p>Margaret Mahy’s novels contain numerous allusions to the classics of Victorian fiction for children. Some of these take the form of passing references; in 24 Hours, for example, protagonist Ellis thinks of himself as “Ellis in Wonderland.” But Mahy also draws on Victorian precedents for some of her settings, taking imaginary islands from Peter and Wendy and Treasure Island, and the secret garden from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel of the same name. She also invokes the forest of the fairy tales that (although they were not invented by the Victorians) featured so prominently in the reading of Victorian children. To date, little attention has been paid to what might be described as the “Victorian dimension” of Mahy’s work. In what follows, I examine its function in five novels. It emerges that Mahy’s response to the values embodied by her Victorian texts is critical on at least three counts. Mahy’s heroines (or, rather, female heroes) reject the passivity and silence exhibited by fairytale characters such as Jorinda in the Grimms’ ‘Jorinda and Joringel’, and the lack of emotional growth displayed by Lewis Carroll’s Alice. They are also shown in the process of leaving childhood (nostalgically idealized by Carroll, J.M. Barrie and other Victorian authors) behind. Moreover, this thesis exposes the tension between Mahy’s insistent allusion to quintessential fantasy spaces such as Wonderland on one hand, and the distinct anxiety present in her work about the dangerously isolating nature of fantasy on the other. While for Mahy’s teenage protagonists the domestic “real” wins out more often than not over the fantastic but dangerous “true”, the transformative journey of maturation that each undergoes is figuratively sparked by their belief in the Red Queen’s “six impossible things before breakfast”. Perhaps by the same token, they learn that fantasy worlds (like Barrie’s “Neverland”) can be dangerously isolating.</p>

scholarly journals Children’s literature in/and translation: The oeuvre as corpus

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Kirsten Malmkjær
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Lewis Carroll ◽  
Hans Christian Andersen ◽  
The Fantastic

In this article, I argue that whereas Lewis Carroll builds the fantastic world of Alice’s dreams primarily through narration, Hans Christian Andersen uses patterns of lexical choices that recur throughout his opus to build a universe divided solely in terms of a distinction between what is genuine and what is artificial; and this distinction is a central player in all of his work. Arguably, therefore, attention to Andersen’s wider corpus, and to his use of lexis in it, are key to producing translations of Andersen’s work that reflect its essence.

scholarly journals Genre games: Edward Gorey's play with generic form

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Eden Lee Lackner
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Accurate Representation ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Neil Gaiman ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
The Aesthetic

<p>This thesis examines Edward Gorey's play with form and content across five literary genres, how that play results in the style that has come to be known as the "Goreyesque" and how the Goreyesque has influenced later artists and writers. Gorey consistently places style ahead of thematic and moral considerations, removing the purpose of each genre to reveal what remains in its absence. In doing so, Gorey maps out the boundaries of each form, providing genre- and period-specific details that act as signposts to how his audience should approach each narrative. With these markers in place, Gorey's readers are thus made aware of which genre expectations rule each piece. These expectations, however, are undermined as Gorey removes the audience-understood literary endgame, so that the work appears in all respects to be an accurate representation of the chosen genre, yet is missing the central heart.  Gorey's melodramas present scenarios in which deep familial loss and suffering are at the forefront of each narrative, yet as a result of the distance that Gorey places between the text and his readers, these works ultimately lack sentimentality. His Dickensian narratives, while populated with virtuous orphans and embittered, isolated men, lack moral pronouncements and just rewards, resulting in exceptionally bleak, nihilistic endings that provide little or no social commentary. His children's literature, although full of mnemonic systems, rejects all pedagogical functions in favour of inviting in adult audiences to luxuriate in sound and linguistic form. His mystery and detective fiction, while containing secrets, crimes and criminals, ignores any pretence of decoding the central mysteries. His Gothic horror revels in supernatural excesses, yet engenders no fear. By tracing Gorey's play with genre, we can identify the aesthetic parameters of the Goreyesque, and examine how they manifest in the works of other artists and writers, notably Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman and Roman Dirge.  In manipulating genre expectations, Gorey does more than simply leave readers with the shell of narrative purpose. Instead, he draws attention to the absence and pushes beyond expectation to reinvention. He normalizes the strange and fantastic by removing the very things that make the ordinary extraordinary. He infuses his works with a distance that shifts their purpose from generating high emotion and strong reactions to encouraging minute attention to narrative detail. Gorey's fantasies therefore represent odd, underwhelming moments that are otherwise ignored in the search for the uncommon and unique. By underplaying the significance of the events in his stories, Gorey represents and refreshes our concepts of the fantastic, and highlights the strangeness in the overlooked.</p>

scholarly journals Margaret Mahy and the Golden Age of Children's Literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Proffitt
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
The Secret Garden ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Margaret Mahy ◽  
Treasure Island

