« And I am but a little Girl » L’abandon à la première personne dans les romans du xviii^e siècle

In keeping with the very gradual emergence of « realist » rather than comic portrayals of everyday reality, narratives of abandonment in the eighteenth-century novel are generally limited ; nonetheless, the theme of abandonment does refer to a specific narrative grammar. The foundling’s social stigmatisation both contrasts and creates a dialogue with the mythical and sacred dimension of the lost child. In this evolving narrative landscape, the novels of Daniel Defoe stand out insofar as they focus for the first time on the child’s individual voice.