Alone on stage: child agentivity in Berquin’s theatre (L’Ami des enfants, 1782-1783)
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The twenty-two plays that Arnaud Berquin published in his children’s periodical, L’Ami des enfants, between January 1782 and December 1783, offered young readers the opportunity to become actors in a family theatre, without the need for supervision by a parent or tutor. These dramas feature children’s characters, both girls and boys, who very often act in the absence of adults, and thus seem to signal a renewal of the conceptions of childhood, where children are more encouraged to act on their immediate environment and beyond, on the social context. Because Berquin adapted most of these plays from the German author Weisse, should we consider that L’Ami des enfants imported a German conception of child agency to France?
Réseaux sociaux