In recent years, literary research, including children’s literature research, has tended to be too keen on grand theoretical narratives and ignore specific text interpretations. Although advanced theoretical creation may win the praise of professional researchers, it also makes general Keeping readers at a distance and providing professional and accessible theoretical explanations for readers’ literary understanding is an important line of literary research that should not be ignored. Adults play the role of "intermediary" and "gatekeeper" in the process of children's literature acceptance. Teachers, parents and social workers engaged in promoting children's reading are important components of children's literature readers. This special group of readers is particularly in need Based on the theoretical literacy of text understanding, this article explores the aesthetic personality of children's literature that is different from adult literature through specific text analysis, and strives to make the theoretical interpretation of literature help adult readers of children's literature better understand children's literature and become a part of childhood literary life. excellent builder.
1. Imagination of the world of pure childlike innocence
Children who have not yet been fully socialized are less likely to be adversely affected by the environment and show pure and sincere mental characteristics. They often look at the adult world with curiosity, perceive the things around them with a clear mind, and gradually form a basic understanding of the world. Childlike innocence is sincere and frank. This understanding of children's spiritual characteristics has a relatively rich history in the history of human thought. Li Zhi believes: "A childlike heart is absolutely pure and pure, and it is the original intention of the first thought. If you lose your childish heart, you will lose your true heart, and if you lose your true heart, you will lose your real person. If a person is not true, he will no longer have the beginning."[1] ("Children's Innocence") Lu Xun said: "Children are often reluctant to 'cheat', and they don't like rumors when hearing stories. Anyone who pays a little attention to children's psychology knows this." [2] ("Twenty-Four Filial Piety Pictures") ) British Romantic poets are even more praising the beauty of childlike innocence. In the preface to his masterpiece "Song of Innocence", Blake integrated children with sacred poetic images such as lambs and angels, highlighting the universal human nature of innocent childlike innocence. significance. “Romantic poets used praising innocent children to resist the social trend of using inorganic materialism to alter human nature, because in their eyes, children are the symbols and representatives of human beings’ original sensibility and imagination.” [3] The innocence of childlike innocence is It is an important perspective for us to examine the aesthetic personality of children's literature. The childlike world shown in children's literature also provides a very unique reference for reviewing various issues in the adult world.
Of course, we should also see that innocence is not enough to describe the entire world of childlike innocence. Childhood life in the real world takes on different shapes due to differences in society, culture and other aspects. For specific individuals, factors such as family economic conditions, living environment, education level, and parents’ cultural level also determine the trajectory of children’s spiritual growth in different ways. In addition to innocence and kindness, the world of childlike innocence also contains negative elements such as jealousy, vanity, and dishonesty. As children grow older, the complexity of children's spiritual world also increases. The innocent aesthetic personality presented in children's literature is, on the one hand, based on the writer's grasp of the characteristics of childhood life. On the other hand, it also embodies the aesthetic ideal of adults who hope to give poetic color to childhood life through literary aesthetic activities. The children's literature works full of innocence and beauty created by the writer through the beautiful imagination of the childlike world are an indispensable spiritual comfort for the imperfect real childhood life. The innocent innocence shown in children's literature is often associated with the theme of love. The love between parents and children, the love of partners and the love of nature are the most common themes in children's literature.
Parent-child love is the most primitive and profound emotion in the world, and it is also the most realistic emotional experience for young children. In the British picture book "Guess How Much I Love You" (written by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jielang), the little rabbit expresses his love for his mother through body movements such as opening his arms, standing on his head, and jumping, but the mother The same body movements can always be used to show that the mother's love for the child is far more than the child's love for the mother. The two rabbits use the extent of their limbs to express the extent of their love for each other. This action-rich expression is something that children are happy to accept. When the body movements were not enough to fully express their deep love, they turned their attention to the distant river. The little rabbit told his mother: "I love you from this path to the other side of the river." The mother's answer was: "I love you, across that river, and over that mountain." The sleepy little rabbit looked at the moon in the night sky with its hazy sleepy eyes, and made what it thought was the most profound confession: "I love you." , as high as the moon."
Unexpectedly, my mother's answer was even more touching: "I love you, as high as the moon, and back again." So innocent, romantic and full of wisdom. The dialogue expresses the most innocent mother-child relationship in the world in a touching and meaningful way. Such a description embodies adults' beautiful imagination of maternal love. There may be a certain gap between this imagination and children's true feelings of maternal love. To bridge this gap in specific reading activities, the narrator needs to accurately grasp the children's feelings. aesthetic psychological characteristics, and make appropriate adjustments to the narrative strategy accordingly.
