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Children's literature criticism comprises both generalist discussions of the relationship between children's literature and literary theory as well as an literary analysis of a specific work or works of children's literature. // Basic characteristics There is some debate as to what constitutes childrens literature. ...
Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ...
Nearly every school of theoretical thought has been applied to children's literature, most commonly reader response (Chambers 1980) and new criticism. However, other schools have been applied in controversial and influential ways, including Orientalism (Nodelman 1992), feminist theory (Paul 1987), postmodernism (Stevenson 1994), structuralism (Neumeyer 1977), post-structuralism (Rose, 1984, Lesnik-Oberstein, 1994) and many others. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ...
Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures by Westerners. ...
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or by the politics of feminism more broadly. ...
The literature which arose as a series of styles and ideas in the post-World War II period which reacted against the perceived norms of modernist literature has been termed postmodern literature, even as it extended many of the fundamental techniques and assumptions of modern literature (see modernism, postmodernism). ...
Structuralism is a general approach in various academic disciplines that explores the inter-relationships between fundamental elements of some kind, upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, cultural etc structures are built, through which then meaning is produced within a particular person, system, culture. ...
Post-structuralism is a term used to describe mostly French language scholarship that emerged in the mid- to late 1960s to challenge the primacy of structuralism in the human sciences: anthropology, psychoanalysis, history, literary criticism, and philosophy. ...
The issues at stake in these differences of approach have to do with the following: most children's literature critics aim to learn how children read literature specifically (rather than the mechanics of reading itself) so that they can recommend "good books" for children. This is where children's literature criticism started out historically in being practised by teachers and librarians and other educationalists. However, problems occur in that it turns out that these critics keep disagreeing about what books they think children will like, and why, and also about which books will be "good" for children and why. As children's literature criticism started developing as an academic discipline (roughly in the past thirty years or so, see historical overviews by Hunt (1991) and McGillis (1997) for instance), traditional critical approaches became ever-more challenged. Children's literature criticism became involved with wider work in literary theory and cultural studies. Many children's literature critics now point out that children are not one group, but differ according to gender, ethnicity, religious background, and so on. Feminist children's literature critics such as Lissa Paul (1987) therefore try and work out how boys and girls read differently, for instance. Other critics (for instance, Peter Hunt (1991), Perry Nodelman (1992), John Stephens (1992), and Roderick McGillis (1996)) take this idea a step further and argue that children are often "colonized" by adults, including children's literature critics, because adults speak on behalf of the child instead of letting the child express itself. However, these critics too can not agree on what then is the "true" child expressing itself, and which books are therefore "good" for it. Finally, a few critics, notably Jacqueline Rose (1984) and Karin Lesnik-Oberstein (1994 and 2004) take this discussion even further, arguing that identities are created and not "inherent", and that in the case of an identity such as "childhood" it is created by "adults" in the light of their own perceptions of themselves. That is, "adulthood" defines "childhood" in relation to differences and similarities it perceives to itself. This post-structuralist approach is similar to that argued by critics in gender studies such as Judith Butler. This view is very controversial in children's literature criticism, but is already more widely accepted and used in sociological and anthropological studies of childhood (Jenks 1996; Jenks, James and Prout 1997). Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ...
Cultural studies combines sociology, literary theory, film/video studies, and cultural anthropology to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. ...
Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and...
Gender studies is a theoretical work in the social sciences or humanities that focuses on issues of sex and gender in language and society, and often addresses related issues including racial and ethnic oppression, postcolonial societies, and globalization. ...
Judith Butler (b. ...
Sociology is the study of the social lives of humans, groups and societies. ...
Anthropology (from the Greek word άνθρωπος = human) consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo). ...
A male Caucasian toddler child A child (plural: children) is a young human. ...
References
- Hunt, Peter (1991). Criticism, Theory, and Children's Literature, Oxford:Blackwell. ISBN 0631162313.
- Hunt, Peter (1996). International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, London:Routledge. ISBN 0415088569.
- Jenks, Chris (1996). Childhood, London:Routledge.
- Jenks, Chris, Allison James and Alan Prout (1997). Theorizing Childhood, Oxford:Blackwells.
- Lesnik-Oberstein, Karin (1994). Children's Literature: Criticism and the Fictional Child, Oxford:Clarendon Press.
- Lesnik-Oberstein, Karin (2004). Children's Literature: New Approaches, London: Palgrave.
- McGillis, Roderick (1996). The Nimble Reader: Literary Theory and Children's Literature, New York: Twayne Publishers.
- Chambers, Aidan (1980). "The Reader in the Book" C.Carpelan, A.Parpola P.Koskikallio (ed.) The Signal Approach to Children's Books, pp. 250–275, Metuchen: Scarecrow.
- Neumeyer, Peter (1977). A Structural Approach to the Study of Literature for Children, Elementary English, 44: 883–887.
- Nodelman, Perry. Bibliography of Children's Literature Criticism. Title of Complete Work. URL accessed on October 26, 2005.
- Nodelman, Perry (1992). The Other: Orientalism, Colonialism, and Children's Literature, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 17: 29–35.
- Nodelman, Perry (1996). The Pleasures of Children's Literature, 2nd ed, New York:Longman. ISBN 080131576X.
- Paul, Lissa (1987). Enigma Variations: What Feminist Theory Knows about Children's Literature, Signal, 53: 186–201.
- Rose, Jacqueline (1992 (originally published 1984)). The Case of Peter Pan or the Impossibility of Children's Fiction, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Stephens, John (1992). Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction, London: Longman.
- Stevenson, Deborah (1994). 'If You Read This Last Sentence, It Won't Tell You Anything': Postmodernism, Self-Referentiality, and The Stinky Cheese Man, Signal, 19: 32–34.
October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 66 days remaining. ...
2005 (MMV) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
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