Topic 3Children’s Literature and

Criticism in the 1980s

Chia-yen Ku 古佳艷National Taiwan University

Two Essays

1. “Taking Political Stock: New Theoretical and

Critical Approaches to Anglo-American

Children’s Literature in the 1980s.”

by Jack Zipes. The Lion and the Unicorn 14

(1990): 7-22.

2. “Of Elephants and Ducks.” The Empire’s Old

Clothes. By Ariel Dorfman. New York:

Pantheon, 1983.

Jack Zipes

Retired professor of German at the Minnesota University

Taking Political Stock

• 1970s: journals, research societies, improvement of quality in research of children’s literature

• Ideological shift in the criticism of children’s literature

• “radical” efforts of critics of the 1980s

Polarization & Intense Debate

• Neil Postman, The Disappearance

of Childhood (1982)

• Marie Winn, Children without Childhood (1981)

Fred Inglis, The Promise of Happiness:

Value and Meaning in Children’s Fiction

(1981).• How to make value judgment about children’s

literature?

-F.R. Leavis

-Stendhal

-Ernst Bloch • Follower of the enlightened critics of the late 18th

century?

Not exactly: Inglis accepts fantasy and is against censorship

Ariel Dorfman, The Empire’s Old

Clothes (1983)

-Ariel Dorfman, How to read Donald

Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the

Disney Comic (1975)

-Marxist approach

-in the manner of Roland Barthes: to expose the myths by which we govern our lives as socially constructed fictions that have strong ideological ramifications

-mass media “leaves hardly any space for interpretation by the audience” (179).

Manipulation of the Child

• Geoffrey Summerfield, Fantasy and Reason (1984)

• Mary V. Jackson, Engines of Instruction, Mischief, and Magic (1989).

Representation of the Child

• Juliet Dusinberre, Alice to the Lighthouse (1987)

• New aesthetics and attitude

• Carroll’s Alice books:

introduces innovative manner

of addressing children

radical experiments of

Virginia Woolf’s novels

“N/ever Written for Children”

• Jacqueline Rose, The Case of Peter Pan (1984).

• Manipulation of the child as reader

• Problematic relationship between adult and child

Subversive Quality

• Alison Lurie, Don’t Tell the Grown-ups (1990).

• Children’s literature of the 20th

century endeavored to undermine

the accepted social and aesthetic standards of their day

Zipes’ Conclusion

Issue neglected in criticism of the 1980s

• Reception and distribution

• Mass media and children’s literature

• Empirical studies

“Of Elephants and Ducks”

• Ariel Dorfman: Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, and human rights activist; son of Argentine economist Adolfo Dorfman

• Babar books & TV cartoon seriesyoutube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMtO_oWdnu8

From Elephants to Ducks

• De Brunhoff’s Babar– Babar’s history = the dominant countries’

colonial dream– Disappearance of violence, slavery,

plundering, and HUNTER– Europeanization

• Disney’s Donald Duck– Within the limits of paternal authority– Constant innocentization of all aspects of life

Further ReadingsBacon, Betty. How Much Truth Do We Tell the Children? The Politics of Children’s

Literature. Minneapolis: MEP Publications, 1988.

Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Delacorte, 1982.

Winn, Marie. Children without Childhood. New York: Pantheon, 1983.

Dorfman, Ariel and Armand Mattelart. How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. London: International General, 1975.

---. The Empire’s Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds. New York: Pantheon, 1983.

Dusinberre, Juliet. Alice to the Lighthouse: Children’s Literature and Radical Experiments in Art. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.

Inglis, Fred. The Promise of Happiness: Value and Meaning in Children’s Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981.

Jackson, Mary V. Engines of Instruction, Mischief, and Magic: Children’s Literature in England from Its Beginnings to 1839. Lincoln: University of Nebraska P, 1989.

Lurie, Alison. Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups: Subversive Children’s Literature. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990.

Summerfield, Geoffrey. Fantasy and Reason: Children’s Literature in the Eighteenth Century. London: Methuen, 1984.