Along with this attachment of images to definite objects there goes a
good deal of vague localisation in dim half-realised quarters of space.
The supernatural beings, the fairies, the bogies, and the rest, are, as
might be expected, relegated to these obscure and impenetrable regions.
It would be worth while perhaps to collect a children’s comparative
mythology, if only to see what different localities, geographic and
cosmic, the childish mind is apt to assign to his fabulous beings. The
poor fairies seem to have been forced to find an abode in most
dissimilar regions. The boy C. selected the wall of his bedroom—hardly a
dignified abode, though it had the merit of being within reach of his
prayers. A child less bent on turning the superior personages to
practical account will set them in some remoter quarter, in a vast
forest, or deep cavern, on a distant hill, or higher up in the blue
above the birds. But systems of child-mythology will occupy us again.
_Imagination and Storyland._
We may now pass to a freer region of imaginative activity where the
child’s mind gives life and reality to its images without incorporating
them into the outer sensible world, even to the extent of talking to
invisible playmates. The world of story, as distinct from that of play,
is the great illustration of this detached activity of fancy.
The entrance into storyland can only take place when the key of language
is put into the child’s hand. A story is a verbal representation of a
scene or action, and the process of imaginative realisation depends in
this case on the stimulating effect of words in their association with
ideas. Now a word has not for a child the peculiar force of an imitative
sensuous impression, say that of a picture. The toy, the picture, being,
however roughly, a likeness or show, brings the idea before the child’s
eyes in a way in which the word-symbol cannot do. Yet we may easily
underestimate the stimulating effect of words on children’s minds, which
are much more tender and susceptible than we are wont to suppose. To
call out to a child, ‘Bow, wow!’ or ‘Policeman!’ may be to excite in his
mind a vivid image which is in itself an approach to a complete sensuous
realisation of the thing. We cannot understand the fascination of a
story for children save by remembering that for their young minds, quick
to imagine and unversed in abstract reflexion, words are not dead
thought-symbols, but truly alive and perhaps “winged” as the old Greeks
called them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account