|
Author
|
Comment
|
Zoheb
Registered User
(3/20/05 3:58 am)
|
Counter Argument to Zipes?
Hi all, I am looking for evidence that fairy tales had more uses than to "indoctrinate children with culturally specific belief systems" - Zipes; Fairy Tales and the art of subversion.
I am looking for evidence that fairy tales were used purley to entertain children in the 17th Century.
I am also looking for evidence that disney animations are good for children and can have a positive effect?
Any help is welcome,
Thanks.
|
Terri Windling
Registered User
(3/20/05 9:39 am)
|
Re: Counter Argument to Zipes?
Well, I'm no help to you since I totally disagree that fairy tales were used purely to entertain children in the 17th century, which seems to me to be a rather broad statement. What fairy tales are you talking about; what country are you talking about? And do you mean oral tales, published tales or both? The famous fairy tales of 17th century France, for instance, (by Perrault, D'Aulnoy, Murat, etc.), were published largely for adult readers and definitely had an agenda beyond pure entertainment.
Can't help you in a defense of Disney either. While there are indeed some positive things in some of their animated treatments of fairy tales, for me, personally, the bad outweighs the good. But check the archives of this board for many discussions of Disney and fairy tales; it's a topic that has been discussed quite a lot. Heidi Ann Heiner, the wonderful webmistress of Surlalune, has conveniently put a FAQ page together of info on Disney and fairy tales (including links to the archived discussions) here: www.surlalunefairytales.com/introduction/disneyfairytales.html
Edited by: Terri Windling at: 3/20/05 9:45 am
|
Black Sheep
Registered User
(3/21/05 12:20 pm)
|
Re: Counter Argument to Zipes?
AFAIK in Britain in the 17th century there were infants (young enough not to be able to walk & talk coherently) and adults. "Childhood" didn't exist as a concept because children were seen as small adults. Young people who survived the "infant" stage were dressed as small adults and expected to behave as small adults. Check out museums of childhood and toy museums for more on this.
Anything can be interpreted as partly "good for children and can have a positive effect" but you'll have difficulty arguing that Disney animations are wholy or even mostly "good for children". Which children? Where? What about the children in developing world sweatshops who've been exploited to manufacture animation related merchandise? Was it "good" for them? Better than going to school and having a childhood of their own?
If you want to argue that "fairy tales" were used purely for entertainment then, depending on your definition of "fairy tales", you might want to consider chapbooks and characters such as Tom Thumb and Robin Goodfellow which, although they were aimed at the adults (with the money) would also have been read by the small adults/children.
|
Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(3/21/05 5:01 pm)
|
Pre-modern childhood
That's the Philip Aries argument about childhood, that it didn't really exist before the 19th century, and while it's become very popular and well-known, there's a slew of evidence against it as well. It's lost quite a bit of ground among pre-modern scholars, as far as I know.
|
Black Sheep
Registered User
(3/21/05 6:40 pm)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
I know nothing about the history of childhood so I bow to your analysis Veronica. I only know about children's stuff, such as chapbooks, where it intersects with my own interests.
Pre-modern? Would that be conversational "modern", historians' "modern", or art historians' "modern"? :b
I'm still giggling about when you (correctly) defined "contemporary" as extending about fifty years either way and I want to know how to do research fifty years into the future? ;)
|
AliceCEB
Registered User
(3/21/05 8:43 pm)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Crystal balls and time machines are time-honored sources, Black Sheep. Fortune cookies are somewhat unreliable. And the horoscope is a fabulous read into what's currently bugging the horoscope writer, but that's as far as I'd go.
:D
Alice
P.S. Sorry Zoheb for being utterly OT. :rolleyes
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 3/21/05 8:45 pm
|
Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(3/22/05 3:54 am)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Ah yes, the elusive "modern." Would you believe that among lit scholars the term "early modern" refers to...the Renaissance?! It's a thing. A thing I've never quite understood. I guess I meant pre-19th century and the rise of "modernity." But I was thinking of evidence from the 17th century and the middle ages.
