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The Limits of Literary Criticism of Children's and Young Adult Literature

1995; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 19; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/uni.1995.0008

1080-6563

Hans-Heino Ewers, J. D. Stahl,

Themes in Literature Analysis

The Limits of Literary Criticism of Children’s and Young Adult Literature* Hans-Heino Ewers (bio) I As I examined pertinent articles and essays of the past 10 years, I gained the impression that discussions about “aesthetic criticism of children’s and young adult literature” have been moving in circles. The controversies move between alternatives that are out of date and therefore no longer satisfactory. They present decisions that are less and less acceptable, alternatives that appear more and more as false oppositions. Aesthetics or didactic concerns, pedagogy or art, autonomy or utility—these appear to me to be alternatives that are less and less adequate to grasp the most recent developments of children’s and youth literature. These concepts are diminishing as conceptual distinctions that are helpful in our work of literary criticism. Whenever voices are raised for ch2ildren’s and young adult literature as art, whenever someone pleads for a “new aesthetic awareness” in this literary realm, whenever critics of children’s and young adult literature are implored to concentrate on aesthetic values and the judgment of artistic quality, in most cases categories and principles appear that point back unmistakably to the German educator Heinrich Wolgast (1860–1920). References to Wolgast’s essay “The Misery of Our Children’s Literature,” which first appeared in 1896, have been on the increase again recently, according to my observations. The most important of Wolgast’s theses are: [End Page 77] 1. Writing for children and young adults in poetic form must be a work of art. 2. Poetic art cannot be and must not be a vehicle for knowledge and morality. It is demeaned when it is made to serve alien powers. 3. The concept of children’s literature (or literature for young people) in the sense of a body of writing that is created specifically for children (or young people) must vanish. Only our genuine poets should be our writers for children. Wolgast is everything but an aestheticist: his concept of the work of art is no less political than Schiller’s concept of the aesthetic. Like Schiller’s aesthetic education of the human race, Wolgast’s “aesthetic education of youth” also aims for the realization of a humanity that is free of all onesidedness. I mention this in order to explain why Wolgast was able to develop an impact also among progressive critics. But first concerning traditional followers of Wolgast: the elements of cultural politics and of social-democratic progressive thinking in Wolgast’s position have been widely ignored by this group. What remains at the core are the pleas for poetic form and the rejection of tendentious writing, or politically engaged literature. On the other hand, these followers consider Wolgast’s rejection of all literature specifically for children and young adults to be exaggerated. However, this divergence leads only too frequently to a watering down of Wolgast’s demand for artistry in children’s and young adult literature, just as his verdict against all tendentious writing is generally only cited when unwanted tendencies are at issue. That there is also a progressive following of Wolgast may be less well known. It is to be recognized by its scepticism or rejection of specifically or exclusively children’s or young adult literature, its rejection of all simplistic employment of literature for merely useful purposes and for instruction, and finally by its emphasis on aesthetic considerations. Aesthetics here, however, is not related to a separate sphere of art, as the traditionalists would have it, but is conceived as an indispensable element of the experience of social life and practice. The dimension of cultural politics in Wolgast’s theory lives on here. Occasionally it has even been radicalized along the lines of cultural revolution. However, progressive critics have rarely designated themselves as followers of Wolgast. His name probably appears too much associated with other tendencies for them. Opposed to the followers of Wolgast, who are primarily concerned with aesthetics or the artistic literary features of children’s or young people’s [End Page 78] reading, we find all those who see children’s literature as a didactic means to an end, a useful literature to be evaluated for its utility and its...