AT THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: ORBIS PICTUS OR ABOUT THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR CHILDREN IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE
AT THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: ORBIS PICTUS OR ABOUT THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR CHILDREN IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE

Summary/Abstract: At the beginnings of the children’s literature: Orbis pictus or about the first illustrated encyclopedia for children in the history of literature. Our paper refers to the book’s importance for the systemic understanding of Jan Amos Comenius’s thinking and for the children’s literature history. The book is relevant mostly for the use of the natural method and for the correspondence between the verbal code and the visual code in reading the sensible world. In this respect, it is appreciated the priority that the scholar gave to his linguistic and didactic works. Orbis pictus reveals to us the reversed approach of these works. Therefore it is revealed that the encyclopedia Orbis pictus was meant to serve as an introduction, in other words as a first stage necessary for an upcoming review of the other works that follow the natural method established by Comenius. In this investigation is emphasized the hybrid character and the multifunctional primacy of the work written by the Czech scholar: first illustrated book for children, first illustrated textbook for children, first model for the modern school textbooks, first illustrated school encyclopedia, breviary of the entire world and of the whole language.

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