49 Bla Kapossy, Iselin contra Rousseau: Sociable Patriotism and the History of Mankind (Basel, 2006), 68. Emphasis added. In subjecting the type of sociability that a theatre engenders to finely-grained analysis, Rousseau offers examples and language remarkably akin to those that Montesquieu employs in The Spirit of the Laws, yet he uses Montesquieu's teaching in order to oppose some of the very assertions his predecessor makes. Rousseau worked as a clerk to a notary, and then was apprenticed to an engraver. Rousseau was the eighteenth-century's greateast admirer, even idolator, of Sparta. He first tries to sway Geneva away from the idea of theatre by suggesting that it is not economically feasible, and that the population is too low to support a theatre. The Enlightenment was a diverse movement, represented in France by writers such as Voltaire, Diderot and the authors of the Encyclopdie. By placing this particular discussion of Phaedra and what occurs in our theaters in the second of two successive chapters devoted to the topic of civil laws that are contrary to natural law, Montesquieu underscores the moral importance of the theatre for a society. Quotations from d'Alembert's uvres, cited as "D'Al.," refer to the Belin edition (Paris, 1821) in five volumes.The edition of Voltaire's Correspondence is . For example, Phaedra scorns herself for her incestuous love, but is unable to resist it. Letter 28 humorously depicts Rica conflating the actors and the audience of the scene he describes, thus confusing the spectacle on the stage with the spectacle of Parisian social life: Yesterday I saw something rather odd [assez singulire], although in Paris it happens every day. The theme of The New Eloise provides a striking contrast to that of The Social Contract. For me, in the 'Letter to d'Alembert' Rousseau is on the side of prejudice, with his vehement moralising, and also a type of violence, always bordering on an exaggerated aggressiveness that is almost useless. 32 Spirit, 12.2, 188. 74 Various scholars have touched upon aspects of one or both of these points: see Mostefai, Le citoyen de Genve, 5, 8082; Forman-Barzilai, Emergence of Contextualism in Rousseau's Political Thought, 45556, 442; Jensen, Rousseau's French Revolution, in The Challenge of Rousseau, edited by Grace and Kelly, 231, 238, 245; Rahe, Soft Despotism, 97; Michael Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution (Princeton, NJ, 2008), 15455. He argues that the presence and authority of women in public spaces corrupts the male youth, turning them effeminate and void of patriotic passion. He considered women, by virtue of their nature, to be the primary agents of moral reform, and that the success of the state depends on the harmony within private, domestic life. Arguably its greatest influence was as one of the first attempts to write a rigorous philosophical history of mankind. A decade later, Rousseau would discern that same power, but would respond by endeavouring to proscribe itat least as far as Geneva is concerned. Rousseau continues to say that actors coming to the town of Geneva will be indifferent to the town's morality, and will quickly corrupt it. Description. It is about people finding happiness in domestic as distinct from public life, in the family as opposed to the state. First, Montesquieu describes them as timide, a term which Rousseau adopts. 2. The particular play that Montesquieu selects for praise in this regard is Racine's Phaedra, which enacts many of Montesquieu's teachings and elicits the very sentiments he finds valuable. While he surely discerns the vices of commercial peoples, he also points out the positive transformative power of commerce in bringing peace and understanding among peoples; see Spirit, 20.1, 338. After naming these passions in particular, Montesquieu immediately observes: Those who write on morality for us and so strongly proscribe the theaters make us feel sufficiently the power of music on our souls.Footnote16 Thus, Montesquieu here testifies to the power that theatre has over the feelings, and hence the actions, of human beings. Believing that Thrse was the only person he could rely on, he finally married her in 1768, when he was 56 years old. Contents nen Preface vii Chronology of Works in Volume 10 ix Note on the Text xiii Introduction xv Operas, Plays, and Ballets 1 Iphis 3 Translated and Edited by Christopher Kelly His Government of Poland and Constitutional Project for Corsica offer practical proposals for political reform in his time. [2], The Letter is considered to be highly personally relevant to Rousseau, whose patriotism and affinity for Geneva shows through as he writes to defend his country from moral decay. He continues that a European spirit of gallantry that one can say was little known to the ancients grew out of this desire to please women. Registered in England & Wales No. Vous souhaitez acheter Encyclopedie: Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1754; Copper engraving from: Diderot & d'Alembert 'Encyc? Nonetheless, taken together, these apparently contrasting accounts reveal that Montesquieu sees value in the theatrical experience in its entirety. Wed love to have you back! Other scholars, in examining Rousseau's Letter in particular, discern limited indications of Montesquieu's influence. He notes that the citizens forbearance in the face of such criticism of the founder of their church reveals their enlightened tolerance.Footnote4 