The Aesthetic Education Functions Of The Wind In The Willows To Children

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame has been considered for generations as one of the most poetical books in the history of British children's literature. Grahame's prose style can only be described as"beautiful", a simple but honest word. By incomparable craftsmanship in literary language, the author creates a small world of love and beauty through the description of beautiful natural scenery and the little animal's sincere love to friends. In this dissertation, different kinds of beauty manifested in this book are studied from the perspective of aesthetic education of children. The argumentation part focuses on the thorough analysis of how The Wind in the Willow is helpful in enhancing children's aesthetic competence and cultivating their love for nature's beauty, man's beauty and literature's beauty.This dissertation consists of five parts. The first part gives a brief introduction to Kenneth Grahame and his masterpiece The Wind in the Willows, followed by literature review of this book. Then the topic of the thesis is put forward, namely The Wind in the Willows'aesthetic education functions to children. At the end of this part is a general introduction to aesthetic education of children.The second part, Chapter One, makes it clear that various sorts of natural beauty in this book can delight children, enrich their knowledge and broaden their vision, thus cultivating their love for nature.The third part, Chapter Two, presents a complete exploration of man's beauty, including good qualities, excellent moral characters and noble emotions. The brave, righteous and warm-hearted animals understand, care about and help their friends, making children realize the importance of man's beauty.The fourth part, Chapter Three, elaborates the beauty of language in this book, including imaginal beauty and musical beauty. The author's skillful word selection and ingenuous use of rhetorical devices create a large number of concrete and perceptible images. In addition, by the use of onomatopoeia, alliteration and perfect rhyme, the language in this book has strong sound effect and produces the beauty of musicality. In this way, children will discover the amazing power of literary language and gradually develop a strong liking for literature's beauty.In conclusion, this dissertation summarizes how The Wind in the Willows is beneficial for cultivating children to love nature's beauty, man's beauty and literature's beauty. Reading this book is believed to be an effective method to carry out aesthetic education to children. In the end, it is emphasized that this dissertation can suggest a fresh perspective to appreciate this classic work.