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ادبیات کودک1


Children’s Literature
, writings designed to appeal to children—either to be read to them or by them—including fiction, poetry, biography, and history. Children's literature also includes riddles, precepts, fables, legends, myths, and folk poems and folktales based on spoken tradition. Works of ancient literature, such as the stories by Greek poet
Homer
, are often adaptable to children's reading because of their simple narrative forms.[/b]


[i]Until the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century) the main sources of children's literature in the Western world were the
Bible
and the Greek and Latin classics. The expansion of literacy following the invention of
printing
in the 15th century increased the range of children's literature, and subsequently national history became a fresh subject for young readers. After the 18th century, archaeologists, philologists, and anthropologists added material from Asian and tribal cultures and European folklore. This article discusses developments in English and American literature for children.[

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With the development of vernacular literature, particularly after the invention of printing, more children's books appeared. The publications of the first English printer, William Caxton, included the Book of Curtesye (1477), a collection of rhymes that sets forth rules of conduct for a “goodly chylde.” Eight years later Caxton printed Le Morte d'Arthur (1469-1470; The Death of Arthur) by English translator and compiler Sir Thomas Malory, which became the basis for later treatments of the Arthurian legends. Caxton also issued the beast fable Reynard the Fox (1481), translated from a Flemish version, and the Fables (1484) of Greek writer Aesop, translated from the French.

A new type of children's book, called the hornbook, appeared during the 16th century. It consisted of a printed page covered by a transparent sheet of horn and mounted on a square of wood with a handle at one end for the child to hold. Used for elementary instruction, the hornbook contained alphabets, the Lord's Prayer, Roman numerals, and the like. The chapbook, an unstitched pamphlet usually consisting of about 70 folded pages, appeared in the 17th century. Chapbooks, which were peddled from door to door throughout England, contained versions of popular literature ranging from nursery rhymes to medieval romances

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[i]Works of moral and religious instruction written for children gained increased importance under the influence of
Puritanism
in the 17th and 18th centuries. The New England Primer (1690), printed in Boston, Massachusetts, by English-born publisher and journalist Benjamin Harris, is a typical example. It contains a rhymed alphabet, tables of syllables, the Lord's Prayer, the
Apostles' Creed
, the
Ten Commandments
, and an account of the burning of a Protestant martyr at the stake. Preparation for possible sudden death and departure to the next world was a feature of the rhymes and stories in earlier editions of the Primer. Verses that became well known as a result of their inclusion in the Primer include the prayer “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” and the “Cradle Hymn” by English churchman
Isaac Watts
. Editions of The New England Primer were issued as late as the 19th century. The title of another contemporary children's book, Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes (1646), further indicates the religious tone of most of the children's literature of the period