Children's Literature- (Week five) The Tale of Peter Rabbit

1.  The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Ø   Author: Beatrix Potter

Ø   Animal fantasy

Ø   Summary: Young Peter Rabbit as he is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile tea.

Ø   Character:

Ø  Understatement輕描淡寫：Your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.

PS.世界三大奇幻文學：魔界、納尼亞傳奇、地海傳奇

2. ID （what is that? What is that for? Example?）

n   什麼是兒童文學？

Ø  What is that?

Children's Literature can be broadly defined as anything that children read or more specifically defined as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama intended for and used by children and young people.

Ø  What is that for?

Children, like adults, read to explore the world, to escape the confining present, to discover themselves, to become someone else.

Ø  Example:

ü   picture books - Books includes lots of pictures.

ü  fairy tales- A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features European folkloric fantasy characters.

ü  fables- Fable is a succinct fictional story that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as verbal communication) and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson.

ü  nursery rhymes- Nursery rhyme is used for traditional poems and songs for young children.

ü  fantasy/ adventure (genre) - Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting.

ü   realistic fiction- realistic fiction is part of the realist art movement.

n   Onomatopoeia

Ø  What is that?

Onomatopoeia is a word that phonetically imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.

Ø  Example:

drip 小水滴; drop 大水滴; croak 青蛙叫

n   寓言：Fable, Allegory, Parable(political政治寓言)

Ø  What is that?

Fable is a succinct fictional story that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as verbal communication) and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson.

Ø  Example:〈王爾德巨人的花園〉、〈快樂王子〉

n   Fantasy

Ø  What is that?

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary plot element, theme, or setting.

n   Bildungsroman教育小說

Ø  What is that?

A Bildungsroman novel is a novel of formation, education, or coming-of-age story, and it is a literary genre(文學流派) that focuses on the psychological(心理的) and moral growth of the protagonist(主角) from youth to adulthood, in which character change is extremely important.

Ø  Example:〈少年維特的煩惱〉、〈夏綠蒂的網〉

n   Epistolary novel書信體小說:

Ø  What is that?

An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.

Ø  Example:〈Letters of a Portuguese Nun〉 〈Mme Marie Jeanne Riccoboni's Letters of Fanni Butlerd (1757)〉