Partnership is one of the most important activities for children outside of their family life. Establishing harmonious and friendly relationships with peers of the same age is a preview of their future good life, and it is also their need to obtain positive emotional experiences. Fang Yiqun's fairy tale "The Carrot Is Back" presents this kind of companionate love in a very unique way.
A group of animals were looking for food in the cold winter. The little rabbit found two radishes, one large and one small, in the snow. It left the big radish to its hungry friend, the monkey. Thus, a radish with friendship began a wonderful and heart-warming journey. As the simple plot evolved in a loop, the radish passed through the relay of the little monkey, the little deer and the little bear, and finally returned to the little rabbit. Since its publication in 1955, the work has been widely disseminated and has been adapted into cartoons and picture books. This story was adapted by American fairy tale author George Shannon, illustrated by Laura Dronzek, and published in the United States in the form of a picture book in 2007. This heartwarming friendship story has been accepted by young readers from different cultural backgrounds.
Human beings are children of nature, and children have a closer relationship with nature. They have great curiosity and desire to explore the ever-changing natural phenomena.
Because they still lack the ability to rationally explain natural phenomena, they often project their strange fantasies into the natural environment around them, treating all natural things as friends with whom they can communicate emotionally, making them Various natural phenomena present a pure and transparent poetic beauty. This feature can be seen in "Little Tree" by Taiwanese children's poet Lin Wuxian.
The newly planted small tree in the yard/The leaves are falling one by one. Maybe he is homesick/I can’t help crying. I invite the small tree to drink water every day/The butterflies fly for him and the sparrows sing for him. / The breeze also gently comforted him and he had so many friends who cared about him / The little tree gradually liked this new home and quietly stretched out its green buds / Smiled, under the warm sunshine. This poem describes a child and his newly transplanted child. To the emotional exchange between the small trees in the yard. The little tree shed its leaves because of homesickness. Accompanied by the dancing of butterflies, the singing of sparrows, the caress of the breeze and my care, the little tree finally fell in love with its new home. The emotions expressed in the poem are consistent with children's real emotional experience. Children like Xiaoshu who have left home almost all have the same experience of crying and homesickness similar to the little tree in the poem. The poem brings an emotional impact to young readers. of comfort.
2. Artistic presentation of children’s naive cognitive characteristics
Young children’s understanding of the world is ignorant. They have not yet separated themselves from the environment and often put their own Subjective feelings are extended to the surrounding living and non-living things, forming the characteristics of self-centered thinking.
Lack of life experience, weak cognitive ability, and insufficiently developed logical thinking, etc. These elements that are considered insufficient in the perspective of developmental psychology are precisely the basic elements that constitute the childish beauty of children's literature, especially infant literature. condition. The beauty of childishness is the beauty of cute stupidity. This kind of "silliness" is not a low level of intelligence, but a variety of aesthetic expressions of children in a state of vague understanding during the development of cognitive ability.
In Bingbo's miniature fairy tale "The Little Duck Eats Stars", a little duck saw many stars in the night sky and in the pond, so he jumped into the pond and ate the stars, and he was very proud of it. The little duck was surprised to find that the stars it had eaten filled the pond again. It looked at the sky and the pond, filled with doubts. This kind of curiosity and doubt about natural phenomena is a unique mental state of young children who are relatively lacking in scientific knowledge. The conception of this fairy tale is based on the relative lack of cognitive abilities of young children. However, in order to make this deficiency into an aesthetic interest, it also depends on the writer to deduce a storyline that is enough to attract children readers. . Children's ignorance of things is only an opportunity for the emergence of childish beauty, and real aesthetic taste arises from reasonable and ingenious explanations of this ignorant behavior. Zhang Qiusheng's children's poem "Butterfly Reading Fragrant Newspaper" also provides a good example for us to understand the beauty of childishness.
In the early morning, a butterfly stopped on the rose flower in front of the window.
She paused for a long time.
My younger brother said: "Little Butterfly is reading a delicious newspaper!"
I said: "What is the newspaper saying?"
My younger brother Said: "It's probably a very interesting fairy tale."
I said: "What is the fairy tale about?"
