Fictionele schrijfwijzers voor de jeugd: De verbeelding van de scheppende schrijfhand in zeventiende-eeuwse jeugdliteratuur

Abstract

Scholarship on seventeenth-century writing skills and exercises is mainly oriented on technical and physical writing competencies: how to use the quill pen? According to modern literacies studies, however, writing education needs to be more than that: the young also have to learn how to use writing skills in establishing social relationships, channeling emotions, and so on. This article analyses how seventeenth-century youngsters acquired and exercised these complex writing skills by reading youth literature (novels, emblems and songs). Fiction texts, I argue, represented writing processes and thus invited young readers to reflect on their writing as a powerful instrument to shape their inner world and the one outside themselves.