Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Memory – Juvenile fiction »

Este trabajo parte del concepto de que los textos literarios reconstruyen un escenario ficcional en el que se representa y reactualiza una memoria colectiva que es reflejo, también cooperante, en la producción de los cambios sociales y el imaginario de una sociedad, e influyen en la enculturación y formación de la construcción de la identidad de sus lectores. Tomando como espacio de estudio la cultura española de finales del siglo XX y centrado el análisis en tres textos pertinentes a la literatura infantil y juvenil donde la niña ficcional cumple una función protagónica: Veva y el Mar, Caperucita en Manhattan y Bella y Oscura, se busca descubrir, a través de la memoria literaria, los procesos de cambio que se produjeron en nuestro imaginario colectivo; la convivencia de antiguas y nuevas relaciones que el texto establecía con su lector y las identidades que se pretendieron formar a través de la literatura juvenil difundida por la sociedad. This essay is based upon the concept that literary texts build a fictional scenario where the collective memory is represented and actualized. The collective memory is a reflection as well as cooperating agent in the production of social changes where literary texts influence the reader’s processes of enculturation and construction of identity. The study is framed in the late 20th century and it is focussed on the analysis of Children and Young literature where the fictional girl is the main character: Veva y el Mar, Caperucita en Manhattan y Bella y Oscura. The essay aims at defining the processes of change that took place in the collective imaginary through the analysis of the literary memory as well as the coexistence of old and new relationships that the texts establishes with its interpreters and the identities which were moulded by the literature of that time.

Questions concerning truth, authenticity and memory are increasingly crucial as we progress through the twenty-first century, drawing further away from the lived memory of the National Socialist era (1933-1945) and its terrible impact on society. This includes the displacement of thousands of Jewish children through the Kindertransport rescue operation (1938-1939). For many children, fictional narratives continue to be their first meaningful encounter with historical events. This underlines the importance of writing narratives for child readers that depict historical events accurately and striking a balance between instruction and delight. Such considerations will be discussed, focussing on two children’s novels by Irish writers Marilyn Taylor and Claire Mulligan as case studies. In this analysis, we will discuss these authors’ motives for writing stories depicting the experiences of Kindertransportees, their representations of this particular historical context and the experiences of child exiles in their works for current and future generations of young readers.

This article summarizes the main results of an investigation that is part of a project regarding the construction of youth and gender identity in television fiction. The methodology integrates reception analysis (focus group) with data obtained through an anonymous questionnaire, designed to contextualize the results of the qualitative research. Television fiction is the favourite macro-genre of young people, especially women. Broadly speaking, participants appreciate the greater proximity of Spanish fiction, which favours the different mechanisms of identification/projection activated during the reception process, and they acknowledge that TV fiction has a certain didactic nature. The research highlights the more intimate nature of female reception compared to the detachment of the male viewer, who watches fiction less frequently and assimilates it as pure entertainment. Age influences the different modes of reception, while the social class and origin of participants hardly have any impact. Confident, rebellious and ambivalent characters are found to be more interesting than the rest. By contrast, the structure of the story and a major part of the topics addressed by the programme are usually consigned to oblivion, highlighting the importance of selective memory in the interpretative process, as well as suggesting the limited nature of the effects of television fiction. El artículo resume los principales resultados de una investigación integrada en un proyecto más amplio sobre la construcción de la identidad juvenil y de género en la ficción televisiva. La metodología combina el análisis de la recepción («focus group») con los datos obtenidos mediante un cuestionario anónimo, destinados a contextualizar los resultados del estudio cualitativo. La ficción televisiva es el macrogénero preferido por los jóvenes, sobre todo por las mujeres. En general, los participantes aprecian la mayor proximidad de la ficción española, propiciadora de los diferentes mecanismos de identificación/proyección activados en los procesos de recepción, y le reconocen un cierto carácter didáctico. La investigación pone de manifiesto el carácter más intimista de la recepción femenina, frente al mayor distanciamiento de un espectador masculino mucho más inconstante, que asimila la ficción con el puro entretenimiento. La edad influye principalmente en las diferentes modalidades de recepción, mientras que apenas se constata la incidencia de la clase social ni del origen de los participantes. Los personajes seguros de sí mismos, rebeldes y ambivalentes, interesan más que el resto. Por el contrario, la estructura del relato y una buena parte de los temas del programa visionado se relegan generalmente al olvido, lo que revela el peso de la memoria selectiva en los procesos de interpretación y sugiere el carácter limitado de los efectos de la ficción televisiva.

Paul Giles, “‘By Degrees’: Jane Austen’s Chronometric Style of World Literature” (pp. 265–293) This essay considers how Jane Austen’s work relates to “World Literature” by internalizing a chronometric style. Examining the emergence of the chronometer in the eighteenth century, it suggests how Austen drew on nautical frames of reference to combine disparate trajectories of local realism, geographical distance, and historical time. The essay thus argues that Austen’s fiction is interwoven with a reflexive mode of cartographic mapping, one that draws aesthetically on nautical instruments to remap time and space. This style involves charting various fluctuations of perspective that reorder history, memory, and genealogy, while also recalibrating Britain’s position in relation to the wider world. Moving on from an initial analysis of Austen’s juvenilia and early novels, the essay proceeds in its second part to discuss Mansfield Park (1814) in relation to Pacific exploration and trade. In its third part, it considers Emma (1815) in the context of comic distortions and the misreadings that arise from temporal and spatial compressions in the narrative, a form heightened by the novel’s reflexive wordplay. Hence the essay argues that Austen’s particular style of World Literature integrates chronometric cartography with domestic circumstances, an elusive idiom that also manifests itself in relation to the gender dynamics of Persuasion (1817) and the unfinished “Sanditon,” as discussed in the essay’s concluding pages. This is correlated finally with the way Austen’s novels are calibrated, either directly or indirectly, in relation to a global orbit.

Paul Giles, “‘By Degrees’: Jane Austen’s Chronometric Style of World Literature” (pp. 265–293) This essay considers how Jane Austen’s work relates to “World Literature” by internalizing a chronometric style. Examining the emergence of the chronometer in the eighteenth century, it suggests how Austen drew on nautical frames of reference to combine disparate trajectories of local realism, geographical distance, and historical time. The essay thus argues that Austen’s fiction is interwoven with a reflexive mode of cartographic mapping, one that draws aesthetically on nautical instruments to remap time and space. This style involves charting various fluctuations of perspective that reorder history, memory, and genealogy, while also recalibrating Britain’s position in relation to the wider world. Moving on from an initial analysis of Austen’s juvenilia and early novels, the essay proceeds in its second part to discuss Mansfield Park (1814) in relation to Pacific exploration and trade. In its third part, it considers Emma (1815) in the context of comic distortions and the misreadings that arise from temporal and spatial compressions in the narrative, a form heightened by the novel’s reflexive wordplay. Hence the essay argues that Austen’s particular style of World Literature integrates chronometric cartography with domestic circumstances, an elusive idiom that also manifests itself in relation to the gender dynamics of Persuasion (1817) and the unfinished “Sanditon,” as discussed in the essay’s concluding pages. This is correlated finally with the way Austen’s novels are calibrated, either directly or indirectly, in relation to a global orbit.