POETICS OF CHILDHOOD IN RAY BRADBURY’S «DANDELION WINE»

Abstract

The article investigates the poetics of childhood in Ray Bradbury’s «Dandelion Wine» as a means through which childhood memories are created and catered to via literary technique. The article illuminates the importance of memory as well as nostalgia and psychological space-time in the literary representations of childhood by examining the way Bradbury imagines childhood in his novel. Bradbury’s novel, which is often read as an autobiographical mirror of his own boyhood, is a powerful consideration of the childhood as we know. It is not only shaped but resealed through the prism of memory and narrative. Ultimately the article assess the aesthetic and nostalgic potential of «Dandelion Wine», showing how, through this novel, Bradbury is able to create an idealized literary space in which the transitory musings of childhood can flourish. A close reading of «Dandelion Wine» provides plenty of evidence of how it works to establish its dreamlike tone, demonstrating the ways in which Bradbury molds the experience of childhood. The story’s make-up, bits and pieces, corresponds with how child’s view of time is never a straight line – huge moments, einzeln – and therefore the easier to make it a more memory-based tale.. Bradbury’s pictures tie together nature, the senses and memory to create a stunning tapestry of a world that feels real yet eternal, drawing readers into what it feels like to be young. Finally, this article demonstrates how literature preserves childhood and shapes our view of its beauty, fragility and importance in our lives with a sense of permanence, since literature is everlasting. In the poetic reflections and the strange narrative structure of Bradbury’s novel, readers are reminded how literature can preserve even the most ephemeral but formative moments of human experience, providing a lens through which they can see their own memories of childhood.