Aesthetic Function Of Charlotte's Web As A Novel For Children

As a novel for children, Charlotte's Web has been popular with children and attracted adult readers as well by its unique charms since its publication. It still has great influence by now. As for the reason, Charlotte's Web has an aesthetic function which is different from that of other branches of literature. Wang Ruowang mentioned:"Children's Literature has four functions, that is, cognitive, educative, aesthetic and entertaining functions", while Wang Shide points out in the book Aesthetics that the aesthetic function of Children's Literature can be understood in the broad sense and the narrow sense, the former includes the latter and educational, cognitional and entertainment functions as well. Thus this paper will analyze the aesthetic function of Charlotte's Web according to the ideas of the two scholars mentioned above, and then explore how this literary work combines the four functions together in it and how it possesses and shows the unique aesthetic features of Children's Literature.This paper is divided into three chapters: Chapter One introduces the aesthetic function of Children's Literature. At first, this paper introduces how the term Children's Literature changes and develops along with the time since 1980s. That is also the process of people's unceasing deepening of their understanding about the term. Next, features of Children's Literature will be discussed with those of adult literature as contrast. Finally, the aesthetic function and its relation with other functions will be illustrated. This paper holds that the aesthetic function of Children's Literature can be understood in the broad sense and the narrow sense, the former includes the latter and three other functions as well.Chapter Two analyzes aesthetic functions of Charlotte's Web as a novel for children in the narrow sense. By analyzing the text, this paper tries to prove that as a novel for children, Charlotte's Web possesses the aesthetic features such as beauty in language, beauty in kindness and beauty in children's nature.Chapter Three analyzes aesthetic functions of Charlotte's Web as a novel for children in the broad sense and mainly discusses the educational function and the cognitional function. By analyzing the two functions and the text, this paper will show that as a novel for children, Charlotte's Web possesses two functions: educational and cognitional functions; the former includes social education and moral education and the latter includes knowledge about science and understanding of death. Charlotte's Web is one of the three children's books written by E. B. White, and the most popular one as well. Its charms affect young readers and adult readers. As a Children's Literature work, Charlotte's Web provided readers with not only aesthetic enjoyment but also social and scientific knowledge, and wisdom and inspiration.Therefore, the research on the function of the work is worthwhile, just as this literary work itself.