In addition, d'Alembert makes use of Montesquieu's authority when treating Geneva's laws in his essay, adducing the fact that M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switzerlanddied July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France), Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and political theorist whose treatises and novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation. Thus, [i]n the theater we congratulate ourselves for our moral sensitivity while remaining isolated from irksome involvement with our fellows; see Christopher Kelly, Rousseau and the Case for (and Against) Censorship, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers, edited by John T. Scott, 4 vols (New York, NY, 2006, first published in 1997), IV, 20122 (209). [4], The Letter starts off with a more grim and urgent tone, then shifting at the end to a brighter and optimistic one when the community oriented solution to the problem of the theatre is discussed. Lettre d'Alembert de Rousseau. Spectacles and Sociability: Rousseau's R . 2. Despite laws and historical examples that attempt to overcome or deny those natural feelings, theatre offers the assurance that they continue to exist or can be recalled. Muralt does not use the verb attirer to describe France's effect on foreigners as do both Montesquieu and Rousseau. We use cookies to improve your website experience. The key historical context of Discourse on Inequalitywas the complex phenomenon known as the Enlightenment. The main action is on a platform [estrade], called the stage [thtre]. Therefore, theatres are of little use. In his Reveries of a Solitary Walker, he condemns Montesquieu's Le Temple de Gnide as an affront to modesty, perpetuated by an ignoble lie; see Mary L. Bellhouse, Femininity & Commerce in the Eighteenth Century: Rousseau's Criticism of a Literary Ruse by Montesquieu, Polity, 13 (1980), 28599. [4], Towards the middle of this final section Rousseau reasons that the theatre does very little good for the poor, who cannot afford the taxes required to support a theatre. Montesquieu devotes the entirety of Part 4 of Spirit to commerce and population. Having long regarded Voltaire as an additional target of Rousseau's criticism in the Letter, the scholarship has largely ignored the extent to which Rousseau also engages with and responds to Montesquieu in this particular work. Register to receive personalised research and resources by email. Letter to M. D'Alembert on Spectacles (French: Lettre a M. d'Alembert sur les spectacles) is a 1758 essay written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in opposition to an article published in the Encyclopdie by Jean d'Alembert, that proposed the establishment of a theatre in Geneva. [3] D'Alembert's article in support of the theatre was influenced by Voltaire, who not only was against censorship, but frequently put on theatrical performances at his home outside of Geneva. Renews April 25, 2023 He propelled political and ethical thinking into new channels. Phaedra thus dramatises the very concerns that Montesquieu's treatise discusses at such length and in such detail, but does so in an emotionally affecting manner precisely because Racine presents Hippolytus as so undeserving of such a callous and vindictive father. SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. 1 Ronald Grimsley, Jean d'Alembert (London, 1963), 5277. In making this case in Letter to d'Alembert, Rousseau engages Montesquieu's thought by confirming some aspects of his predecessor's reflections while challenging others, frequently adopting Montesquieu's very language in order to counter the trends his predecessor's work might promote. In both the Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu points to the theatre as a locus of sociability that has a transformative effect on its auditors. Spirit, 4.8, 41; Spirit, 19.5, 310. Prof. Mostefai will present a newly completed critical edition of Rousseau's Letter to d'Alembert for the new complete edition of Rousseau's work currently in preparation in France (Garnier). 77 Rousseau proposes an alternative to the tribunal Louis XIV established to settle conflicts regarding honour without recourse to violence, which he argues would be much more effective as it would harness honour to quell the violence arising from perceived dishonour; see Letter, 6774. For example, in praising the exclusion of women from society, which Geneva with its lack of a theatre exhibits, Rousseau adduces the English, depicting them in terms very similar to Montesquieu's portrait of them in Book 19 of The Spirit of the Laws.Footnote17 Yet whereas Montesquieu's depiction of the dour and grave English is critical, Rousseau's is explicitly laudatory. Il ne veut pas ressembler aux . Allan Bloom makes the claim that Voltaire persuaded d'Alembert [] to insert a passage (which Rousseau insists Voltaire himself wrote) in an otherwise laudatory presentation suggesting that Geneva should have a theatre; see Allan Bloom, Introduction, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theater, translated by Allan Bloom (New York, NY, 1960), xi-xxxiv (xv). April 18, 2023, SNPLUSROCKS20 Allan Bloom, "Jean-Jacques Rousseau," in History of Political Philosophy, ed. He also attached great importance to conscience, the divine voice of the soul in man, opposing this both to the bloodless categories of rationalistic ethics and to the cold tablets of biblical authority. Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more! Cette uvre exclusive ainsi que d'autres uvres d'art uniques ne peuvent tre trouves qu'ici! It offered a critique of d'Alembert's article on Geneva in the Encyclopdie. In his own name, Montesquieu asserts as much, declaring in his preface his belief that, amidst the infinite diversity of laws and mores, human beings were not led by their fancies alone. Jean-Jacques Rousseau & Background on Discourse on Inequality, Philosophical Context: Influences on Discourse of Inequality. It is also halfway between a novel and a didactic essay. In other words, people have to share the concerns with legislators if a state is to be successful. More generally, it is a critical analysis of the effects of culture on morals, that clarifies the links between politics and social life. Rousseau adheres to Montesquieu's specific terminology here, even though Muralt makes a brief but related statement: foreigners would rather go to France than elsewhere [ceux-l iront pltt en France qu'ailleurs]; see Muralt, Lettres, 225, cf. The essay reconstructs the socioeconomic and political context of eighteenth-century Geneva in order to explain the intended meaning of Rousseau's Letter to d'Alembert. (one code per order). They imagine that a foreigner who speaks to them is looking for a leg-over. Nonetheless, important differences between Muralt's account of French and English societies and those accounts offered by Rousseau and Montesquieu suggest that Rousseau uses Muralt in order to strengthen his rebuttal of Montesquieu. 1758 marked a break with many of the Enlightenment philosophers; his Letter to d'Alembert attacked d'Alembert's article in the French Encyclopedia on Geneva. Montesquieu broaches the possibility that drama itself can teach morality in The Spirit of the Laws in Book 25, one of two devoted to the subject of religion. By entering your email address you agree to receive emails from SparkNotes and verify that you are over the age of 13. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 559-80. 4. Montesquieu takes a particular interest in such judicial proceedings throughout The Spirit of the Laws, declaring that the knowledge already acquired in some countries and yet to be acquired in others, concerning the surest rules one can observe in criminal judgments, is of more concern to mankind than anything else in the world.Footnote32 Criminal judgements can bring down the full power of the state against individuals, depriving them of their property, liberty, homeland, or very lives.Footnote33 Given this import, Montesquieu advises gentleness in punishing, declaring that people must not be led to extremes; one should manage the means that nature gives us to guide them and explaining that nature [] has given men shame for their scourge. In addition, the very foundation of Rousseau's concern for Geneva has a basis in Montesquieu's thought. Muralt offers a similar critique in his comments on France. . Rousseau refers to ancient Sparta, where the most virtuous and appreciated women were those who were modest and generally not spoken about. Summary. With Racine's Phaedra in mind, Rousseau denies that the theatre can teach morality: What do we learn from Phdre and pide other than that man is not free and that Heaven punishes him for crimes that it makes him commit? dAlembert sur les spectacles (1758; Letter to Monsieur dAlembert on the Theatre) appeared in print, Rousseau had already left Paris to pursue a life closer to nature on the country estate of his friend Mme dpinay near Montmorency. We are also grateful to Robert Devigne, Dennis Rasmussen, and the anonymous reviewers of History of European Ideas for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Towards the end of the afternoon, everyone assembles and goes to perform in a sort of show [une espce de scne], called, so I have heard, a play [comdie]. Writing to Gilbert Imlay from France in 1784, she contemplated buying their daughter a sash "to honour J. J. Rousseau and why not?for I have always been half in love with him." 1 Half in love, indeed - and half infuriated. 10 See John N. Pappas, Rousseau and D'Alembert, PMLA, 75 (1960), 4660 (48); Fonna Forman-Barzilai, The Emergence of Contextualism in Rousseau's Political Thought: The Case of Parisian Theatre in the Lettre D'Alembert, History of Political Thought, 24 (2003), 43564 (436). Here, he began to write his famous autobiography, Confessions, and formally renounced his Genevan citizenship. He also wrote Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques (1780; Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques) to reply to specific charges by his enemies and Les Rveries du promeneur solitaire (1782; Reveries of the Solitary Walker), one of the most moving of his books, in which the intense passion of his earlier writings gives way to a gentle lyricism and serenity. the morality of theatrical performances, Lettre dAlembert sur les spectacles (1758). Further, he praises the type of morality that can be conveyed through theatrical spectacle, claiming that moral lessons are more effective in this form because they speak directly to the passions. Indeed, Montesquieu refers in The Spirit of the Laws both to those who write to proscribe the theatre because of its evoking softening emotions such as pity and tenderness and to one who might endeavour to restrain French women.Footnote90 Not so quixotic as to attempt the latter, Rousseau certainly endeavours the former by opposing most vehemently the establishment of a theatre in Geneva. 