belong to the adult society (Alcantud 2010:20). Consequently, they did n o t need a specific literature because they were n o t seen as having specific needs but had the same status as adults, according to Nodelm an (2003:82). In addition, as argued by Kinnell (1996: 141),
“there were no distinctions between readership ages in the popular literature circulating in the seventeenth and early eighteen centuries”.
Up to 1700 there were n ot literary tales for children because children listened to oral tales from the people surrounding them: “governesses, servants and peers” as Zipes (1994:23) explains. There are just some isolated examples o f books aimed at children published in the 16* century and, like in the 17* and beginning o f 18* centuries, there were no differences between the readership ages in the popular literature which could be read in those years. The books read at that time were mainly religious, school and courtesy books, apart from nursery rhymes, which later became the basis for literature aimed at children.
We have to take into account that, at that time, 95 percent o f children in E urope could n ot read and those who were able to were mainly boys (Zipes 2001:45). Moreover, children were removed from school as soon as they could work and earn money for their families.
This fact is directly related to the development o f literature aimed at children since, as Ray explains, (1996: 654), it is linked to social, educational and economic factors.
O ne o f the examples o f books printed in the 17* century was, according to Ray (1996: 655) Orbis Sensualium (1658), first printed in Latin and High German. T he author, John Amos Comenius, was b o m in Bohemia and is the recognized father o f children’s picure books. Later on, in 1697, the French fairy tales written by Charles Perrault appeared anc were published in Paris. They were published in England in 1729.
W hen the 18* century arrived, books aimed at children became “m ore child oriented in the tone, the language and the subject matter. While death and damnation were still im portant concerns, so too were the m ore prosaic concerns o f family life” as Kinnel, (1996:
145) explained. The rise in the child population proportionally brought a rise in the commercial interest in publishing books for them, in other words, the institution o f children’s literature had then “three major com ponents: production, distribution and reception” (Zipes 2001:46). So it was really not until the 19* century that children’s literature began to have some importance. In addition to this, educational opportunities were increasing and technological developments — that is, printing technology and commercial distribution- made books available at reasonable prices thanks to cheaper paper and printing process (Ray, 1996: 654, Zipes 2001:46). A t the same time, during this century, there was a general m ove all over E urope in favour o f universal education together with a rising middle class which “helped to create a reading public with a viable market for children’s books” (Ray, 1996: 655). Furtherm ore, as Zipes (2002b:14-15) explains, when folk was appropriated by middle class people, “writers and publishers underwent drastic changes in its printed mass mediated form”. This mass production and distribution o f texts brought an increase in writers and publishers’ contacts, thus exchanging ideas among them.
This was the decline o f feudalism and the formation o f the bourgeois public sphere.
According to Zipes (2002b:14-15), once the folk tale started to be interpreted and transmitted by means o f literary texts, “its original ideology and narrative perspective were diminished, lost o r replaced. Its audience was abandoned. As texts, the fairy tale did n ot encourage live interaction and perform ance but individual readings”.
The conjunction o f all the previously mentioned facts sowed the seeds o f a new kind o f literature; that aimed at children.
It would be useful here to open a brief parenthesis to make clear that this ‘new born*
literature is seen by some authors, like Zipes (1994:13) as a ‘violation’ o f the folk tale. This is so because it was written in “a standard “high” language that the folk could n o t read and it was written as a form o f entertainm ent and education for members o f the ruling classes”.
Consequently, the so-named literary fairy tale (that which came from folk and that had been put in written form, was prone to exclude m ost people w ho were not able to read, unlike the folk tale.
Regarding Germany, where the brothers G rim m were bom , it must be said that by the beginning o f the nineteenth century, when the brothers G rim m were determined to celebrate German culture by means o f their country’s fairy tales, “the literary fairy tale, had long since been institutionalized and they [...] assumed different ideological and aesthetic positions within this institutionalization” as Zipes (1994:12-14) explains. T he brothers G cm m put the “finishing touches on the fairy-tale genre at a time when nation-states were assuming their m odem form and cultivating particular forms o f literature as com mensurate expressions o f national cultures”. France had had an outstanding influence in G erm an literature and became its model. This is the reason why French encyclopaedias, weeklies and magazines were translated into German. However, it was n o t until 1772 when, according to Ewers (1996:735), the first G erm an magazine which was both independent and aimed at children appeared: its name was Leip^iger Wochenblatt fiir Kinder (Leipzig Chidren’s weekly). A fter this first magazine, some others were published — for instance, Kitdeifreund. Ein Wochenblatt (Children’s friend, a weekly) (1775); Briejwechsel der Familie des
Kinderfreundes (Correspondence o f the Children’s friend’s family) (1784) — and in 1766 the
first poetry anthology in G erm an aimed at children Lieder Jur Kinder (songs for children) written by C.F. Weisser was published.
As m entioned above, the influence o f Rousseau’s philosophy o f childhood was especially im portant in Germany and influenced authors like, the m ost m odem German children’s writer o f the eighteenth century, Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818), who led a reform o f children’s literature based on Rousseau’s ideas (Lesnik-Oberstein 1994:96). His reform had a very clear base, that is, n o t to give children what could concern adults, as mentioned in the previous chapter. The book which opened this nascent literature for children was an adaptation by the same Campe, in 1779 o f Robinson Crusoe, which reflected the proposed reform program m e and which was one o f the m ost successful books aimed at children in Germany and in many other countries, as its translation into many languages and later editions - even in the twentieth century- show.
This new era, that o f the Romantic reform o f children’s literature, made Germany free itself from its dependence — as far as literature is concerned- on France and England and it was then the time for Germ any to export their literary production. W hen the nineteenth century arrived, the great works o f some o f the m ost famous G erm an authors appeared: Achim von A m im and Clemens Brentano with their Des Knabem Wunderhom (The boys’ magic horn) (1808); the fairy tales collections by Tieck, Contessa, Fouque and E.TA,.
Hoffm ann and, o f course Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Fairy tales for children and Home) by the brothers Grim m (1812-1857) w ho openly proclaimed that “the poetry handed down by children should be all those rhymes and tales, legends and humoresques o f proven antiquity
which remain pure since all additions from a m ore recent age were regarded as impurities”
as Ewers (1996:738) states.
W hen the Grimm Brothers published their first two collections o f tales (1812 and 1815), folk tales started to be gathered, transcribed and printed with the intention o f looking for w hat they called genuine versions. According to Zipes (2002b:18-19), this task was usually carried out by “trained professionals w ho often stylized the tales, changed them, o r were highly selective”. Sometimes, folk tales were rewritten including (didactic content for children so that “they would n o t be harmed by the violence, crudity and fantastic exaggeration o f the originals”. A t other times, these tales became trivial, and new fairy tales were written “to amuse and distract audiences and make money.” Besides, plays based on fairy tales started to be in fashion, particularly at the end o f the nineteenth century.