Relief Komensky in Dolany, Czech Republic (Photo credit: Michal Manas)
I reread the post I published yesterday and it seems complete. It simply leads to related subjects.
Johann Amos Comenius
However, I added titles to the post and mentioned a related article. The related post is about Czech educator John Amos Comenius (28 March 1592 – 15 November 1670) who advocated combining text and a relevant illustration in textbooks. He was the first to do so. In textbooks, the combination of word and art is essential.
Comenius lived after the invention of the printing-press, in the mid 1400s. He could therefore have the books he wrote printed quickly and then add illustrations.
Educator John Comenius might be our best example of persons who realized that the invention of the printing-press could have an immense influence on literacy, which the inclusion of illustrations could enhance.
Adding illustrations was difficult, and they were white and black.
Comenius’ books may now be read online.
I added pictures and a video to invigorate my old post. Here is our link:
One of the key moments in the history of education is the publication, in 1658, of Johann Comenius’s (28 March 1592 – 4 November 1670) Orbis Sensualium Pictus.
Johann Amos Comenius (Latin for John Ámos Komenský) was born in what is now the Czech Republic. He is often referred to as the “father” of education. It could also be argued that he “discovered” the child. However, his fames rests mainly in the publication of the first illustrated textbook, the above-mentioned Orbis Pictus. Comenius knew that
[a] picture is worth a thousand words.
There is so much truth to this old adage that, since the publication of the Orbis Sensualium Pictus, writers and publishers of textbooks, fables, fairy tales, and various other books have made a point of inserting pictures.
Touching the senses: music and pictures
The concept underlying the importance of illustrations resembles the notion of Affektenlehre (doctrine of the affections) in music, a doctrine of which Johann Mattheson was the chief proponent. In compliance with this doctrine, composers attempted to touch the Affeckte or senses, claiming that music would thereby be morally uplifting. For instance, Haydn used contrast to touch the Affeckte.
Here, the operative word is senses. Note that the very title of Comenius’s epochal book, Orbis Sensualium Pictus, indicates that the senses play a role in teaching and learning. However, unlike Johann Mattheson, Comenius’s advocacy of the use of illustrations was not an explicit attempt to make the subject matter morally uplifting. Comenius’s goal was simply to make the subject matter more accessible and the subject matter was mainly Latin. As the title indicates, his Janua LinguarumReserata (The Gate of Tongues Unlocked, 1632) was a textbook used to teach Latin in a simplified and more effective manner. Comenius wanted to teach “about things and not about grammar.” He described “useful facts” in both Latin and Czech, side by side.[i]
The Great Didactic
Comenius’s Janua Linguarum Reserata was an extremely popular textbook. However, Comenius’s first concern was the reform of the educational system, which he described in his Didactica Magna (The Great Didactic). He also advocated universal education.
By and large, the reforms he introduced have endured. The path is mostly unchanged. Children still begin their schooling by attending a kindergarten. Pupils then attend elementary and secondary school and, upon successful completion of secondary school, young adults may enter college or a university. Moreover, the path starts with the education of infants. Comenius wrote a book for mothers entitled The School of Infancy. It is because of his books that I have stated that Comenius discovered children or childhood.
Illustrations
However, what I want to praise above all is his introduction of illustrations in textbooks and other books. Comenius realized that explaining a subject using words only was ineffective. He therefore stressed the importance of illustrations, or pictures. For instance, in the case of an illustrated fable, it is easier to remember the morality because it is exemplified in two ways: by a text, called exemplum, and by a picture.
Simplicity and the picture “worth a thousand words”
Other than his Great Didactic, i.e. the system, Comenius’s contribution to education is therefore twofold.
With respect to the teaching of a second language, he advocated simplicity and usefulness. He realized that one taught a language by teaching the language and not about the language.
As for teaching in general, he advocated the support of illustrations.
Drawings, paintings, prints and photographs can be an end in themselves. But illustrations are both an end in themselves and a means to an end. Most of us will gladly accept an unwrapped present, but there is so much pleasure in the traditional unwrapping of a gift.
The same is true of illustrations. Just imagine learning about Cupid and Psychewithout seeing at least one of the beautiful illustrations inspired by that lovely story.
Illustrations existed long before the publication of Orbis Pictus. In fact, they existed long before the invention of the printing-press (c. 1440). They were the illuminations of illuminated manuscripts and very expensive. However, even after the invention of the printing-press, publishing an illustrated book was a long and costly process. Distribution was limited. Only the few had access to books.
Before the invention of printing, books were copied by hand and then decorated with illuminations. Illuminations were just what the word says: illuminations. They enlightened the text.
Comenius’s books could not possibly be as beautiful as an illustrated Bestiary or Book of Hours, but many copies could be made and they could be made quickly, which means that universal education was a realistic goal.
So let us praise Comenius, the senses, and our illustrators.
In 1976, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim (28 August 1903 – 13 March 1990 [by suicide]) published a book entitled The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning andImportance of Fairy Tales.[i] In The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim tells about the importance of fantasy in the life of unhappy children. Fairy tales belong to the realm of fantasy and, consequently, give unhappy children hope that a fairy godmother will come to their rescue.
From that point of view, i. e. the importance of enchantment in the life of a troubled child, it is perhaps best that the wounded child read fairy tales as opposed to fables, fables being a lesson or didactic.
