Palak Bansal

English 3B
Roll no.: 535

Discuss Rousseau’s Confessions as Romantic Literature.

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical, cultural and intellectual movement originating in
Europe, toward the end of the 18th century. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on
emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval
rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to industrial revolution, the aristocratic social and
political norms of Age of Enlightenment and the scientific rationalisation of nature.
Despite receiving much attention and positive response for New Heloise, Emile, and Social Contract,
Rousseau had to face much outrage for his radical ideas and was forced to flee the country to avoid
being sent to prison. This opposition made him suspicious and misanthropic. His sensitiveness was
aggravated to such an extent that he suffered as much from imaginary as well as from real attacks. In
an attempt to justify himself to posterity he wrote his autobiography, Confessions. He wanted to
demonstrate that despite all his faults he was basically good.

Prior to the Confessions, the two great autobiographies were Augustine's own Confessions and Saint

Teresa's Life of Herself. However, both of these works focused on the religious experiences of their
authors. People generally had seen themselves as members of a social unit, not as individuals.
Rousseau’s the Confessions was one of the first autobiographies in which an individual wrote of his
own life mainly in terms of his worldly experiences and personal feelings. According to J.M. Cohen,
“By Rousseau’s age …men had begun to see themselves not as atoms in a society that stretched
down from God to that world of nature but as unique individuals, important in their own right”.
Rousseau was passionate about his subjectivism, about his tendency towards introspection which is
evident in the following words.

“Myself alone! I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I
have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not
better, at least I am different.”

Rousseau begins his story from the narrative of his boyhood. An infant is born innocent and he is not
able to commit personal sin, since he has not developed his reason yet. Rousseau did not recount his
infancy because he did not have any memory of it.

Rousseau portrays himself as a man according to nature in his Confessions. According to the
Christian natural law tradition, man, who acts according to nature, must be good. But Rousseau had
done both good and bad in his past. How can he be a good man according to nature? He said,
“Whether nature has done well or ill in breaking the mold in which it cast me, is something which
cannot be judged until I have been read.” In other words, a person who wants to judge Rousseau has
to know him entirely by reading his whole life; they have to read the Confessions. Rousseau
presented the Confessions as the book about his whole life that he would show to God in the Last
Judgment. Thus, this autobiography for Rousseau is not so much an account of what he had done,
good and bad, as it is the revelation of his interior. M.H. Abrams maintains that whereas for the
classicist the work of art resembles a mirror, passively mimetic reproducing reality as it is, for the
romantics it is more of a lamp reflecting images not of the outer world but the inner world of the
poet.
Romanticism is often portrayed as an era devoted to irrationality and unreason as opposed to the
Age of Enlightenment when reason and rationality held utmost value. Romanticism valued free
expression of feelings and emotions more than reason. To William Wordsworth, poetry should begin
as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’’, which the poet then “recollects in tranquillity”,
evoking a new corresponding emotion the poet can then mould into art. For Rousseau too, passion
and its free expression was paramount. In his words, “My passions when roused, are intense, and, so
long as I am activated by them, nothing equals my impetuosity. I no longer know moderation,
respect, fear, propriety; I am cynical, brazen, violent, fearless; no sense of shame deters me, no
danger alarms me.’’ He was often described as “madman” by enlightenment philosophers for the
same.

Rousseau similar to other romantics didn’t seek material pleasure. “I have no particular taste for
things that can be bought. I only want pleasures that are pure, whereas money poisons everything”.
The very act of eating is pleasurable for him only when he is with a friend otherwise he would
remain preoccupied with his own imaginations rather than enjoying the food alone.

For Rousseau urban life and the commitment to "getting and spending," generates a fear and
distrust of the world. He regards the necessity to acquire more money with much loathing. He
believes that the possession of money is the instrument of freedom while pursuing it is servitude
and constraint.

Rousseau’s yearning to be loved is the source of his shame. Although everything in Bossey was
nourishing Jean-Jacques’ natural inclination, a desire for being loved entered him insidiously. “To be
loved by everyone who approached me was my keenest desire.” It almost seems that the desire for
being loved developed “naturally” in social relationships. Jean-Jacques wanted to be loved by
everyone and so he was afraid to displease anyone, especially someone he cared about.
Disappointing Mlle Lambercier was more painful than failing and being punished in public. Rousseau
said he was very sensitive to shame.

Rousseau’s concept of goodness and the approach to the study of man are different from the
classical and the Christian tradition. Since the ancient Greek period, philosophers, like Plato and
Aristotle, defined reason as the essence of man. Study of man amounts to the study of mind. For
instance, in Aristotle’s ethics, rational activity is the proper function of man. Accordingly, happiness
consists of the activity of study, which is the supreme activity of understanding of the supreme
objects of knowledge. Rousseau on the contrary talks about the natural goodness of man. According
to Rousseau, ‘natural’ means whatever is formed by nature without human intervention by reason
and freedom. The man in the state of nature only listens to the voice of nature and follows his
natural inclinations instead of following reason. The natural inclinations are not limited to physical
desires only. Rousseau was interested in the inclinations of the soul. After meditating on the first and
simplest operations of the human soul, Rousseau “perceived in it two principles prior to reason, of
which one interests us intensely in our well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in
us a natural repugnance at seeing any sentient being and especially any being like ourselves, perish
or suffer.” It is the external environment and effects of civilisation that hinders this natural
goodness.

