Introduction: The discovery of childhood -- Tales of innocence and experience -- Truth, memory, and artifice -- Myth, meaning, and magic -- Portrait of the artist surrounded by his family and friends -- Portrait of the artist accompanied by allegorical figures -- Inventories of a small world -- Puer Ludens: an excursion into theory -- Conclusion: Childhood as mythology and as poetry -- Appendix: A note on the concept of "play"
Analysis
Autobiographical prose in European languages, to 1983. Special subjects: Childhood - Critical studies