Jean Jacques Rousseau

(1712-1778)

. She liked the early novels:
. They replaced it all.
. She falls in love frauds
. And Richardson and Rousseau.

. That's because any dissimilar writers read heroine of Pushkin: quietest author 'Pamela' and predecessor of the French Revolution writer 'New Heloise'
. It is noteworthy that somewhere in Russia's provinces, the estate, where there were Tatyana Larina, were well known to those books. It seems that Tatiana had no idea of the diverse literature of Rousseau, of his 'Social Contract' and other published works. She read novels. A outstanding artistic discovery in the XVIII century was the novel in letters. Reader in his hands as if no history of fictional characters, and a pack of original letters, intended, perhaps, not for publication, but for a single person - their destination. Characteristically, and Richardson and Rousseau referred to themselves not by the authors and publishers. On the front page of "New Heloise 'and it was written:' collected and published by Jean-Jacques Rousseau '. Moreover, it provides some of the pages footnotes, which gives an estimate by any actions or judgments heroes. From this impression that Rousseau only publishes letters and comments, it becomes even stronger.

'Julia, or the New Eloise "(1761), a long novel (163 letters), marked by the heat of emotions. Rousseau vain considered the founder of sentimentalism in European literature. Before he announced the Enlightenment Mind chief criterion of human activity, Rousseau saw the dignity and the main merit of the individual in her ability to feel. He wrote about the 'gold placers of the human heart'. Nowadays, the notion of 'sentimental' has become almost a pejorative connotation. During the same Rousseau is seen as a philosophical concept, ideology. In this sense, Rousseau's novel was a step forward compared with the works of Richardson, is basically quite rational.

Contents of the novel Rousseau apparently simple. In rich, noble house Baron d'Etanzha appears modest teacher Saint-Preux. It takes a little time, and his illustrious pupil begins to show interest not only in science, which taught her how to master himself. He keeps himself strictly restrained, but Julia finds herself the occasion and the means to express their affection for him, and soon the hour of recognition. That's what Saint-Preux writes Julia, after she kissed him the first time: 'What have you done, oh, what have you done, my Julia! I wanted to reward me, but instead - ruined. I had too much - or rather, I'm mad. All my senses are in disarray, the mind is clouded because of your deadly kiss. And that you wanted to ease my sufferings? Fierce! You made them more intolerable. Out of your mouth, I drank the poison, he worries, it lights the blood, kills me, and your compassion threatens me with death '. Today, this style may seem too lofty, even unnatural, but it is inseparable from the era, it spawned. And in those days readers and readers believe the author understood him and the hero. It must be admitted that the current reader lives in the era of the devaluation of certain feelings, and it is difficult to imagine a really exciting stream of experiences.

. And another important fact: the hero of the novel - a man humble origin
. Simply a teacher could not fail to stun, just keep in mind that its been given special girl from the high group. And this is the democratic pathos of the novel. Rousseau plebeian revolt against all social inequalities. He once wrote: 'I hate the noble, I would hate them even more, if less despised'.

In the first and second parts of the novel unfolds the love story of two young people. Their letters to each other and close friends worried and continue to excite the reader, revealing to him all the shades of feeling, complex web of emotions. Skillfully leads the writer to the climax relations heroes. Strikingly letter to Julia, which she recounts his plan for meeting and even quite seriously wrote about the deadly dangers faced by them during the meeting. The reader may differently interpret these words of Yulia: maybe, . she exaggerates her fears and unfounded? Well, . and if in fact appear menacing father? And who can guarantee, . that he did not take up arms against the, . seducer who considers her daughter? And here are the words of Yulia, . filled with despair and courage: 'Remember also that, . that you do not have to show courage, . forget about it and think,
. Absolutely forbid you to take for self-defense weapons, . even sword, . - It is you did not need, . because that's what I came up with: if we will catch, . I throw myself into your arms, . tightly obovyu hands and you'll take a mortal blow, . so as not to part with you forever,
. And, dying, I'll be happy, as never in my life '. (Letter LIII). This is one of the most exciting letters of the novel. Leaving Saint-Preux unarmed, Julia promised him the greatest protection: she would hug him and save you from the blow. If we talk about the sentimental novel, here it is brave and majestic.

