English Literature A level question

[LakeDistrict2014]

Hi,
Any English literature experts about?
Could anyone explain Rousseau, Wordsworth and Blake 's ideas regarding childhood ? How do they relate to Huckleberry Finn?
Thanks in advance.

Goodness. No answers. I'll start, then, and hope others pitch in.

Imagine a seed. Inside, it contains the plant it will be. Likewise, the Wordsworthian) notion of the child. Also, the experiences of childhood are formative and crucial to the adults we become: the child is father to the man.
Also, children learn things organically, from nature: one impulse from a vernal wood, will teach us more of life and man, than all the sages can.
Rousseau was all about children playing and learning, and adults being kind to kids - a reaction against a prevailing consensus. And he was a proponent of the concept of there being a childhood.
But I know v little about Rousseau, Blake and huckleberry Finn to be honest.
I suppose an opposing point of view might be to regard children as positioned within structural systems that predetermine their adult identity, eg. Being poor, being male or female, being black or white, and so on.
I think the three authors chosen are putatively Romantics, though that is a category under a lot of stress these days.

I enjoyed reading that, thecatfromjapan!

Thanks for the explanation, exam over, but will keep info, in case of a resit
:)