Seeking Childhood

The Emergence of the Child in the Visual and Literary Culture of the French Long Nineteenth Century

Sophie Handler

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781837721320
• eBook ISBN: 9781837721344
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: European Art

This book explores the visual and literary culture of transforming perceptions of children and childhood in France during the long nineteenth century. Charting the developmental period between two moments central to cultural and social understandings of children and childhood, the book's case studies examine the conceptual and cultural development of children and childhood between the acknowledgement of the child in an Enlightenment context and the avant-garde championing of childhood in the early twentieth century. Recognising this as a crossroads of tradition and modernity, the text demonstrates how artists and writers reflected upon childhood and children as symbolic of both 'Self' and 'Other', as well as considering the implications for art, society and individual life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Elucidating Approaches to the Study
• 1 From the Twentieth Century to the Nineteenth Century: 13 A Retrospective of Childhood
• 2 Romantic Enlightenment: The Carte Blanche of Childhood, c.1750–1850
• 3 Negotiating the Dark Underbelly: Children of the Poor, c.1830–1880
• 4 Searching for Solace: Children of the Bourgeoisie, c.1850–1920
• 5 Toy Town Theatre: Material Acculturation and the Child, c.1870–1900
• 6 Breaking the Mould: Burgeoning Cultural Emancipation of 145 the Child, c.1880–1920
• Conclusion: Finding the Child Within Us All
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of Images