Rousseau ha costruito la figura di un cristianesimo libero, di una religione universale, che doveva però trovare concretezza e radici nell'esperienza del singolo e nelle tradizioni del suo popolo. Sparse in varie opere, le idee di Rousseau in materia religiosa si trovano compendiate nella 'Professione di fede del Vicario savoiardo', capitolo centrale del vasto romanzo pedagogico Emilio mai pubblicato in italiano se non come parte di un'opera più ampia. Inoltre, è parso opportuno raccogliere in Appendice quasi tutti i testi simili presenti nell'opera di Rousseau per meglio fissare la concezione che egli si faceva del 'Cristo dei Vangeli'. Con un saggio di Claudio Tugnoli.

An elegant translation of one of the most popular novels of its time.

Rousseau's great epistolary novel, Julie, or the New Heloise, has been virtually unavailable in English since 1810. In it, Rousseau reconceptualized the relationship of the individual to the collective and articulated a new moral paradigm. The story follows the fates and smoldering passions of Julie d'Etange and St. Preux, a one-time lover who re-enters Julie's life at the invitation of her unsuspecting husband, M. de Wolmar.

The complex tones of this work made it a commercial success and a continental sensation when it first appeared in 1761, and its embodiment of Rousseau's system of thought, in which feelings and intellect are intertwined, redefined the function and form of fiction for decades. As the characters negotiate a complex maze of passion and virtue, their purity of soul and honest morality reveal, as Rousseau writes in his preface, 'the subtleties of heart of which this work is full.'

A comprehensive introduction and careful annotations make this novel accessible to contemporary readers, both as an embodiment of Rousseau's philosophy and as a portrayal of the tension and power inherent in domestic life.

Volume II contains the later writings such as the Social Contract. The Social Contract was publicly condemned on publication causing Rousseau to flee. In exile he wrote both autobiographical and political works.

Volume II contains the later writings such as the Social Contract. The Social Contract was publicly condemned on publication causing Rousseau to flee. In exile he wrote both autobiographical and political works.

The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is presented in two volumes, which together form the most comprehensive anthology of Rousseau's political writings in English. Volume I contains the earlier writings such as the First and Second Discourses. The American and French Revolutions were profoundly affected by Rousseau's writing, thus illustrating the scope of his influence. Volume II contains the later writings such as the Social Contract. The Social Contract was publicly condemned on publication causing Rousseau to flee. In exile he wrote both autobiographical and political works. These volumes contain comprehensive introductions, chronologies, and guides to further reading, and will enable students to fully understand the writings of one of the world's greatest thinkers.

In un solo volume tutta la produzione autobiografica dello scrittore ginevrino, che si rivela appassionato esploratore dei miti della memoria e della natura. Il volume contiene: Le Confessioni, Le Fantasticherie di un passeggiatore solitario, Rousseau giudice di Jean-Jacques, Lettere a Malesherbes.

Il Discorso sulle scienze.. fu l'opera che rese celebre Rousseau. Nato in risposta al quesito se il progresso avesse contribuito a migliorare i costumi, il testo risponde, paradossalmente, in modo negativo. Si sostiene infatti che lo sviluppo culturale ha generato una corruzione dei costumi, formulando nel contempo un giudizio molto duro verso la contemporaneità. Il Discorso sull'origine... ripercorre la storia delle diseguaglianze fino al loro esito finale, il dispotismo, tracciando nel contempo un affresco grandioso del progresso dell'uomo dalla naturale ferinità allo stato civile, che implica anche la perdita dell'equilibrio originario del singolo coi suoi simili.

Both an autobiography and a philosophical treatise on uncompromising individualism.

