| Abstract [eng] |
With its degree of importance as well as its ideological and artistic weight, literature for children is a considerable part of culture.It forms and develops a child`s taste in art, perception of the world, principles of morality and values. Researchers of literature for children have noticed that the audience of literature for children does not always limit itself to children. It considerably affects individuals as well as society as a whole. On the other hand, literature for children is greatly influenced by the society and its institutions. It is adults who write, publish and propagate books, therefore it is very important to properly meet the children`s needs. It is not a rare occurrence that literature for children is considered to be an unimportant part of literature, not deserving greater attenton. However, taking into consideration its influence on bringing up and educating children, the quality of literature for children deserves constant interest and observation. Books for children should be written with artistic skills, they should educate, enhance imagination, their form and contents should be appropriate for the way of thinking of children of certain age. Popular culture that has widely spread people`s lives nowadays affects literature as well. As far as literature for children is concerned, a tendency to make books for children profit-yielding goods has been noticed. Another characteristic feature, peculiar to literature for children, and poetry for children in particular, is a wide spread of graphomania. Great numbers of books are published by people who claim of being writers, seek to become famous and recognized poets, though a more attentive reader will be dissappointed by their quality. Most of them do not meet the requirements set for children`s literature. The object of this study is modern books of poetry for children published by Nijolė Akelaitienė, Petronėlė Banaitienė, Apolonija Grigonytė, Gražina Kurtinaitytė-Lebedienė, Stasė Kuzerytė-Ragelienė, Povilas Latvėnas, Birutė Lengvenienė, Jeronimas Laucius, Marija Macijauskienė, Ona Mikalauskienė-Kubiliūtė, Zenė Sadauskaitė, Janina Ulinskienė, Teresė Uksienė, Edmundas Venslova, Amelija Vyšniauskienė-Miltenienė. The study considers the problems of defining the phenomenon of graphomania and usage of the term.The problems under research are sociocultural aspects of graphomania and poetical aspects of graphomania occurring in the poetry by the above-mentioned authors. The authors of graphomanic poetry are taking active part in the activities of culture and literature circles and societies, they belong to writers`associations and by presenting their poetry they do not restrict themselves to close family circles, - they read their poetry at various opportune events, celebrations, that are arranged in libraries, schools, museums and elsewhere. Graphomaniacs are excessive writers, they usually do not content themselves with one book a year, but publish several new books yearly, their editions usually being small, although there are exceptions. Publishing of their books is often supported by municipalities and various sponsors. In some cases, the poets pay for publishing themselves. Their poems are traditionally dedicated to their family members –children or grandchildren. In books of graphomaniac poetry several traditional themes prevail, in which standard methods of of developing verbal themes are used and typical thematic models appear. Autumn is traditionally linked with September the 1st, the beginning of the new schoolyear, with apples and leaves of trees of different colours and mushrooms.Winter is depicted by emphasizing abundance of snow and its white colour. Poems about animals contain banal, traditional commonplace situations: frogs entertain themselves by making great noise, cats live in disagreement with mice, etc. In depicting family members, mother becomes the main character, she is linked with the sun, light, hope. Didactic aspects are revealed by stimulating children to strive for honesty and moral values, though these in the poetry are revealed in a rather abstract way. Similar or even the same banal comparisons and similes, images and descripions are used in the poetry, language and spelling mistakes sometimes occur. Careful analysis of the poetry by the above-mentioned authors and generalisation of the tendencies of artistic depiction prevailing in the poetry lead to the conclusion that their works can be assessed as graphomania. |
