An Eye on Modern Children’s Literature: The visual Element in The Children’s Poetry of Shel Silverstein

As literature aims to entertain the reader and to introduce morals, children’s literature has a deeper and more effective role as it enriches the mentality of children during their critical period. During children’s critical period, it is easy to teach them different skills and types of knowledge including aesthetics, languages, moralities, history, and religion. Here, it is worth mentioning that children’s literature is the gate through which children can deal with their early intellectual perception. Children’s literature includes a wide range of forms; however, poetry can be the most inspiring and motivating literary form due to its imaginative and aesthetic features. One of the modern modes of poetry that can be a rich educational material is visual poetry as it has the ability to introduce both visual and verbal elements. Consequently, the present paper aims at highlighting and analyzing the visual element of the Children’s poetry of Shel Silverstein as one of the prominent children’s poets who introduced children-visual poetry as a renovated and creative genre of children’s literature. In this regard, the present paper is an attempt to shed some light on the visual element in Shel Silverstein’s poetry for children through discussing some selected poems of the American writer, poet, cartoonist, songwriter and playwright. In addition, the study will discuss the main elements of visual-children’s poetry through highlighting the forms, techniques, visual elements, and themes used in this literary genre.