Font Size: a A A

Contemporary Children's Literature In Great Cultural Revolution A Study On History Of Contemporary Children's Literature In 1966-1976

Posted on:2010-07-15Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:X M DuFull Text:PDF
GTID:1115360272999125Subject:Chinese Modern and Contemporary Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
After the enlarged meeting of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in May 1966, China has ushered in the stage of the Great Cul-tural Revolution the ten years of domestic chaos. It is the most chaotic time since the Foundation of the People's Republic of China: the social-ism modernization construction of China has been derailed, the spirit of the Chinese people was chaotic, and lots of people even lost their lives. Under the general policy of the Great Cultural Revolution, the educa-tional cause, publishing, literary and artistic creation have been hit hard. During this stage, there's a historical break in the Chinese artistic creation, the literature and art developed with hard difficulty, so was the children's literature. In summary relative to the literature for adults (only model drama and the novel of Hao Ran) the Children's literature, the children's literature was better than none.During 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, the general situation of Chi-nese children's literature as follows: the first half of 1966, there's 44 chil-dren's literature monographs, 4 children's periodicals and 1 children's news paper. Although the number is small, in that time it was very pre- cious. Until the second half of 1969, all the public publication including the children's literature had almost ceased publication. Only in Shanghai there's 1 children's periodical and 1 children's news paper. Until the end of the Great Cultural Revolution in 1976, children's literature increased slowly. In 1970 there's 2 new children's journal and 34 new children's monographs; In 1971 there's 3 new children's journal and 19 new chil-dren's monographs. Since 1972, ZhouEnlai hosted the State Council, the development of the children's literature was back to normal, in that year there's 21 children's news papers, 55 children's literature monographs, in 1974 there's 1 new 4 children's periodical, in total 88 children's literature monographs. In 1974 there's 1 new children's periodical, in total 107 children's literature monographs; In 1975 and 1976 the number is 184 and 120. And in the major newspapers and periodical there's some children's literature at times during the Cultural Revolution.However, the certain number of works of children's literature was not the accomplishment of children's literature in that time. As the chil-dren's literature, it effects on education of children, raise awareness of thinking, entertaining function and aesthetic function. The significance of children's literature is not only teaching children to learn and read but also an excellent way for children to develop imagination and imagina-tion. The children's literature should become the created fertile ground for children learning kindness, beauty and truth. The number of works of children's literature was not little, but under the political background, the children's literature could not positive effect on it should be.In the Cultural Revolution, the dominant ideological stresses the fact of children is important to the realization of Communism, stresses the culturing socialism successors and the fighting over younger generation. Under this policy, children's literature had an important position. Because the political importance of children's literature, it has caused lots of aca-demic disputes and political criticalness in the area of theory of children's literature creation. During the Cultural Revolution children's literature presented the marked tendency of politics.At the time of the Cultural Revolution, the creation of children's lit-erature refers to current political situation. Theme of children's literature essentially was political struggle. Both in poem and story, the features of children's literature works references to"Criticize the Historical Revi-sionism of Liu Shao Qi","Condemn Lin Biao and Confucius","Con-demn legalists and Confucianism","Condemn stream of reverse the ver-dict of rightism"and other political movement and incident. The heroes in the children's literature were always workers, peasants and soldiers. The theory of model drama was the guiding theory of children's literature. To build proletariat hero is the primary task of socialistic children's lit-erature during that time. During the Cultural Revolution, the children's literature was full of child insurrectionists, "Little Red Guard" and sub- versive child hero.The Class struggle theory was guiding theory of children's literature at the during The Great Cultural Revolution, stressed that,"must use the standpoint of Marxism, the viewpoint and the method to describe the life of children, children's literature must link up children's life with the social life, it should correctly reflect the class struggle and policy struggle","Teach children with Marxism, Leninism and Maoism"these wrong principle disrupted the enjoyment and literariness of children's literature seriously.The creation of children's literature during Cultural Revolution as opposed to the "golden age" in 1949-1965 is a blank age. It was small in quantity and poor quality. Although there were lots of literary genre, in-cluding novels, poetry, essays, fables, fairy tales, stories, drama and other genres, but the ratio was not balanced. Because fairy tales, fables, folk tales and scientific literature could not link with class struggle, there were very few works been published. The chant became the tool of political movement, poetry, drama, essays and reportage were very few too, only children's novel were better. Sins 1970's some author began to write novel about revolutionary war hero, hero of production, and there also published the collection of short story. The artistic form of children's lit-erature in journals was always comic story. Although the number of works was very few, but the story were intrusting, and the topic were "just defeated the evil", or"light against darkness", these topic inspired the children to pull through, it was better to educate children.The creation of Children's poetry was not totally interrupted during the Cultural Revolution while the professional writers had been perse-cuted. During the Cultural Revolution in children's literature in mono-graphs, periodicals and newspapers there still lots of works written by amateur writer. Collective, amateur and children also joined the teams of creative poetry. The themes of poetry included the praise of new China leader, children in revolutionary struggle, international subject matters, class struggle and also the happiness life of children.The Basic character of children's poetry during the Cultural Revolu-tion was little care about child psychology and more slogans. Much po-etry was written by poetic language of adult. With the view of history of children's literature, at the time of Cultural Revolution the children's po-etry was at a low ebb, but not blank. Although basic character of chil-dren's poetry was strongly political utilitarian, there is a number of poet persisted pursuit of art from the reality and created poetry for children. These works were from the reality, focused on small things, but infectiv-ity and taught children formative education of aesthetics. This situation appeared at that time still very weak, but this is a good thing.Fairy tales and fables are the most popular children's books of lit-erature. But during the Cultural Revolution, because of political factors, the children's literature was focus on the theme of ideological struggle and political struggle. There're almost no artistic dimension and ideo-logical content in the fairy tales and fables. Fairy tales and fables were influenced by extreme leftism, the entertainment and humor of fairy tales always been totally neglected. Some writer stopped writing because of the guiding theory of children's literature relied heavily on political utili-tarian and education. Same was the children's fables.According to study on children's literature during 1966-1976, the children's literature during the Cultural Revolution has the following fea-tures: First, there're many genre of literature, the main genre was poetry. Second, there're few professional writers but lots of amateur writers. Third, the guiding theory of children's literature was closely related the political event and ideology. The children's literature at this time has the following major questions: First, the children's literature lacked the liter-ariness, childishness and children's interesting. Second, there're to much political language in the children's literature. Children's literature should weaken political and been created based on the childishness and literari-ness, it could develop better.
Keywords/Search Tags:The Cultural Revolution, Children's literature, Eight-Part Essay of The Gang of Four, model drama
PDF Full Text Request
Related items