Peep into the secrets of academics. The university in children's literature

Abstract

When a child slips into a wardrobe, he may see disconcerting things: the little brothers described by the Oxfordian professor C.S. Lewis entered a wardrobe and went out into the fantasy world of Narnia. Meanwhile, Lyra Belacqua – the little protagonist of the novel Northern Lights by Philip Pullman – hid herself in a wardrobe full of worm-eaten gowns and discovered the mysterious intrigues of other Oxford academics.University professors have appeared in many children's stories: sometimes they are good-natured and likeable bunglers, other times they are heroes of science and progress and, finally, sometimes they reveal themselves as disturbing scholars of unknown abysses.The article aims to examine from a hermeneutic and historical-pedagogical point of view (according to Antonio Faeti's approach) the relationship between university and childhood by means of the adventures, plots and protagonists of tales involving curious children, solemn academic chambers, and professors capable of telling great truths in form of apparently - only apparently - childish stories.