Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Rousseau's Socratic Aemilian Myths: A Literary Collation of "Emile" and the "Social Contract"

Rousseau's Socratic Aemilian Myths: A Literary Collation of "Emile" and the "Social Contract"

Ellis, Madeline B.

Paperback

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 0814253199
ISBN13: 9780814253199
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Published: Feb 12 2016
Pages: 448
Weight: 1.44
Height: 1.00 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
In this illuminating study of two literary milestones in the history of our civilization, a noted Rousseau scholar examines for the first time the nature of, and inspiration for, the symbolic language that informs Rousseau's two great masterworks. Though Rousseau himself, in the pedagogical novel, invites such a study by including an aesthetic profession of faith and by warning the reader more than once that he is using the language of symbolic expression, Rousseauist criticism has, beyond noting the presence of a few symbols in Emile, produced as yet no systematic inquiry into the emblematic conveyance of ideas therein. Professor Ellis's scrupulous collation of the texts of the two books and her adroit use of the Old and New Testaments and the Platonic dialogues reveal for the first time that not only is the Social Contract an appendix to Emile, as Rousseau says it is, but also that the two together constitute a Rousseauist version of Plato's Republic and Symposium transfigured by Judeo-Christian and biblical tradition. Although once again Rousseau himself invites such a comparison by calling both Christ and Socrates, or Plato, his master, a distinction he accords to no one else, scholars have consistently ignored this invitation as they have the first. Dr. Ellis's study conclusively demonstrates that the imagery of these ancient writings, which is also Rousseau's, is the real clue to the relationship between the pedagogical novel and its political appendix. Madeleine B. Ellis is professor of French literature and humanities at Marianopolis College, Montreal, and the author of Julie or La Nouvelle Héloïse: A Synthesis of Rousseau's Thought (1749-1759); Robert Charbonneau et la création romanesque: une étude de textes; Saint-Denys Garneau: art et réalisme; and Rousseau's Venetian Story: An Essay upon Art and Truth in Les Confessions.

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