Benjamin, Benson, and the Child's Gaze: Childhood Desire and Pleasure In the David Blaize Books

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-1-2016

Department

English

School

Humanities

Abstract

Walter Benjamin’s writings on children and their books reflect a desire to imagine different possibilities in perceiving and engaging with the world. Benjamin’s child, like the flâneur, experiences a particular way of seeing unfettered by instrumentality and characterised by a sense of wonder, aimlessness of path or purpose, and keen interest in triviality and detritus. Benjamin’s interest in the imaginative work of the child’s gaze, of his wanderings through fantastical cityscapes, and of his manipulation of toys and objects provides a way of reading the children’s works of E.F. Benson: the 1916 school story David Blaize and the 1918 nonsense fantasy David Blaize and the Blue Door. Benson represents a tradition in children’s literature of using the child to reconfigure adult systems or expectations. For both Benjamin and Benson, the child stands poised to defy instruction, and in Benson’s children’s books, David uses sight and touch to enact a different model for experiencing pleasure and consummating desire.

Publication Title

Pedagogy, Culture and Society

Volume

24

Issue

4

First Page

505

Last Page

515

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