
This landmark of the romantic movement not only greatly influenced the taste and morality of the eighteenth-century reading public but was also one of the most seminal and widely read literary works of its day. Seventy-two editions of the novel in French appeared between 1761 and 1800, and though Voltaire called its success one of the infamies of the century. It won for Rousseau a place beside the author of Candide as a director of European thought. The plot of the novel is one familiar to all literature; that of a fallen and regenerated woman. The first three parts are devoted to the celebration of the passionate, mutual love of Saint-Preux and Julie; the last three praise Julie's return to virtue as a faithful wife and dedicated mother. Professor McDowell's translation is precise but natural and conveys to the reader the distinctive flavor of Rousseau's style.
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1712–1778
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a major Genevois philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political, sociological and educational thought. His novel, *Emile: or, On Education*, which he considered his most important work, is a seminal treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel, Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, was of great importance to the development of pre-Romanticism and romanticism in fiction. Rousseau's autobiographical writings: his *Confessions*, which initiated the modern autobiography, and his *Reveries of a Solitary Walker* were among the pre-eminent examples of the late 18th-century movement known as the "Age of Sensibility", featuring an increasing focus on subjectivity and introspection that has characterized the modern age. Rousseau also made important contributions to music as a theorist. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophers among members of the Jacobin Club. He was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794, 16 years after his death.<sup>[1][1]</sup> [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau
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