But soon tragedy brewing. The mystery of the relationship between a young man, and Julia becomes known father. Attempts by his friend to intercede for Saint-Preux and prove to his father that is a worthy match for his daughter, only to exacerbate the conflict. There is thought married secretly, went to England, but Julia can not agree to this. Saint-Preux has to go first to Paris, then in a long overseas trip. Meanwhile, in the house of Baron d'Etanzha brings its 50-year-old friend of Wolmar, which he had long promised his daughter. And Julia is his wife. But in the minds of Julia is a strange turning point: she thinks if fulfills a moral duty, and even tries to convince herself that her first love was a mistake. However, this novel does not end. After many difficult journeys Saint-Preux returns. A new meeting with Julia not only showed the nobility of all its participants, not only stirred up memories of a young woman, but also piqued her old feelings. Rousseau's novel ends somewhat artificial: his heroine, saving her child, caught cold and died soon after.

. In the history of literature of XVIII century there were many works, which became the heroes of noble or wealthy men who seduce girls from families of modest burgess
. A story about this, too, was a form of public criticism. 'Rousseau, this hackneyed plot inverts, the fall girl becomes her rise. 'Seducer' looks tragic, patriarchal norms of morality reveal its dogmatic, even inhuman '(IE Vertsman, Soviet literature).

. Content of the novel is not limited to the image, feelings of the hero and heroine, there are many arguments for a variety of topics, which stirred the then society
. Researchers often point out that Julia knows too much for a young girl - she simply refers to the ancient classics. Julia is not just a sensitive girl, but she gifted, her mind is not contrary to the feeling.

Note the double-ing the name of the novel. Eloise - the heroine of a popular medieval SOI-gi Abelard 'History of my distress' (1132-1136). Sorrowful fate of the young Eloise, who went to the monastery (although, according to her, she loved more Abelard than God), of course, can not compare with the life of Julia, but nevertheless throws light on the tragic story told Russo.

. Rousseau was Roman art program documents of the European sentimentalism.

. But the writer's outlook is broader and richer: sentimentalism was only one of its faces
. Already in the work itself contains a sharp criticism of modern social order to the author. His hero is Saint-Preux, visiting Paris and showed great powers of observation, tells about the life-nor a secular society, the fall of the NRA Islands, the deep divide that separates rich and poor, noble and obscure. Its moral ideal of Rousseau connects with a patriarchal state, a person close to nature. In this sense, the most noble work of the farmer. But criticizing the landlords, Rousseau, however, creates the ideal image of a farmer, the owner of large estates, as was Julia's husband - Wolmar.

. Eighteenth century in France - a century philosophers, but Rousseau does not have special philosophical works, moreover, he is wary of any theoretical speculations
. Rousseau's philosophical ideas contained in various of his writings, but most of them - in the novel-treatise, 'Emile, or On education' (1762). Basically it is a pedagogical work, the author of which education is seen in the development of natural abilities and instincts of the child, does not allow any abuse of his personality. This should not only comprehend the science but also master the skills of a craft. Proximity to nature for Rousseau is the foundation of moral health. He believed that after the primer of the first book to read to be a novel D. Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe'. The feat of Robinson, who mastered the uninhabited island, relying only on the strength of its a-their hands and their mind is, for Rousseau, a high moral example and passed on the essence of pedagogical pursuit of the French writer.

. 'Confession of the Savoyard Vicar', included in this book, was an attempt to justify the new religion
. If Voltaire was a deist, Diderot - an agnostic, Rousseau, criticizing the official church, and formulates a kind of religion of the heart, confessing that a man comes to God directly, bypassing the priests and all religious institutions. Later this concept was attractive to Leo Tolstoy. Speeches Parisian bishop and other church leaders denounced as a heretic Rousseau. He was forced into hiding, moving from province to province, and in Switzerland - from one canton to another. In the XVIII century with such things were not kidding: to cut off the head and. And in the years of revolution in the 'Confession of the Savoyard Vicar' relied Robespierre, proclaimed in 1794, the cult of the Supreme Being. However, suffering from persecution, Rousseau himself offered to take severe measures against atheists: he believed that they should expel from the country, and in the case of persistence - to execute. Nature and God is paradoxically combined in his philosophy. 'The more I see, - wrote Rousseau - counter natural forces, the more convinced that the transition from action to action, must always rise to the ca-Khoi-day will, acting as their first cause'. And further: 'This is a being that is willing and able, is being, active in itself, in a word, this being the driving of the universe and controls all things, I call God'. In essence, this is the case, as was a form of deism, but ta-kai, in which the philosopher made far too many concessions to God, for which he was sharply criticized encyclopedic.

