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ROUSSEAU, JEAN BAPTISTE (1671-1741)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 775 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ROUSSEAU, See also:JEAN See also:BAPTISTE (1671-1741) , See also:French poet, was See also:born at See also:Paris on the 6th of See also:April 1671; he died at See also:Brussels on the 17th of See also:March 1741. The son of a shoemaker, he was well educated and See also:early gained favour with Boileau, who encouraged him to write. He began with the See also:theatre, for which he had no aptitude. A one-See also:act See also:comedy, Le Cafe, failed in 1694, and he was not much happier with a more ambitious See also:play, Le Flatteur (1696), or with the See also:opera of See also:Venus et See also:Adonis (1697). He tried in 1700 another comedy, Le Capricieux, which had the same See also:fate. He then went with Tallard as an attache to See also:London, and, in days when literature still led to high position, seemed likely to achieve success. His misfortunes began with a See also:club squabble at the Cafe See also:Laurent, which was much frequented by See also:literary men, and where Rousseau indulged in lampoons on his companions. A shower of libellous and sometimes obscene verses was written by or attributed to him, and at last he was turned out of the cafe. At the same See also:time his poems, as yet only singly printed or in See also:manuscript, acquired him a See also:great reputation, due to the dearth of genuine lyrical See also:poetry between See also:Racine and See also:Chenier. He had in 17or been made a member of the Academie See also:des See also:inscriptions; he had been offered, though he had not accepted, profitable places in the See also:revenue See also:department; he had become a favourite of the libertine but influential coterie of the See also:Temple; and in 1710 he presented himself as a See also:candidate for the Academie francaise. Then began the second See also:chapter of an extraordinary See also:history of the animosities of authors. A copy of verses, more offensive than ever, was handed See also:round, and See also:gossip maintained that Rousseau was its author.

Legal proceedings of various kinds followed, and Rousseau ascribed the See also:

lampoon to See also:Joseph Saurin. In 1712 Rousseau was prosecuted for See also:defamation of See also:character, and, on his non-See also:appearance in See also:court, was condemned See also:par contumace to perpetual See also:exile. He spent the See also:rest of his See also:life in See also:foreign countries except for a clandestine visit to Paris in 1738, refusing to accept the permission to return which was offered him in 1716 because it was not accompanied by See also:complete rehabilitation. See also:Prince See also:Eugene and then other persons of distinction took him under their See also:protection during his exile, and he printed at See also:Soleure the first edition of his poetical See also:works. See also:Voltaire and he met at Brussels in 1722. Voltaire's Le Pour el le contre is said to have shocked Rousseau, who expressed his sentiments freely. At any See also:rate the latter had thenceforward no fiercer enemy than Voltaire. His See also:death elicited from Lefranc de See also:Pompignan an See also:ode of real excellence and perhaps better than anything of Rousseau's own See also:work. That work is divided, roughly speaking, into two contrasted divisions. One consists of formal and partly sacred odes and cantatas of the stiffest character, of which perhaps the Ode d la See also:fortune is the most famous; the other of brief epigrams, sometimes licentious and always, or almost always, See also:ill-natured. As an epigrammatist Rousseau is only inferior to his friend See also:Alexis See also:Piron. In the former he stands almost alone.

The frigidity of conventional diction and the disuse of all really lyrical See also:

rhythm which characterize his See also:period do not prevent his odes and cantatas from showing at times true poetical See also:faculty, though cramped, and inadequate to explain his extraordinary See also:vogue. Few writers were so frequently reprinted during the 18th See also:century, but even in his own century La Harpe had arrived at a truer estimate of his real value when he said of his poetry: " Le fond n'est qu'un lieu commun See also:charge de declamations et meme d'idees fausses." Besides the Soleure edition mentioned above Rousseau published another issue of his work in London in 1723. The See also:chief edition since is that of J. A. Amar (5 vols., 1820), preceded by a See also:notice of his life. M. A. de Latour published (1869) a useful though not complete edition, with notes and a See also:biographical introduction.

End of Article: ROUSSEAU, JEAN BAPTISTE (1671-1741)

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