Reading Guide for Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s (1712-1778) Confessions (Les Confessions)
Maurice Quentin de La Tour, pastels on
paper, Musée Antoine Lécuyer, 1753
See 1766 portrait of Rousseau in Armenian costume here
Censorship of Rousseau's
Work:
In 1754, A
Discourse on Inequality built on the reputation he
gained in A Discourse on
the Arts and Sciences (1750)
In 1757, French authorities tightened censorship
laws, making publishing works without official permission
punishable by prison and/or death.
1761: Wrote Julie, or the New Heloise, a novel
about forbidden love between the classes,in France
1762: French authorities ban his novel
Emile and treatise On the Social Contract
in France. Emile
also burned in Switzerland owing to the way it champions
communion with nature as the basis for education.
1766: renounced citizenship and lived in England,
but returned to Europe a year later after quarreling with David
Hume
Confessions was written 1770/71, but
not published until 1782 owing to its volatile subject
matter; Confessions resembles, in its title, St.
Augustine’s Confessions (397/98), one of
the first memoirs in Western literature that tells the tale
of the author’s conversion to Christianity.
lettre de cachet
= secret
letter, or a secret warrant for arrest that could only be
issued by a nobleman for any cause
love of the self = a
positive sense of self-love or respect = amour de
soi ;
selfish love = amour-propre
M. = Mister = Monsieur
Maman = Mother = what R.
calls Mme Warens
Mlle = Miss = Mademoiselle
Mme = Mrs. = Madame
nature signifies an idealized state uncorrupted by society's
mores (customs)
parvenu (361) = "A person from a
humble background who has rapidly gained wealth or an
influential social position; a nouveau riche; an upstart, a
social climber." (OED)
opera buffa (374) = comic opera
Phoebus (188) = another word for
Apollo, the Classical god of light and sun, poetry and music
plenipotentiary (206) =
independent government representative
sensibility =
refers to "quickness and acuteness of apprehension or
feeling; the quality of being easily and strongly affected
by emotional influences; sensitiveness" (OED 5a). The cult
of sensibility reversed stereotypical roles normally
accorded men and women. Whereas in the Age of Enlightenment,
the head and intellect (associated with maleness) superseded
emotion and the body (associated with femaleness) in
importance, in the late eighteenth century, these priorities
changed. Feeling and emotion became more important than
reason, but this posed young intellectuals like Rousseau
with a problem: how to occupy the space normally accorded
women? The solution, as it were, was to suggest that men
felt emotions with more true sentiment than women.
society for
Rousseau
is the root of evil, especially in its propagation of
certain customs or mores
sophism (225) = falacious
argument, used to deceive
sympathy = signifies authentic intimacy, and often leads to
political action
tête-à-tête
= intimate conversation between two people = literally:
head-to-head. Perhaps we as readers are engaged with Rousseau
in such an intimate exchange ?
transparency = the ideal state for R., b/c it suggests that
the invidual is being authentic, and is not distorting his
true self in order to cave into the false, deceptive practices
of society
Book 3: This chapter Dec. 1728 - Apr. 1730
details Rousseau's physical movement and picaresque
behavior.
Book 4: Apr 1730 - Oct. 1731, including
his
trip
to
Lyon,
where he sits in the Place
Bellecour and second near miss with a homosexual
(161-63); starts copying music for money (165); gets
patronage from the duke of Savoy, king of Sardinia and
Sicily, Victor-Amédée
Book 6: idyllic life with Mme de Warens, seduction
of another older woman, and R. officially becomes an adult
(adults in Geneva become legal at age 25)
Book 7: 1742-1749, when R. serves as an assistant to
the French ambassador in Venice
Book 8: Oct. 1749 - Apr. 1756 -- inspirations for
his first Discourse,
his play, The Village Soothsayer;
converts back to Protestantism from Catholicism; another
piece from The Village Soothsayer
Book 9: guest of Mme. d'Epinay at Hermitage,
disastrous ménage à trois inc. her
sister-in-law, Sophie d'Houdetot
Book 10: sponsorship by Maréchal and
Maréchale de Luxembourg, life in countryside
Book 11: In 1761, he falls ill while trying publish
Julie, Social Contract, and Emile
Book 12: June 1762 - Oct. 1765: Rousseau's house
stoned by Swiss citizens owing to his controversial writings
Romanticism
and Rousseau
- Confessions shares many themes shared by
Romantic writers (like Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein):
Authenticity and Admiration
for an Idealized Nature
Crime, Confession, and Punishment
Development of Self
Equality & Freedom
Nature of
Eternal/Supreme Being
Rights and Responsibilities of genius
Meaning and Importance of Families and Love
Universal beauty and truth
- Mary Shelley wrote a biographical entry on Rousseau in
an encyclopedia. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was influenced
by Rousseau's ideas on education, and she
read Confessions while
writing Frankenstein
(O’Rourke 554).
Conroy, Peter V. Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. NY: Twayne, 1998. Print
O'Rourke, James. “"Nothing More Unnatural": Mary Shelley's Revision
of Rousseau.” ELH 56.3
(1989): 543-569. Print.
See also: Marshall, David. The Surprising Effects of Sympathy:
Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1988.