Self-preservation and pity are two natural passions prior to the development of reason. Although the
natural man is ignorant, solitary, and brute-like, he is free, equal, and self-sufficient. The first natural
passion, self-preservation, directs him to be interested only in himself. He acts only for what he
desires but never exceeds his physical needs and capacity. His robust body and his flexibility allow
him to adapt to the environment and to be self-sufficient in the state of nature without any need to
compete or to cooperate with others. There is little conflict of interest among men, since everyone is
self-sufficient. He has nothing to do with other people. Although sometimes he fights violently
against others in self-defence, he never has any intention to harm them. Rousseau in his childhood
spent most of his time with his cousin Bernard. They were all the world to each other. They had no
inclination to spend their time with other children in the streets. They made cages, pipes, kites,
ships, bows and wasted paper in drawing, washing and colouring. They were content and self-
sufficient in their own world indulging in self-exploration.

The second natural passion, pity prevents man from doing harm to others. He finds it repugnant to
see other people suffering. Despite his undeveloped reason and imagination, the natural feeling of
compassion helps the natural man identify himself with the suffering of others and discourages him
to act violently against others. Rousseau couldn’t bear the indignity Bernard had to suffer in the
hands of other children because of his meagre figure, small, sallow countenance, heavy air, and
supine gait. They would assail him with a repetition of “Barna Bredanna”. His compassion towards
his cousin’s suffering led him to get into a fight instinctively and got beaten up by the young rouges.

Jean-Jacques’ father, aunt, and relatives as a part of corrupting social influence fostered his artificial
passions, though not deliberately. Reading the lives of Greek and Roman heroes with his father
nurtured a free and republican spirit and inspired a great love of fatherland in Jean-Jacques’s heart.
He identified with the characters whose lives he read. For instance, when he was recounting the
novel during a meal, in identifying himself with the character, he took up a chafing dish to
impersonate the character. Until the incident of the aqueduct, Jean-Jacques was not aware of the
sense of vanity. This happened when he was living with M. Lambercier in Bossey. He dug a trench
under the earth to direct water from M.Lambercier’s walnut tree to his willow. Jean-Jacques saw
the building of an “aqueduct” as a great glory. While Lambercier was watering his plant, he saw two
basins of water. He soon discovered JeanJacques’ little trick. The great aqueduct ended up in pieces.
Jean-Jacques imagined himself in this anecdote as a Roman hero who fought against the giant and
constructed a great system of aqueducts. “Until then I had had fits of pride at intervals when I was
Aristides or Brutus. This was my first well-marked movement of vanity.”

The serenity of Jean-Jacques’ childhood life was ended with an experience of injustice. When he was
living with minister Lambercier, Rousseau was accused of breaking a comb to which he was the only
person who had access at that moment. The objective external evidence showed that he was guilty.
Lambercier made a judgment based on the evidences and punished Jean-Jacques. Jean-Jacques,
however, never admitted his “crime”, because he knew that he was innocent. He insisted on
demand justice. He thought that the judgment by which the stronger punished the weak for wrongs
the weak had not done was unjust. Rage and despair overwhelmed Jean-Jacques. Rousseau
concluded from this experience, “There was the end of the serenity of my childlike life. From that
moment I ceased to enjoy a pure happiness, and even today I feel that the remembrance of the
charms of my childhood stops there.” His innocent childhood, or should we say his original
innocence, ended.

Rousseau, regarded thefts and lying in his boyhood as childish misdeeds. He claimed he was not
wicked since he did not take pleasure in doing harm to others. His thievery in adolescent, he
believed, was a result of victimisation. Jean-Jacques was living under M. Ducommun’s tyranny like a
slave, deprived of freedom, food, material resources, and self-esteem. M. Ducommun kept him away
from food he liked and good tools he needed. Furthermore, Jean-Jacques became fearful staying at
his master’s house and not daring to express his desires and the emotions of his heart. From then
on, he was a lost child who was disoriented and loved by nobody. Covetousness and powerlessness
led him to masquerade, to lie, and finally to steal.

Rousseau’s self-portrait delineates a naturally good man who became wicked because of his
weakness of will. Social institutions misdirect human natural goodness, which becomes the source of
their weakness.

Rousseau through his works laid the foundations of Romanticism. His works contain a whole range
of themes that were to become the staples of Romanticism and is aptly considered the “high priest”
or the “father” of Romanticism.