48 Letter, 270. Whereas Montesquieu sees the theatre as a salutary way of teaching morality and sympathy, Rousseau condemns it as a corrupting influence. Rousseau's relationship to the Enlightenment was not a simple one. Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theatre (Agora Editions) Paperback - October 31, 1968 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Author), Allan Bloom (Translator) 11 ratings See all formats and editions Hardcover $45.00 Other used and collectible from $45.00 Paperback $18.95 Other new, used and collectible from $2.22 See also Radica, Rousseau, in Dictionnaire lectronique Montesquieu, September 2013 edition, 7. She returns his love and yields to his advances, but the difference between their classes makes marriage between them impossible. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. THINKERS. Whereas Montesquieu and Rousseau speak of female society forming and perfecting taste, Muralt asserts that the subordination of the masculine to the feminine in society corrupts tastes: on se corrompt le got; see Muralt, Lettres, 246. The main letter is divided into three general areas: "A) The Theatre in Relation to What Is Performed in It"; "B) The Theatre Considered in Relation to the Stage and Actors"; and "C) The Establishment of a Theatre in Geneva". Montesquieu's description of a gentle and joyful societal existence could very well foster admiration beyond the borders of France, and thus spread the very mores from which Rousseau endeavours to protect Geneva. Moreover, the double entendre he deploys here should not be overlooked, as he also illustrates that men's social interactions with women unleash the power of commercial exchange: Fashions are an important subject; as one allows one's spirit to become frivolous, one constantly increases the branches of commerce [on augmente sans cesse les branches de son commerce].Footnote25 Thus, both women and commerce foster the communicability and nurture the adaptability of a given people.Footnote26. When the hospitality of Mme dpinay proved to entail much the same. The novel was clearly inspired by Rousseaus own curious relationshipat once passionate and platonicwith Sophie dHoudetot, a noblewoman who lived near him at Montmorency. 50 Kapossy, Iselin contra Rousseau, 39. Rousseau famously argued that the continued progress of the sciences and arts corrupted human morality, it would appear that Rousseau's view of a free society has little to do Abstract An analysis of Rousseau's cultural and artistic ideas, as taken from the famous Letter to d'Alembert on the Theater. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. Because Montesquieu understands women as the judges and bestowers of a man's honour, when women are placed in the public sphere, men adopt mannerisms and behaviour to win their approval.Footnote63 Thus, women enhance the theatricality of public life, putting men (and themselves) on display for each other. 3 Rousseau, Correspondance gnrale, ed. These seemingly fleeting references to this art form should not be overlooked as they clarify and expound upon fundamental aspects of his political theory. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Whereas it was the Calvinists who opposed the theatre in Geneva, it was the Jansenists who were vociferous critics of the theatre in France, both before and during Montesquieu's time; Montesquieu is almost certainly referring to their opposition here. For example, he condemns a law of the Visigoths that permitted the children of an adulterous wife to accuse her of that crime and to torture the family's slaves in order to extract evidence: This was an iniquitous law that, in order to preserve the mores, overturned nature, in which the mores have their origin.Footnote40 At this point, Montesquieu turns to Racine's play and presents it as an appealing contrast to such civil laws that are contrary to natural law.Footnote41 Indeed, Montesquieu concludes his discussion of Phaedra with a reflection on the relation of pleasure and nature: The accents of nature cause this pleasure; it is the sweetest of all voices.Footnote42 Racine's tragedy displays for its audience Hippolytus's admirable decisions rooted in his unconditional respect for his kin, even in light of his father's failure to distinguish between guilt and innocence. In 1756, Rousseau left Paris. [1] Rousseau relates the issue of a theatre in Geneva to the broader social context, warning of the potential the theatre has to corrupt the morality in society. Yet in the Letter his encomia cross from enthusiastic to the fervid. [2], The theatre in relation to what is performed in it, The theatre considered in relation to the stage and actors, Last edited on 23 February 2019, at 20:12, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Letter_to_M._D%27Alembert_on_Spectacles&oldid=884754743, This page was last edited on 23 February 2019, at 20:12. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? It greatly deceives itself; it is free only during the election of the members of Parliament. Entirety of Part 4 of Spirit to commerce and population $ 24.99/year as selected above [. Rousseau adopts domestic as distinct from public life, in examining Rousseau rousseau letter to d'alembert summary concern Geneva... 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