The Functions Of Nursery Rhymes In Alice's Adventures In Wonderland And Through The Looking-Glass

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are two classics in children's literature by Lewis Carroll, the master in literature as well. In children's literature, the two Alice works have played an important role—in the history of children's literature, the whole period of 19th century was called"Alice's Period"which can show the significance of the two books.From the publication of the two books, there are many studies and researches on them all over the world. And most of the reviews are on translation, genre, linguistics, initiation, writing features and characters. However, the two Alice works were written for children originally; therefore, the focus of the two books is supposed to be on children. This thesis intends to show the nursery rhymes in the two Alice works and the function of them in the two books to explore the author's view on children which is children-centered.This thesis consists of three parts—the introduction, the body part and a conclusion.The introduction part is a brief summary of the author and the two Alice books, the literature review at home and abroad and the relevant theories.The body part is made up in three chapters.Chapter One is about the nursery rhymes in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass respectively and how the rhymes are used by Lewis Carroll. Chapter Two analyzes the reasons why the author put nursery rhymes in his two books.There are three reasons: the first reason is the feature and advantage of the nursery rhymes; the second one is related to the author's life experience; and the third one is related to the ideas that influenced on the author.Chapter Three explores the functions of the nursery rhymes in the two Alice works from three aspects: the relation between nursery rhymes and chidren's reading interest; the relation between nursery rhymes and children's cognition and the relation between nursery rhymes and children's imagination.The last part is the conclusion which summarizes the reasons and functions of nursery rhymes in the two Alice works and appeals for more attention to children's development.