Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture

Abstract:

Following Michel Foucault, this essay aims to open up a Foucauldian perspective on the female Wunderkind in the eighteenth century. We begin with a brief explanation of some central aspects of Foucault's theories of power, knowledge, and discourse. We then argue that the evaluation of child prodigies underwent a significant change in the late eighteenth century, one that is related to and reflects two opposing understandings of childhood and child development, which in turn correspond with the debate over the development of organisms waged between preexistence theorists and advocates of epigenesis. Finally, we propose that in the figure of the female Wunderkind different social orders intersect: the generational order that differentiates between childhood and adulthood and the gendered order that differentiates between women and men. Both differentiations are social constructions, whose undeniable power results from their being declared to be natural.