Infinitely Determinable - Children and Childhood in Modern Literature

Upon the "discovery of childhood," as named by Philippe Ariès, bourgeois culture and modern literature marked out an arcane realm that, while scarcely accessible for adults, acted as a space for projections of the most contradictory kind and diverse ideological purposes: childhood. As this book reveals, from the eighteenth century onwards, the child increasingly came into focus in literature as a mysterious creature. Now the child seems a strange being, constantly unsettling and alienating, although exposed to ongoing territorialization. This is possible because the space of 'childhood' is essentially blank and indefinite. Modernity, therefore, has discovered it as a zone, in the words of Friedrich Schiller of "boundless determinability."

Inhaltsverzeichnis:

9 - 19 Introduction (Davide Giuriato)21 - 37 Idylls of Childhood (Hoffmann-Stifter) (Davide Giuriato)39 - 47 Christmas (Davide Giuriato)49 - 67 Rescuing Children (Stifter) (Davide Giuriato)69 - 100 On the Threshold of Writing (Rilke-Walser-Benjamin) (Davide Giuriato)69 - 100 On the Threshold of Writing (Rilke-Walser-Benjamin) (Davide Giuriato)101 - 111 Becoming-Child (Walser) (Davide Giuriato)115 - 133 Little Hans (Freud-Kafka) (Davide Giuriato)137 - 153 This Briefest Childhood (Kafka) (Davide Giuriato)155 - 176 An Angel's Grace, a Devil's Grin (Davide Giuriato)177 - 211 Notes (Davide Giuriato)213 - 214 Acknowledgments (Davide Giuriato)215 - 232 Bibliography (Davide Giuriato)