<p>Margaret Mahy’s novels contain numerous allusions to the classics of Victorian fiction for children. Some of these take the form of passing references; in 24 Hours, for example, protagonist Ellis thinks of himself as “Ellis in Wonderland.” But Mahy also draws on Victorian precedents for some of her settings, taking imaginary islands from Peter and Wendy and Treasure Island, and the secret garden from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel of the same name. She also invokes the forest of the fairy tales that (although they were not invented by the Victorians) featured so prominently in the reading of Victorian children. To date, little attention has been paid to what might be described as the “Victorian dimension” of Mahy’s work. In what follows, I examine its function in five novels. It emerges that Mahy’s response to the values embodied by her Victorian texts is critical on at least three counts. Mahy’s heroines (or, rather, female heroes) reject the passivity and silence exhibited by fairytale characters such as Jorinda in the Grimms’ ‘Jorinda and Joringel’, and the lack of emotional growth displayed by Lewis Carroll’s Alice. They are also shown in the process of leaving childhood (nostalgically idealized by Carroll, J.M. Barrie and other Victorian authors) behind. Moreover, this thesis exposes the tension between Mahy’s insistent allusion to quintessential fantasy spaces such as Wonderland on one hand, and the distinct anxiety present in her work about the dangerously isolating nature of fantasy on the other. While for Mahy’s teenage protagonists the domestic “real” wins out more often than not over the fantastic but dangerous “true”, the transformative journey of maturation that each undergoes is figuratively sparked by their belief in the Red Queen’s “six impossible things before breakfast”. Perhaps by the same token, they learn that fantasy worlds (like Barrie’s “Neverland”) can be dangerously isolating.</p>

scholarly journals Genre games: Edward Gorey's play with generic form

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Eden Lee Lackner
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Detective Fiction ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Accurate Representation ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Neil Gaiman ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
The Aesthetic

<p>This thesis examines Edward Gorey's play with form and content across five literary genres, how that play results in the style that has come to be known as the "Goreyesque" and how the Goreyesque has influenced later artists and writers. Gorey consistently places style ahead of thematic and moral considerations, removing the purpose of each genre to reveal what remains in its absence. In doing so, Gorey maps out the boundaries of each form, providing genre- and period-specific details that act as signposts to how his audience should approach each narrative. With these markers in place, Gorey's readers are thus made aware of which genre expectations rule each piece. These expectations, however, are undermined as Gorey removes the audience-understood literary endgame, so that the work appears in all respects to be an accurate representation of the chosen genre, yet is missing the central heart.  Gorey's melodramas present scenarios in which deep familial loss and suffering are at the forefront of each narrative, yet as a result of the distance that Gorey places between the text and his readers, these works ultimately lack sentimentality. His Dickensian narratives, while populated with virtuous orphans and embittered, isolated men, lack moral pronouncements and just rewards, resulting in exceptionally bleak, nihilistic endings that provide little or no social commentary. His children's literature, although full of mnemonic systems, rejects all pedagogical functions in favour of inviting in adult audiences to luxuriate in sound and linguistic form. His mystery and detective fiction, while containing secrets, crimes and criminals, ignores any pretence of decoding the central mysteries. His Gothic horror revels in supernatural excesses, yet engenders no fear. By tracing Gorey's play with genre, we can identify the aesthetic parameters of the Goreyesque, and examine how they manifest in the works of other artists and writers, notably Tim Burton, Neil Gaiman and Roman Dirge.  In manipulating genre expectations, Gorey does more than simply leave readers with the shell of narrative purpose. Instead, he draws attention to the absence and pushes beyond expectation to reinvention. He normalizes the strange and fantastic by removing the very things that make the ordinary extraordinary. He infuses his works with a distance that shifts their purpose from generating high emotion and strong reactions to encouraging minute attention to narrative detail. Gorey's fantasies therefore represent odd, underwhelming moments that are otherwise ignored in the search for the uncommon and unique. By underplaying the significance of the events in his stories, Gorey represents and refreshes our concepts of the fantastic, and highlights the strangeness in the overlooked.</p>

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