. In philosophy and literature of the XVIII century was a very popular idea of natural rights, ie a person living in a kind of 'natural' laws
. By itself, it was progressive, since the Enlightenment, using this concept, condemned them to a modern social system, not only as irrational, but contrary to nature itself.

But Rousseau's idea has found a paradoxical sense. The question: 'Did the improvement of morals development of science and art? ", He responds negatively. In his treatise 'On the Arts and Sciences' (1750), he attacks the whole of modern civilization, . primarily on the arts, . which, . his opinion, . 'encircled with garlands of flowers fetter the peo-ple iron chains, . constrained in their natural sense of freedom, . for which they seemed born, ,

. If educators, . usually, . turned to classical models of antiquity and glorified in the first Athens - center of Greek civilization, . that Rousseau wrote with admiration of harsh laws and customs of Sparta, . where, . is known, . not tolerate any poets, . nor philosophers,
. The myth of Prometheus, which drew in the XVIII century the attention of the young Goethe and became for him a symbol of civilization, completely alien ideology Rousseau. He rejects this symbolism 'creativity and prosperity'. 'How can there be truth in these characters, . - Asked Rousseau, . - If art arose from luxury, . Astronomy - from superstition, . geometry - from miserliness, . physics - from the empty curiosity, . and all of them - out of ambition? " Modern man may seem absurd so ignorant judgments of a great man, . but Rousseau was a logic, . prompted a profound rejection of modern civilization, . based on inequality and oppression,
. Russo participated in the preparation of the first volumes of 'Encyclopedia' (written for her, . mainly, . musicological article; way, . he was the author of the opera 'Village Soothsayer "), . but broke with Diderot, . and his publishing, . when I read the article 'Geneva', . AB-torus which complains, . that in a big city there is no theater, . But Rousseau had thought, . that the modern theater does not educate, . and corrupt people!,

. Rousseau's treatise 'On the Arts and Sciences' aroused the indignation of many educators
. Voltaire wrote that now remains only one thing: to be on all fours, that is, to return to the savage state and escape into the woods. The ideas of Rousseau, Voltaire called 'the philosophy of vagrants'. Their mutual dislike, only emphasized the deep ideological demarcation among educators. However, other contemporaries did not share that view of Voltaire, knowing that the opposition 'of nature and civilization' performed by the actual public value. 'In praise of the savage', lead a happy life among the forests and mountains, they guessed the promotion of the dignity and valor of poor people: farmers and hunters, fishermen, artisans'. (VF Asmus, a Soviet philosopher and literary critic).

No less audacious was another treatise Rousseau: 'On the origin and causes of inequality among men' (1755). He became a textbook famous passage from the book: 'The first person to enclose a piece of land, said:' This land is mine 'and found people naive enough to believe it was the true founder of civil society. From how many miseries and horrors would have spared the human race one who would have cried out, pulling stakes and ditches to sleep: 'Beware, do not listen to this imposter! You will die if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone, and the earth - no one '. What a wonderful document of human thought, has not lost its sharpness and today!

. And another treatise written Eng-w - 'Social Contract' (1762), where the paved road to the future, anticipating the decrees and constitutional acts of the French Revolution.

. The last years of his life devoted to Rousseau's 'Confessions', a great autobiography
. It is not always fair to his contemporaries, and this is understandable, given that many of them were hostile to him. But this work should be viewed as a novel - an unusually frank, with a good penetration into the psychology of the hero and not inferior in this sense, the 'New Eloise ". With startling candor the author tells of his life, he is silent about the most unattractive aspects of it: can not even tell that in his youth, when he was a footman, he stole the tape, but the blame fell to the maid, who, because of the fired. But the most unexpected for the reader to be recognized that, by marrying Teresa, Rousseau made her first throw of their first child, and then the second. And this is the future author of 'Emile'!

