Subject
Children
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It occurred to me, after I sent off JM's message, that one may look into
Turgenev's "First Love" as an interesting example of literary children as
sexual beings in the pre-Freudian era. It's about a teenage son and his
father who are both erotically interested in the same woman, Zinaida, who
is in her early twenties. In the final version of the story Turgenev,
probably in order not to scandalize the reading public, makes his young
protagonist 16, but in the earlier versions he is only 13. The story's
sexual content is remarkably (for that time) potent and even has -- in the
relationship of the protagonist's father and Zinaida -- obvious S & M
elements which simultaneously attract and repel the son who at one point
spies on them. Babel used that story in his own story (which he also
called "First Love") about a very young boy (10) lusting after a female
neighbor and noticing all sexual manifestations of her relationship with
her husband.
Galya Diment
Turgenev's "First Love" as an interesting example of literary children as
sexual beings in the pre-Freudian era. It's about a teenage son and his
father who are both erotically interested in the same woman, Zinaida, who
is in her early twenties. In the final version of the story Turgenev,
probably in order not to scandalize the reading public, makes his young
protagonist 16, but in the earlier versions he is only 13. The story's
sexual content is remarkably (for that time) potent and even has -- in the
relationship of the protagonist's father and Zinaida -- obvious S & M
elements which simultaneously attract and repel the son who at one point
spies on them. Babel used that story in his own story (which he also
called "First Love") about a very young boy (10) lusting after a female
neighbor and noticing all sexual manifestations of her relationship with
her husband.
Galya Diment