童年叙事的觉醒与儿童文学批评的自觉:英语儿童文学批评的发轫

Revisiting the Golden Age of Childhood Narrative:the Genesis of English Literary Criticism of Children's Literature

19世纪维多利亚时代被称为儿童文学的黄金时代,这是因为人类社会首次出现了儿童本位和艺术自觉的童年叙事共同体。这一时期产生了数量众多,艺术品质十分卓越的童年叙事作品,它们构成了有自觉意识的现代儿童文学主体之一,并且成为20世纪儿童文学批评和学科研究的基本前提之一。本文在前期研究的基础上进一步考察有自觉意识的儿童文学主体得以在维多利亚时期产生的时代因素,并由此探究这一主体与当代儿童文学批评之间形成的互动关系:前者是后者存在与发展的支柱,后者不仅阐明了前者作为独立文类的艺术品质,而且通过卓有建树的学术成就在大文学研究领域获得独立自洽的地位。从认识论视角考察英语儿童文学批评发展史,首先需要把握两者的关系,厘清20世纪以来英语儿童文学批评及学科研究的开端和发展,以及英语儿童文学批评方法论的前沿进展。

The Victorian era in the 19th century is known as the golden age of children's literature,because the child-oriented and artistically-conscious childhood narrative community has emerged for the first time in human society.During this period,a large number of childhood narrative works with excellent artistic quality were produced,which constituted modern conscious children's literature and became one of the basic premises of children's literary criticism and research in the 20th century.On the basis of previous studies,this paper further examines the specific historical factors that led to the emergence of the conscious children's literature in the Victorian era,and then explores the interactive relationship between children's literature and its relevant contemporary criticism:the former determines the existence and development of the latter,and the latter,not only clarifies the artistic quality of the former as an independent genre,but also gains itself an independent and self-consistent position in the field of general literary research through outstanding academic achievements.To study the history of English children's literary criticism from the perspective of epistemology,it is necessary to begin with,grasp the relationship between children's literature and its literary criticism,and clarify the genesis and development of English children's literary criticism and research since the 20th century,as well as the avant-garde progress of methodology in this domain.