My younger brother said: "I'm sorry, I don't know their characters. ! ”
To transform natural scenes such as morning light, flowers, and butterflies into a poetic image full of childlike interest in an excellent children’s poem, the poet needs to have an accurate understanding of the mental characteristics of children and unique language expression force. Butterflies falling in love with flowers is a very common natural landscape. The poet started from the perspective of a child's imagination and described it as a butterfly reading a fragrant newspaper. The content of the newspaper is a fairy tale that the child likes. This is in line with the imagination of young readers. It is consistent with literary experience. When further asked about the specific content of the fairy tale, the child gave an amazing answer: "Sorry, I don't know their characters!" Young children have not yet systematically literate, and this is a sign of language ability. There are not enough items, and it is this deficiency that makes this children's poem uniquely childish.
"Baby" by Bulgarian writer Dimitri Igu is also a masterpiece that expresses the beauty of childishness.
The story tells that after the children saw their neighbor Uncle Tongni getting married, his beautiful wife quickly gained weight. The children began to worry about their favorite Uncle Tongni: If his wife continues to be so fat, Tongni will My uncle has no place to sleep. When he goes out to drive, the car will definitely be tilted. There is a description in the work:
"Will you marry such a fat wife in the future?" Lara asked me.
“No!”
“Me too!” she said.
Uncle Tongni didn't seem to be affected by his wife being so fat at all. They walked hand in hand, as if they didn't know that she was the fattest woman on the street. This totally confused us. Poor Uncle Tongni!
Lala thinks: "Love is blind."
I want to know why love is blind, but Lala doesn't know either.
When the children finally learned that Uncle Tongni’s wife was going to have a baby, they actually thought they were the only ones in the whole building who knew why Uncle Tongni’s wife had gained weight, and secretly swore to keep this secret. All the fun of the story comes from the ignorance of the two children about marriage and childbirth, but this ignorance is not absolute. The words "love is blind" obviously come from the words of adults, although the children do not understand this. The true meaning of the sentence, but I vaguely feel that there is some connection between it and Uncle Tongni's "experience". The author found the best node to construct the story in the cognitive state of children's interaction between "understanding" and "not understanding", and expressed the unique naivety of young children in an interesting and appropriate way.
The beauty of childishness is an aesthetic feature that is most consistent with the mental characteristics of young children. However, the childish expression presented in the text is not completely equivalent to the real cognitive level of the child readers. The difference between the two does not constitute an obstacle to reading, and only when the latter is slightly higher than the former can the childish beauty be readily accepted by young readers. Children who like "Little Ducks Eat Stars" are not ignorant of the knowledge of reflection. Readers attracted by "Baby" may not have much knowledge about marriage, but they are not likely to make such an order like the children in the story. Things that make people laugh. In the information-based social environment, the space and channels for children to obtain knowledge have been greatly expanded, providing more favorable conditions for the development of their cognitive abilities, but this does not prevent them from appreciating the naive beauty in children's literature. This also shows from one aspect that the first importance of literature is aesthetic rather than cognitive.
3. Joyful, dynamic and humorous writing tone
Young children are cared for by their elders and do not need to bear family and social responsibilities, so they have more leisure time for games. People often use poetic words such as "joy", "happiness" and "romantic" to describe their childhood life, and the children's literature that serves them is also called "happy literature". The joyful atmosphere of children's literature is often accompanied by children's body movements. Young children have the mental characteristics of body and mind. Their aesthetic grasp of things relies more on the participation of the body. This is a difference between children and adults in the aesthetic way. significant difference. /ertongwx/51321.html
American psychologist Gardner once used his daughter as an example to describe the process of young children understanding beauty through physical participation: When he and his daughter were playing at the beach, they found a shell. He picked it up and asked his daughter if the shell looked good. To his surprise, his daughter did not express her opinion in words, but snatched the shell and stuffed it into her mouth. Gardener believed that the child "obviously felt that the shell was beautiful." The shell was beautiful enough to be worth picking up. However, she did not appreciate it from a distance. She tried to understand the shell in the most understandable way for her - putting it in her mouth... Her method has no aesthetic attitude and is too arbitrary. "[4] In line with children's physical and mental development, children's literature also shows a cheerful and dynamic character in its overall writing tone. In Yingzi's children's story "The Magic Stick", children imagine the bamboo stick as a horse, get on the stick and gallop in the yard; they think of the bamboo stick as a car, and they become majestic drivers. . With the imagination flying, airplanes, spaceships, golden cudgels, etc. can all evolve from an ordinary bamboo stick in an instant, allowing them to control them freely. Children are immersed in a fantasy world built by subjective desires, completely breaking the boundaries between subject and object, eliminating all constraints of the real world, and fully demonstrating the joy and happiness of the original state of individual life.
