Les Enfants risibles:
Les Enfants risibles:

comic portrayals of childhood in French fiction

Summary/Abstract: That children amuse can scarcely be denied, but on what terms they do so is an open question, as dependent on stimulus as on response. When a child paints a picture, one’s reaction may be to laugh derisively at their ineptitude, but more often will one smile indulgently at their curious vision of the world. As adults in gestation, do they not remain creditable in their struggles to imitate the grown-ups of whom they so often remain comical caricatures, they being, like every caricature, incongruous as at once like and unlike the thing they reflect? However to complete the fragile equation of incongruity plus pleasure equals humour, where do we find the bonus of pleasure which confirms children’s humorous quality? It may indeed lie in some mental triumph we achieve over them, but that seems a rare and, in many cases, unworthy reaction; proof if proof were needed that the aggressive theory of humour is at best partial.1 Are we laughing aggressively when Alice wonders what is the use of a book without any pictures or conversations? Surely it is more fruitful if not more appropriate to take her attitude on board and head off to Wonderland or through the looking glass with her as our guide, not our target.

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