Octave Feuillet's La Vie de Polichinelle and Carlo Collodi's Le avventure di Pinocchio : Commedia dell'arte for children

Abstract: This article puts two nineteenth-century children's stories side by side: Octave Feuillet's La vie de Polichinelle (1846) and Carlo Collodi's Le avventure di Pinocchio (1883). Though written nearly forty years apart and in different languages, both stories tap into the long history of the commedia dell'arte , the popular theatrical form that flourished throughout Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Both also use commedia dell'arte -inspired puppetry as didactic material for children, offering lessons about how young readers should take part in society. While Pinocchio learns to obey his parents and adhere to social norms, Polichinelle learns to wield difference to critique those in power. These lessons correspond to the authors' respective political and social ideals: Collodi was invested in the construction of a homogenous society in a newly unified Italy, and Feuillet was interested in critiquing the hypocrisies of the upper class in his native France.