Children's aesthetics are closely related to various physiological needs. The joyful atmosphere of children's literature is sometimes created in the process of satisfying children's physiological needs. Luo Dali's "Ice Cream Palace" shows children's wonderful imagination of satisfying their appetites. The fairy tale depicts an ice cream building built in the center of the square. Everything from the roof, chimney to doors, windows, and furniture are made of candies, preserves, and ice cream. Such a gourmet palace naturally attracts countless greedy children. Some children licked the table legs until they melted, and continued to lick the sweet and delicious chocolate under the collapsed table. The window made of strawberry ice cream melted, and a group of children ate every drop of the sweet juice. Such a scene of enjoying delicious food happily is extremely attractive to children. In addition to satisfying children's normal appetite, food also conveys the psychological desire to integrate the eaten food with themselves to obtain physical pleasure.
Such themes in children's literature actually play a compensatory role, allowing children to satisfy their appetites in an imaginative way during the literary aesthetic process.
The joyful atmosphere of children's literature may not always be presented in a dynamic manner. Sometimes it can also be conveyed through a relatively static humor style. Zheng Chunhua's short story "Red Apron" is a masterpiece with humor and joy. Mom is the busiest person in the family and likes to wear a red apron to do housework. When the apron mother stops in the kitchen, a table of delicious food is ready; when the apron mother stops on the balcony, the family's dirty clothes are cleaned. Bamboo poles were hung on the ground to dry. One day, my mother's beloved red apron suddenly disappeared. It turned out that in order to celebrate my mother's birthday, my father decided to show off his cooking skills and hid the red apron. My father was busy in the kitchen for a while before bringing out a bowl. noodle. This storyline seems a bit bland, but in fact it is all preset for the dialogue between mom and dad at the end: "Mom in the apron eats birthday noodles, which are delicious, fast and happy. The husband asked: 'How does it taste?' 'My mother in the apron said: 'Great! Great!
Just no salt...'" Dad's proud expression and mother's quiet ridicule created a unique humorous effect. The warmth and happiness of family life can be revealed naturally.
We can regard children's literature as happy literature, but this should not become a rigid aesthetic dogma. Children's spiritual outlook is rich and diverse, and childhood life is by no means a perfect utopia. The need to face various challenges from the environment and interpersonal relationships will also produce emotions such as loneliness, isolation, and helplessness. Lin Liang's "Mushroom" is a children's poem that expresses lonely emotions: "Mushrooms are / lonely little pavilions / only on rainy days / frogs come to take shelter / on sunny days the frogs go away / the pavilion is deserted and deserted." The anthropomorphic image in the poem Very similar to children in real life.
4. The literary world constructed by simple language
Literature is the art of language, and the unique aesthetic personality of children's literature is largely determined by its language. As an adult writer, it is a challenge that cannot be underestimated to create art in a language that is different from the spiritual characteristics of his subject and yet acceptable to young lives. When Lu Xun was translating "Biao" by Panteleev from Russia, he said: "I wanted to make it accessible to children around ten years old without using any difficult words. However, as soon as I started the translation, I immediately hit a snag. Children I know too little about it to convey the meaning of the original text, so the translation is still inaccurate.” [5] Although such a confession contains elements of Lu Xun’s self-effacement, it also reflects the author or the translator from one aspect. The special difficulties that readers encounter when entering the language world of children. Lao She criticized writers for ignoring the characteristics of children's language. He wrote in the article "The Language of Children's Drama": "We adults sometimes just want to use the vocabulary we have mastered, and we can talk a lot in one sentence, but ignore the other aspects. We may think that we don’t need to go into depth when writing for children.” [6] Taiwanese children’s literature writer Lin Liang regards children’s literature as “the art of simple language”. People who write children's literature should give up their original writing skills and look for a new language with a different nature. "Every children's literature writer must have the ability to use 'light language' to write literary works. This means that he must know how to use all the literary techniques he knows in 'light language writing'... in' Before literary skills are connected with "light language", you must first have the ability to write "light language". Only in this way can your literary cultivation skills have a place to rely on." [7] We can start from the following three aspects. Understand the aesthetic personality of children's literature as "the art of shallow language".
