Scholarly record

CONCEPT OF CHILD IN LATVIAN PROSE OF SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Rudite Rinkevica, I. Kupsane

Abstract

Latvian children’s and young people’s literature, being a significant segment of literary production, in the course of history has not attracted attention on regular basis but rather fragmentarily; studies of its development trends have not been regular and have often remained marginal against the background of the total literary research. But child’s image is one of the most important components in the structure of childhood narrative; great significance is attributed in its depiction to characters’ portrait, action and its psychological motivation, age, degree of socialization, and name. Childhood memory narratives as well as other stories focusing on the child’s image strive to reveal the peculiar world perception of a child and his or her point of view. Image of a child or its personifications with a reduced or extended, static or dynamic portrayal in text fit into the framework of the epoch drawing either the social environment marked by external portrait details or the psychological state of emotional comfort/discomfort of a child. The artistic space depicted in all the above mentioned prose fiction texts relates to discovery – each day is a new discovery for a child; even if it causes feelings of anger, resentment, or other negative emotional reaction, it lacks routine but, in case it sets in, simultaneously there comes the idea how to avoid it. Adventure causes trip that is experienced along with the joy of discovery. Trip in children’s literature is usually a short and educating experience, sometimes even flee from home. Trips by children or personified images representing them usually take place in the real, not imaginary space. Trip that may be called adventure is determined by various causes: incident, misunderstanding, intentional wish to travel, vivid imagination and desire to put fantasy to life, flight from a certain place or adults, as well as childish curiosity.

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