Abstract
In classical antiquity, depictions of children reading are rare, as children were not considered as people in their own right. Indeed, children's reading did not always exist as we know it today. The history of childhood reading is closely linked to four parameters : 1. the status of the child, 2. educational systems, 3. the function of literature, 4. thehistory of publishing. There is a fifth, less decisive parameter : the existence of a literature specifically dedicated to young people. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, children's literature was generally looked upon with disdain, especially fairy tales, which were always associated with the feminine world. In particular, Peau d'Âne served as an emblem of easy, childish literature. That's why, when Charles Perrault put this tale into verse in 1694, he began a quasi-revolution in literature, conferring academic dignity on an oral and popular tale, and legitimacy on the gratuitous pleasure of literature. The integration of the fairy tale into the official literary regime enabled the arrival of new female authors, for, informed by a specifically feminine experience (incest, for example, in Peau d'Âne), fairy tales are the vehicle for a feminine knowledge of the world. The question of the validity of women's words is no stranger to the changing literary status of fairy tales.
