11/23/2023 0 Comments Orbis pictus comenius wineKnowledge is broken down into items in an enumeration, no complex explanations are needed, and all the items are or seem equally accessible. As simple forms, not only do they offer a highly accessible means of auditory engagement but also lend themselves aptly to the well-arranged and memory-friendly presentation of reality. This is a first parallel between the list and children’s literature: their apparent simplicity. In her article on lists in British children’s poetry, Debbie Pullinger connects lists’ apparent simplicity with the typical young audience, seemingly performing a well-established move in children’s literature research (if it is simple, it is for children): “If the list can be seen as a relatively simple poetic form, then we might conjecture that children’s poets feel instinctively that it offers easy listening for unsophisticated ears” (Pullinger 2015, 208 Pullinger will modify this view very plausibly later in her article). Footnote 5 Their apparent simplicity of course lends itself well to pedagogical use. Lists work on an enumerative principle therefore, they are a relatively “simple” form. In its repetitions (“knees and toes”), rhymes (“toes”/ “nose”), catchy quality, and structure, this list is also a perfect example for the simplicity of a list. This seems to be the first function of lists: lists in children’s literature have educational purpose, they are didactic. This nursery rhyme may serve as an example for the kind of “curricular lists” mentioned above when performed with the accompanying gestures (pointing to the body parts in question in a kind of dance) it is meant to help toddlers or small children remember the names of parts of the body. The didactic function is also subverted in many lists (especially in texts for older children): many lists do not transfer knowledge or moral standards but play with concepts of narration. This chapter intends to show that this didactic function is very important even as it acknowledges that many lists for younger readers are also intended to serve as a source of enjoyment through their reliance on rhymes, sounds, and their typical creative play with language. Footnote 3 Similar to the perception of children’s literature as a whole, lists in children’s literature may be perceived as solely or mostly pedagogical in their function. The typical features of lists seem to parallel some of the characteristics of children’s literature itself, and this might be the reason why they are a recurrent technique in texts addressed to children and young adults. Footnote 2 This chapter will investigate their verbal and visual forms, their function, and processes of knowledge construction and aims to contribute toward a poetics of the list in children’s literature. Lists are a very common but not yet widely researched phenomenon in children’s literature.
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