Robinson der Juengere di Joachim Heinrich Campe tra intenti pedagogici e ambizioni transculturali

Valentina Serra

2020-01-01

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Abstract

This paper investigates the pedagogical and didactic intentions of "Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung für Kinder" (1779-1780), a German version of Daniel Defoe's famous novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) written by the well-known pedagogue, writer, linguist and publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818). Campe’s novel is of particular importance for the pedagogic-didactic intentions behind the appropriation of the English character in the German-speaking world and represents significantly the emerging German bourgeois class. Campe’s rewriting is here analyzed as pedagogical-didactic novel with clear social and political intentions, also because it sets up an interesting transcultural operation in its explicit ambition to become a didactic-linguistic tool for young German-speaking readers who wanted to learn modern European languages.