Το χρώμα στα λογοτεχνικά βιβλία γνώσεων. Αρχέτυπα και συμβολισμοί. Η περίπτωση της μυθιστορηματικής βιογραφίας.

Abstract

Children's books’ authors often rely on colors’ emotional, social, semiotic and cultural function, as well as the cultural and social associations of colors for conveying information and emotional subtext in their books and stimulate young minds to make associations that will become the building blocks for later learning. Τhe article focuses on Maria Angelidou’s six fictional biographies for children, that combine fictional elements with historical knowledge and belong to the author’s series “Byzantium in Six Colors” (Metaichmio, Ill. Katherine Veroutsou). In this specific series Angelidou (re)writes the history of exceptional but not so popular Byzantine figures, based on the symbolic declinations of Red, Gold, White, Black, Green and Blue color. What makes these books original and interesting is their genre, Angelidou’s intent to rewrite silenced histories, meaning the deliberately omitted, incomplete or inaccurate histories and the fact that the information about each character is linked to the colors’ aesthetic, cognitive, communicative and psychological dimension.  We will examine the way the author, on the basis of the socio-cultural imaginary and the universal meanings of colors which over time progressed from archetypes to symbols,  chose to narrate cosmogenic tales and  myths to children, as well as to approach History in a hermeneutical, interpretative way, so that Byzantine peoples’ lives are understood as historical.