However, his book, he anticipates the words, filled with dignity: '... I appear before the Supreme Judge of this book in my hands ... I bared my soul and revealed her as by what you have seen it myself, the Almighty. Gather around me innumerable crowd of like me: Let them listen to my confession, let them blush for my meanness, even lamenting about my affliction. Let each of them at the foot of Thy throne, in turn, with the same sincerity will open his heart, and then let them at least one of them, if you dare, you say: 'I was better than this man. "

. Rousseau's life was wandering, but spent many years in Paris, and it became the last refuge Ermenonvil, where he died in one year with Voltaire.

. The posthumous fate of Jean Jacques Rousseau amazing
. 'Island of poplars' in Ermenonvile, where he was buried, became a place of pilgrimage. His grave can be found and Queen Marie Antoinette, and a lawyer from Arras Maximilien Robespierre, in which she is later executed, and the future Emperor Napoleon. There have visited many of those who won the 'New Heloise', and those who are on the eve of the revolution reflected on the political formula 'Social Contract'. And when it started, of all the French Enlightenment of Rousseau found it the most popular. Moreover, his name is constantly sounded in the speeches of leaders, his endlessly quoted, his name is blessed every step of the revolution. Emboss Rousseau, carved in stone from the demolished Bastille, decorated hall of the Legislative Assembly. 'He taught you to educate peo-ple for freedom', - said one of the deputies, referring to Assembly. Often remembered in speeches, on the pages of periodicals and pamphlets in the opening phrase 'Social Contract': 'Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains'. Creating a new constitution, leaders of the revolution were based on Rousseau. That, he wrote that the state should be based on the contract for all citizens. This should be the state of free and equal peo-ple, united into a powerful team. 'They collectively take the name of the people, and separately referred to as citizens, as members of sovereign authority, and subjects, as subordinate to the laws of the State'. Even for a justification of revolutionary terror, the French legislators pointed to the 'Social Contract', in which Rousseau wrote that the society has the right to force to make people be free, if he refuses to respect the freedom of the people. In 1794, after the death of Robespierre, Rousseau's ashes were ceremoniously moved to Paris and buried in the Pantheon. G. Kleist, German writer, who visited Paris in recent years, the XVIII century, struck by the fact that the lips of the French every tenth word - 'Rousseau'.

In the XIX century in the era of romanticism, Rousseau found a new glory, first and foremost as an artist. It is invoked, and it relied writers of different ideological positions. Not only rebel Byron, but such an opponent of the revolution, as Chateaubriand. Succession associated with the author of 'Confessions' French 'confessional novel' (A.de Musset). E. T. A. Hoffmann admitted: 'I think the thirtieth time chi-conceal' Confessions 'and find themselves in multi-burg like the author'. Realists same XIX century - from Stendhal to Dostoevsky - saw the merit of the author's 'Confessions' in the creation of a new type of hero, a man's troubled life's journey, in the formation of a new method that allowed to reveal this character.

. Of course, Rousseau were still enemies, mstivshie to him for the 'Social Contract'
. And when, after the fall of Napoleon returned to France, the Bourbons, thugs from the monarchist camp even stole the ashes of Rousseau from the Pantheon. Opponents narodopravstva feared dead and Rousseau.

Not forgotten by Rousseau in the twentieth century. On it he wrote Rolland. A pen L. Feuchtwanger belongs to the novel 'The wisdom of eccentric, or Death and transfiguration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau'.

In his youth, Rousseau considered himself a born musician and in 1741 appeared in the Paris Academy with a new system of recording notes. It was rejected, but Rousseau still saw himself first and foremost a musician. In 1743 he was appointed Secretary of the French Ambassador to the Republic of Venice and graduated from there his musical education. Quarrel with the ambassador and his return to Paris, where he wrote for the 'Encyclopedia', he was moonlighting rewriting notes. And in the future this activity more than once served as his source of income.

* * *

'Big cities deplete state. The wealth that they create an illusion. France would have been much more powerful if Paris had disappeared from the face of the Earth '.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 1762

* * *

Noble people loved him, despite the fact that he was against them. Behind him cared, they tried to get rid of cares, and he could feel safe in the cycle of life.

Heinrich Mann