Research into the future...as if my dissertation wasn't troublesome enough!
|
Black Sheep
Registered User
(3/22/05 12:23 pm)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Alice said: "the horoscope is a fabulous read into what's currently bugging the horoscope writer"
That rather obvious conclusion had never occurred to me Alice as I always assumed they were cunning exercises in generalisation but some of them are indeed probably keen psychological insights into their creator's state of mind (how embarrassing for them!).
I'm used to "early-modern" meaning, in English terms, Henry VIII through to the civil war Veronica. We're not supposed to have had anything as glamorous as a renaissance although I like to think of Elizabeth I as a renaissance woman in every possible sense of those words. I still find myself using "modern" in general conversation to mean contemporary and my brother is an artist so I end up talking to lots of people who mean first-half-of-the-twentieth-century when they use the word "modern". With a little care and attention we all seem to cope with our varying English languages in their multiple forms as English-like-wot-she-is-spoke.
Feel free to ignore us and take this thread back anytime Zoheb. :)
|
Chris Peltier
Registered User
(3/22/05 2:38 pm)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
To add my two cents worth: the Opies (authors of the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes) describe James Janeway's A Token For Children Part Two (1672) as being among the earliest English examples of "recreational reading" for children, but to consider it as purely recreational is a muddy question. The full title, which continues, "Being a Further Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives, and Joyful Deaths of Several Other Young Children, not published in the First Part", would support Zipes's theory of indoctrination. Janeway's book seems to belong to that tradition of "moral" stories focusing on the demise of children continued in Germany's Struwwelpeter, or Shock-headed Peter, explored most recently - and deliciously - by the band The Tiger Lilies.
~Chandra~
|
catja1
Registered User
(3/23/05 4:53 am)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Yeah, I've read some of the arguments against the Aries position; I think they have a point, in the sense that Aries is rather unilateral: "No such thing as children!" However, most children's lit scholars, and Romanticists as well, point out, rightfully I think, that no real cult of childhood existed before Romanticism; there may have been pre-nineteenth century forerunners of the heights (depths?) of Victorian childolatry, but they tended to not be as generally widespread, as fixated upon "innocence," or as mawkish as the ideas about childhood that we've inherited. Not that such attitudes didn't exist at all, just that they didn't occupy as prominent a part of popular culture as they later would, and not so much in those forms.
|
Terri Windling
Registered User
(3/23/05 8:05 am)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Off-topic (with apologies):
Chandra, can you tell us more about the Tiger Lilies?
|
Chris Peltier
Registered User
(3/23/05 7:50 pm)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Terri,
Welcome to the terrible, wonderful world of Martyn Jaques, Adrian Hughes, and Adrian Stout, otherwise known as the Tiger Lilies! The British band's music, with its mix of cabaret and punk sensibilities, was actually the perfect vehicle for the 19th century collection of cautionary tales known as Shock-Headed Peter. Their performance also included actors and puppets, with Martyn taking the stage in whiteface makeup.
The band was later contacted by Edward Gorey, a big fan who called them "the cat's pyjamas", and Gorey gave Martyn previously unpublished stories to set to music. This resulted in the CD, The Gorey End, and the booklet contains Gorey's illustrations. Martyn says of Gorey:
He also sent me a stone in a saucer saying if I stared at it for long enough it would turn into a frog. Sadly I never got to meet him, as he died just before I was due to fly out to Cape Cod for a visit, but I hope I have captured something of his wonderful and unique vision of the world.
I am still staring at the stone.....
The Tiger Lilies can be found at:
www.tigerlillies.com/2003/index.php
~Chandra~
|
Terri Windling
Registered User
(3/24/05 8:01 am)
|
Re: Pre-modern childhood
Thanks! I'll look them up.
|
