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Ruminating on Rousseau

28 January 2005, 18:00 PM
LIFESTYLE
By Fayza Haq
28 January 2005, 18:00 PM
Jean-Jacques Roussseau (1712-1772)
A poster exhibition on the life and works of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Roussseau is being held at the Alliance Francaise. The posters contain coloured and sepia pictures of reproductions of paintings of the past, presenting important events in Rousseau's life. Explanation in English accompany the writings in French on the 24 posters depicting significant days of his life. Marie-Christine Looten, Inspector of National Education, gave the accompanying lecture on Rousseau . Although her talk was in French, the audience did not stir to leave. Books on Rousseau are also to be found in the gallery where the exhibition is being held.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born at Geneva in 1712. After his mother's death his father deserted him. He was apprenticed to a notary and then to a coppersmith. Later he stayed with some Roman Catholic priests at Savoy, and then with Madame de Warens at Annecy , who sent him to study at Turin. There he abjured Protestantism. He went back to Madame Warens to study music , Latin, English, German French, mathematics and other subjects. He then went to Venice as the secretary to the ambassador Comte de Montaignu and there he wrote his "Confessions". At 39 , he returned to Paris and came into association with Diderot, Grimm, Holbach, and Madame d'Epinay, and was admitted as a contributor to the "Encyclopoedia".

Due to his nervous excitiblity he moved to the quiet nature of the woods of Montmorency and wrote about the inequalities of society. His famous works appeared about this period including "Emile ou de l'education" in Amsterdam in 1762. This work was ordered to be burnt by the French Parliament , and as he was to be arrested, he fled to Prussia. In his writings he advocated the freedom of religion against the church and police. He had taken shelter in Berne but he had to leave that place and took shelter in England, being invited by David Hume in 1766. Due to his own morbidity he lost his friends there, and had to flee France, where he produced some of his best stories. Here too he imagined secret enemies and retired to Ermenonville where he died 1772.

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Rousseau reacted against the artificiality and corruption of his time. He was a keen thinker. In "Emile" he presents the ideal citizen and the means of training the child for the state in accordance with nature. He shows the path to a true susceptibility to religion and to God. The "Social Contract" on the text that all men are born free and equal, regards state as a contract in which individuals surrender none of their natural rights, but rather agree to their protection. The "Social Contract" became the text-book of the French Revolution.

The programme has been arranged with the collaboration of the Swiss Embassy and remains opened till February 10.