2005-06-09: Performing Childhood: Children's Literature Association Annual Conference

Dates: June 9 – 12, 2005
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Organizing Body: Children’s Literature Association
Conference URL: http://chla.uwinnipeg.ca/program.cfm

Digital Girl Jacqueline Reid-Walsh presented a paper at this conference entitled “Harlequinades as interactive’youth’ culture.”

Abstract:

In 18th century England, the pantomime was a common theatrical experience that cut across boundaries of age and class in its appeal. The core of this popular entertainment was the harlequinade featuring harlequin, Columbine, Pantaloon, and clown adapted from the Italian commedia dell’arte. Around 1770 the adventures of harlequin began to appear in a type of flap book originally published by print sellers and booksellers such as Robert Sayer, William Tringham and H. Roberts. Originally called turn-ups they later became called harlequinades. The implied audience seems to be both youth and adult, although there is evidence, analogous to John O’Brien’s belief that the pantomimes can be considered the first youth culture in modern Europe, that the turn-up books were directed toward the young. Occasionally, children or youth are specifically addressed in the title or by the narrator in the text. By the turn of the 19th century, parallel to the pantomime itself, the subjects began to drawn more from fairy and folk literature that had come to be associated with children and the flap books became precursors to the Juvenile Theatre (Gerald Frow, George Speaight). This paper will consider how the harlequinade is a cross-over text and can be considered to be an instance of migration of characters, conventional plot form and design features from the stage to the flap book. In the pantomimes, the action moves largely by spectacular changes called transformation scenes which are represented in the books through lifting a flap up or down on top of a space that reproduces a stage. On occasion, lifting the flaps may create an illusion of motion so these texts could be considered as a type of pre-cinema moving image. I will analyze several harlequinades: Harlequin’s Invasion (Sayer 1770), Boarding School Romps (Tringham 1771), Harlequin Skeleton (Sayer 1772) and Mother Goose (Hughes 1806) as texts of performance. I will interpret the gestures of the main characters, the depiction of the transformation scenes and the overall design of the book as creating a largely visual storytelling that would appeal to a youth reader/viewer. My approach will employ contemporary ideas of performance and current theories about spectacle. I will draw upon the ideas of grotesque dance as articulated by dancing masters such as John Weaver, and G. le Rousseau and artist William Hogarth. I will also explore some ideas of spectacle as articulated by Walter Benjamin and Angela Ndalianis and link these to the idea of the implied viewer as discussed by Perry Nodelman. Since the harlequinade only makes sense when the reader/viewer/user manipulates the flaps in a certain order, I will approach the books as a type of interactive text that involves the onlooker in the performance.