Philsophical & Social Context of Rousseau's Ideas

By the 18th century, the intellectual ground had been prepared for the Enlightenment. The Reformation had long since been successfully employed against the rigidity of the Roman Church, but, by the 18th century, Protestantism had achieved quite as much an institutional authoritarianism as Catholicism, and monarchy remained the principal form of government throughout Europe. But the revolutions in England in 1642, 1660, and 1688 had, after all, traded one absolutist regime for another. Rumblings of social and moral discontent of the later period were to find expression in the American and French Revolutions, and the atmosphere and content of Enlightenment thought and its more flamboyant philosophic

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tion of the male teacher/female student relationship, as well as the domestic tale's ultimate faith in marriage." In other words, Rousseau uses the heroine's psychoemotional relationship with her lovers to personify an ideal woman-as-student in Julie, an ideal man-as-mentor in Saint-Preux, and an ideal understanding husband in Wolmar. Julie becomes the modern figure of the historical Heloise, with her distant correspondent the romantic figuration of Abelard. The love between Julie and Saint-Preux is as doomed as that of Heloise and Abelard, but they survive to old age, the tyrannous authority of the church unable to touch them in a secularized, anticlerical France. A good deal of Julie's correspondence deals with formulation of an appropriate concept of God and of human society. It becomes manifest because of the baron's rather peculiar choice of Julie's husband: He is a middle-aged Russian TmigrT and an atheist, and the baron's family is of godfearing Protestant stock. The hostility to Catholicism is therefore a starting point in the original conception of the novel. But Wolmar, who does not complain about Julie's not being a virgin, has an innate piety as well as some little hostility toward institutional religion, particularl
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Social Contract, Ideal Form, Reason Kant, Heloise Abelard, Cunegonde Benedictine, Julie Saint-Preux, Jesus Christ, Clarens Saint-Preux, Saint-Preux Julie, Wolmar Julie, social contract, ou la nouvelle, la nouvelle htloise, julie ou la, ou la, la nouvelle, nouvelle htloise, julie ou, pure reason, reason kant, practical reason, julie saint-preux, critique practical reason, critique pure reason, civil society,
Approximate Word count = 4540
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)