The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~270,000 words · 1,288 passages
Cite this work
- APAJean-Jacques Rousseau. (n.d.). The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-confessions-of-jean-jacques-rousseau-complete
- MLAJean-Jacques Rousseau. The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-confessions-of-jean-jacques-rousseau-complete.
- ChicagoJean-Jacques Rousseau. The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-confessions-of-jean-jacques-rousseau-complete.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Rousseau's autobiography, written on the promise of telling everything, including what shows him badly.
Context and history
He wrote it between 1765 and 1770 and it was not published until after his death. It has a definite occasion: Voltaire had circulated a pamphlet revealing that Rousseau, the author of Émile, had left his five children at the foundling hospital. It was true, and the Confessions admit it. This is the book that invented the modern way of writing one's own life, and it is worth reading with a sense of what he was defending himself against, because the sincerity it promises is also a strategy.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
strangely constituted being, and some have pronounced upon him very severe sentences. Let it be said once for all that his faults and mistakes were generally due to causes over which he had but little control, such as a defective education, a too acute sensitiveness, which engendered suspicion of his fellows, irresolution, an overstrained sense of honour and independence, and an obstinate refusal to take advice from those who really wished to befriend him; nor should it be forgotten that he was afflicted during the greater part of his life with an incurable disease. Lord Byron had a soul near akin to Rousseau's, whose writings naturally made a deep impression on the poet's mind, and probably had an influence on his conduct and modes of thought: In some stanzas of 'Childe Harold' this sympathy is expressed with truth and power; especially is the weakness of the Swiss philosopher's character summed up in the following admirable lines: "Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, The apostle of affliction, he who threw Enchantment over passion, and from woe Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew How to make madness beautiful, and cast O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they passed The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast. "His life was one long war with self-sought foes, Or friends by him self-banished; for his mind Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose, For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind, 'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. But he was frenzied,--wherefore, who may know? Since cause might be which skill could never find; But he was frenzied by disease or woe To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.…