Jean Jacques Rousseau Research Paper

Jean- Jacques Rousseau was a successful pioneer in the Romanticism Era due to his revolutionary and modernistic account of his mood altering, depressing, yet encouraging personal events. Due to his profoundly distinct way of thinking and writing, Rousseau is accredited for inventing the modern autobiography that we still use to this day. He was rather dominant and influential in his actions of progressing passed the Enlightenment Era’s aged and restrictive mindset. “I am resolved on an undertaking that has no model and will have no imitator. I want to show my fellow-men a man in all the truth of nature; and this man is to be myself.” (Rousseau pg. 387) Most of the population, especially those who were not readers or invested in the arts, did

The Romantic movement was pessimistic, to a certain degree, in comparison to the Enlightenment’s central values of symmetry and harmony. Rousseau’s self- authored biography, Confessions (Part One- Part Two), would never have been written had he not grown up in such a depressive, love-deprived, and parent-less way.
Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland on June 28, 1712. He became the second born son of Isaac Rousseau, a plebeian class watchmaker, and Suzanne Bernard, the daughter of a minister who died shortly after giving birth to him. Rousseau’s baptism ceremony was a traditional one held at St. Peter’s Cathedral on July 4, 1712. He had an elder brother who had a loose and rebellious character, but Rousseau loved him anyway. At an early age, Rousseau found a love for reading. His mother had an inheritance of some money and many romantic books and novels, so those are the first that he read. He and his father would read for so many hours sometimes they would read continuously through the night and on into

He wanted nothing to do with crowds, or the celebrity life of being an author. “Rousseau, then, is concerned not with writing, but with a broadly defined act of reading that involves direct response and recognition rather than acquisition of knowledge.” (Johnston) Rousseau wanted nothing more to than to be able to tell his story and to fix the things he’d discover to be inherently and politically wrong with society of that time. He wanted to create an everlasting domino effect of change that would be crucial to moving forward from the Enlightenment Period into the Romantic Era. Rousseau knew that there was more to life than the philosophical and scientific tendencies that had been popularized for such an extended period of time. He knew that people felt and understood more than had been let on, just from his own personal experiences. He pushed the boundaries of the literary world as well as the real world by writing his autobiography, but he accepted the steps he was taking to progress the world. He knew that this advancement was crucial to the survival and progression that had been stalled due to the Enlightenment period. Rousseau did in fact push authors to reevaluate the writings they had been publishing and encouraged the path of free thought and all that came with it. Many authors in this era had never dreamt to be so daring and bold, but once Rousseau opened the door for the literary world, no one hesitated to