1． Rhythm
Human beings have the innate ability to express thoughts and feelings through the natural rhythm of language. Children's songs written in rhyme are the most popular literary style among children. There is a high degree of consistency between the rhythm of children's songs and children's mental characteristics of physically participating in cognitive activities. At the same time, rhyming literature can also effectively stimulate children's language learning potential. In a sense, the value of the rhyme and rhythm flowing in children's songs and poems even exceeds the meaning of the poems. Lullaby is an art form that best embodies the beauty of rhythm and integrates music and literature. Feeling the soft humming from the mother's mouth becomes the earliest artistic nourishment in life. The lyrics of folk lullabies are simple and not fixed, and can be added or deleted at will by the hummer. After children's literature became a conscious literary category, lullabies, as a special art form of children's songs, also entered the field of writer's creation. In terms of the conciseness of the verses and the richness of the connotation, Compared with folk lullabies, they have made great progress. The improvement of the literary quality of lullabies has provided hummers with better texts to express love. However, what infants can accept is still only love and security. Soft rhythm.
2． Narrative
Young children do not yet have the ability to systematically read text. "Listening and appreciation" has become an important way for them to receive literature. Can a positive interaction be established between the narrator, the text and the recipient? The relationship determines the effectiveness of literature listening activities. The language of children's literature is based on the daily spoken language that young children are familiar with, and is highly narratable, as if the author is having a live dialogue with the reader. The beginning of Sun Youjun's "The Adventures of Little Butou" embodies this stylistic feature.
Oh, children, if you keep interrupting like this, my story will be messed up! Now it's my turn to tell, so just stop talking. I'll start from the beginning and make sure to tell the story of Little Butou's adventure clearly and clearly. When I finish speaking, if there is anything I haven’t explained clearly, please ask again. Do you like it?
Okay! Everyone agrees, then I will start talking. Listen.
This style of writing is inseparable from the writer’s distinct awareness of readers. During the writing process, Sun Youjun constantly told the children around him the story he was conceiving, and wrote the story based on the audience’s reactions. Make adjustments.
The world's classic children's literature masterpieces such as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Pippi Longstocking" are all driven by children's strong desire to hear stories. The authors first give oral narrations on the spot, and then Only then was it written down.
3. Repetition
Like repetition is a prominent feature of young children's acceptance of literature. Children lack enough strength to grasp the surrounding environment freely. The repetitive narrative method and regular scene reproduction in the story, It can allow young readers to have psychological expectations for changes in the plot, bring them physical and mental comfort and safety, and compensate for their sense of powerlessness when facing the environment. At the same time, repeated narratives also help them master vocabulary meanings and syntactic rules, and gain opportunities for language learning. The picture book "The Fifth" (written by Yandel, illustrated by Jung) very typically embodies the repetitive narrative characteristics of children's literature, especially children's literature.
The initial scene of the story shows young readers five injured toys sitting in the aisle outside the room under dim light. Then a ladybug toy walked out of the open door and sat at the end. The penguin sitting near the door walked into the room, and the other four toys continued to wait on their seats. The text that matches the picture is simple and repetitive: "The door opened, one came out. One went in. There are four left. The door opened, one came out. One went in. Three left..." When the last puppet walked in When entering the room, as the perspective of the screen changed, the secret in the room was revealed. It turned out that this was a clinic that treated toys. There was a kind doctor inside who was welcoming the toy "patients" who walked into the clinic. In such repetitive narrative language, young readers experience the possible development direction of the story and guess the secrets hidden in that room.
5. Conclusion
The aesthetic personality of children’s literature is determined by the particularity of children’s cognitive level, language development and aesthetic psychology. Children's literature in a broad sense is divided into infant literature, childhood literature and juvenile literature according to age levels to adapt to the literary aesthetic needs of children of different ages. The aesthetic characteristics of the three levels of literature have both similarities and differences. The aesthetics of children's literature explained above is from the four aspects of the creator's childlike imagination, the cognitive characteristics of the object of expression, the writing tone and stylistic characteristics of the text. The degree of expression of personality in children's literature at different levels is different. This article selects the text of children's literature that is most different from adult literature as the object of analysis in order to better highlight children's literature as an independent literary category. Holistic aesthetic personality.