Puss in Boots is a fairy tale and is therefore a fantasy rather than a lesson. In fact, in an earlier re-telling of the story, Puss licks away the third son’s acne. That’s marvelous. As well, Puss befriends the third son. According to Bettelheim “being befriended by [an animal]” is among those “events” that can “lead to great things” (p. 73).
Fables
As for fables, animal fables, as I have just noted, they may fail the troubled child in that they teach lessons. Fables are considered didactic. I cannot disagree with Dr Bettleheim, but let us reflect on the differences between fables and fairy tales.
Although the morality is not always expressed explicitly, fables are lessons. At times, the example, or exemplum, suffices in conveying the moral. Usually, however, the morality is placed at the beginning or at the end of the “story.”
However, although fables have a moral, I believe we could argue
first, that the use of animals as protagonists (characters) shields children from too rude a lesson. Besides, if the King is not a lion, similarly, children are not grasshoppers;
second, that the re-teller (author) of a fable tells a story and that, however real a story may appear, it is still a “story.” It therefore should not have too direct an impact on children, including unhappy children.
In fact, making a story seem real is difficult. Roland Barthes calls the device used to make a story real “un effet de réel.” Now, if creating an “effet de réel” is not easy, when animals talk, the universe of fables and animal fairy tales may well be more hermetic, or distant, than that of fairy tales featuring persons. If such is the case, a troubled child is not likely to be harmed by reading fables instead of fairy tales.
In other words, animal fables are a particularly oblique (dire sans dire) or indirect narrative, which may indeed be a factor in their seeming less “real.” Most of us have heard children commenting that the clumsy animal protagonist of a story they have read is, indeed, rather clumsy. They, the children, would never leap without first looking. So children tend to dissociate themselves not only from animals, but also from a fictitious dramatis personæ (the cast).
Indirection is a dépaysement. Bettelheim writes that “the fairy tale’s happy ending occurs in fairyland, a country that we can visit only in our minds” (p. 133). He is writing, in other words, that fairyland is an “elsewhere,” (un ailleurs) and that we, including children, know that it is. So it would be difficult for the child to identify fully with the denizens of fairyland, particularly if the cast is made up of animals. Animals automatically create a barrier between the story and the reader. It would seem that dépaysement, or feeling you are in another world, is greater when animals, rather than humans, are used as characters in a story.
Animal fairy tales may well be more distancing, or more “otherwordly,” than fairy tales featuring human beings. If Puss is made to wear boots, I believe there is a motivation to introduce an element of magic in the fairy tale. The storyteller confirms we are in fairyland, not to mention that real animals do not talk national languages.
Yet, if animals create a dépaysement, they are also like honey to a bear (or is it a bee?). Animals catch the attention of children. Children like animals. It would be my opinion that we must take into account the Horatian (8 December 65 BCE – 27 November 8 BCE) prodesse et delectare (Ars poetica). Fables instruct and delight, and vice versa. If there is fantasy in fairy tales, fables delight while instructing. So the difference between the two genres may not be that important.
Johann Amos Comenius (28 March 1592 – 4 November 1670) was particularly concerned with pleasing the child. As you know children’s books are usually illustrated which is also consistent with the Horatian “to instruct and delight.” Now, if fables are written so they provide instruction while giving pleasure, the illustrations might well enhance the pleasure.
In a sense, my choice of Malcolm Arthur’s and Fred Marcellino ’s re-telling of Puss in Boots[ii] had very much to do with the illustrations. In fact, I bought the book and showed it to my students to underline the importance of illustrations. They are pleasurable and therefore condition the child’s mind, and the adult’s.
Finally, fairy tales may not be overtly moralizing, but some, if not most, contain a lesson. The third son of the miller did not look beyond appearances. He didn’t see that the cat he had inherited was a person in disguise and very clever.
As well, the third son had the good fortune of watching a very smart cat, a cat who knows how to be successful and takes his master from rags to riches without the intervention of magic. The text does not indicate whether or not he received magical bottes de sept lieues. Yet, the cat’s ingenuity has been the foremost agent of change. Besides, the cat himself has changed.
Marcellino’s last illustration, shows a portrait of Puss dressed like an aristocrat, which underscores his having been successful, successful to the point of being less of a cat and more of a human We are told, moreover, that Puss no longer eats mice, except for sport, i.e. humans hunt. So two mice, standing on the floor, are looking at the picture admiringly. It is as though they could recognize that Puss himself had risen while making the miller’s third son a prince.
In fact, Puss deserves nearly all the praise in making his master an aristocrat. One therefore wonders what the third son would do without his cat.
P. S. The video I had placed at the end of this post has been removed. It consisted of illustrations of fairy tales by Adrienne Ségur. These are available online. Please click on the word illustrations.
The current video tells the story of the fairy tale. It does not mention Italian authors Francesco Straparola‘s (c. 1480 – c. 1557) Il piacevoli notti (The Facetious Nights) (1550–1553) and Giambattista Basile‘s (1566 – 23 February 1632) Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille, orIl Pentamerone. It does not mention Charles Perrault, but refers to the 17th-century in France. Fairy tales are the product of Salons.
[i] (New York : Vintage Books and Random House: 1989 [1976]).
[ii] Charles Perrault, Malcolm Arthur, translator, and Fred Marcellino, illustrator, Puss in Boots (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1990).
