Confessions
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Patrick Coleman (Editor), Angela Scholar
ISBN-10: 0199540039
ISBN-13: 9780199540037
$12.95
Book Specs
Binding
Trade Paper
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Published on
Jul 15, 2008
Edition
1st Edition
Dimensions
7.60x1.30x5.00 Inches
Weight
1.08 Pounds
About the Book
'No one can write a man's life except himself.'In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from theworld of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an elusive but essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The bookvividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability, self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all, Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey what he despairsof putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence.