In 17th-century French works, with few satirical exceptions, old men were portrayed as wiser and more experienced, while the youth was represented as bending to their will and heeding their advice, or, alternatively, as suffering negative consequences for not doing so. 

The 18th century, however, marks a moment of change in this master-disciple narrative  through the development of new genres, such as fictional memoirs and epistolary novels.  Their peculiar narrative devices, i.e. the coexisting narrated/narrating I and the first-person letters, allowed for young people’s stories to be recounted in purportedly unmediated ways. In my talk I will consider a selection of 18th-century works and will illustrate how Enlightenment works played a foundational role in creating the fictional full-standing category of youth, whose voice could finally be heard.