Delight in FrienDship: the proprieties oF aFFection in...

meanings public lecture

The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800) presents:

Date: Wednesday 12 February 2014Time: 6.00 - 7.00pmVenue: WebbLectureTheatre,GeographyandGeology

Building,TheUniversityofWesternAustralia

Delight in FrienDship: the proprieties oF aFFection in early British chilDren’s literature

For more information: contact Pam Bond at Tel: +61 8 6488 3858 or pam.bond@uwa.edu.au

John Opie. Shakespeare’sTheWinter’sTale, Act II. Scene III. © Library of Congress.

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater (French, Valenciennes 1695–1736 Paris), TheGoldenAge. © Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982.

Friendship,unsurprisingly,featuresprominentlyinchildren’sliterature,perhapsmostparticularlyintheschoolstoriesofthenineteenthandtwentiethcenturies.Intheeighteenthcentury,however,theperiodwhenchildren’sliteraturewasfirstbecomingestablishedasaseparatesectorofprintculture,thequestionoffriendshipwasmorevexed.‘LoveandAffection…willnaturallyleadyoutodelightinFriendship’,writesonemideighteenth-centuryauthortoheryoungreaders.But,shegoesontowarn,‘DelightinFriendshipmayleadyouintoallmannerofErrors’.ThispaperwillconsidertheplaceandproprietiesoffriendshipinearlyBritishchildren’sbooksandaskwhy,tomanyauthors,friendshipwasaperilousexercisethatbroughtmoreharmthangoodbothtotheindividualandsociety.

PRESENTER:Matthew Grenby(newCASTLe UnIVerSITy, Uk)

Matthew Grenby is Professor of eighteenth-Century Studies in the School of english at newcastle University, Uk. He is the author and editor of several books including The

Anti-JacobinNovel:BritishConservatismandtheFrenchRevolution,PopularChildren’sLiteratureinBritain,TheCambridgeCompaniontoChildren’sLiterature, and TheChildReader1700-1840, which won the Harvey Darton Award. He is editor of the JournalforEighteenth-CenturyStudies, and is currently working on an edition of the letters of william Godwin and a project linking children’s culture with the development of the modern idea of ‘heritage’.