David Garrick, the leading actor of his time, was also one of its most accomplished dramatists, and The Clandestine Marriage is perhaps his finest play. Its story centres on the household of a wealthy merchant, Mr. Sterling, whose main concern is that his two daughters marry men of wealth. Fanny has defied her apprentice; her sister Betsey is engaged to be married to Sir John Melvil. But Melvil and his friend Lord Ogleby both fall in love with Fanny. It is up to Lovewell to persuade both men that marriage to Fanny is out of the question—without revealing to them that he has already married her.The action of the play and also its setting (a landscape garden designed after the fashion of the time to provide artificial wildness and 'commanding' views) give ample scope for Garrick and Coleman to satirize the mercantile mind—yet the play's comic spirit holds appeal to those on all points of the political compass. First produced in 1766, The Clandestine Marriage was revived to great acclaim in 1995 in a London production starring Nigel Hawthorne.Full-length plays of the late eighteenth century were usually performed together with short plays (or 'afterpieces') to form a full evening of entertainment. In accordance with that tradition this edition is completed by two of the most interesting examples of the genre: Charles Burney's The Cunning-Man (which in fact was several times performed alongside The Clandestine Marriage during the 1766-67 season) and The Rehearsal; or Bayes in Petticoats by Catherine Clive (who played Mrs. Heidelberg in the original production of The Clandestine Marriage).

Contains the Social Contract, as well as the first English translation of Rousseau's early Discourse on the Virtue Most Necessary for a Hero, numerous previously untranslated political fragments, and the first draft of the Social Contract (the so-called Geneva Manuscript). By placing Rousseau's famous exposition of 'political right' and the 'general will' in the context of his preparatory drafts, the editors provide significant insight into the formation of one of the most important and influential works in Western political thought.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Two works in one volume

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first, and the most eloquent and versatile, of that extraordinary line of radical modern thinkers who aimed their disenchantment at the very roots of the human social order and thereby forever reshaped the way we deal with one another. Of Rousseau's many contributions to the tradition he inaugurated, the one for which he is most revered and that makes these pages glow with conviction is his passionate indignation about anything that trammels individual freedom.

This revised edition of G. D. H. Cole's celebrated translation includes an appendix of sections from the first manuscript draft of The Social Contract and the passage in Rousseau's novel Émile in which he summarizes its argument, along with Cole's original preface, which has itself become a classic.

Translated by G. D. H. Cole
Revised and augmented by J. H. Brumfitt and John C. Hall

Le meditazioni dell'autore in questo libro riflettono i temi della religione, dell'educazione, del diritto sociale: tutti argomenti che gli avevano causato inimicizie e amarezze. Rousseau si interroga e cerca di spiegare a se stesso l'origine di tali delusioni, ma le supera con lo slancio entusiasta che egli porta ai suoi ideali umani e religiosi, con il suo amore della giustizia sociale, dell'umanità e della natura, consolatrice nel dolore e purificatrice delle passioni.

Includes the Second Discourse (complete with the author's extensive notes), contemporary critiques by Voltaire, Diderot, Bonnet, and LeRoy, Rousseau's replies (some never before translated), and Political Economy, which first outlined principles that were to become famous in the Social Contract. This is the first time that the works of 1755 and 1756 have been combined with careful commentary to show the coherence of Rousseau's 'political system.' The Second Discourse examines man in the true 'state of nature,' prior to the formation of the first human societies, tracing the 'hypothetical history' of political society and social inequality as they developed out of natural equality and independence.

Contains the entire First Discourse, contemporary attacks on it, Rousseau's replies to his critics, and his summary of the debate in his preface to Narcissus. A number of these texts have never before been available in English. The First Discourse and Polemics demonstrate the continued relevance of Rousseau's thought. Whereas his critics argue for correction of the excesses and corruptions of knowledge and the sciences as sufficient, Rousseau attacks the social and political effects of the dominant forms of scientific knowledge.

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Rousseau's ideas have influenced almost every major political development of the last two hundred years, and are crucial to an understanding of phenomena as diverse as the French Revolution, modern educational theory, and the contemporary environmental movement. This is reason enough to draw attention to his startlingly alive autobiography. But the Confessions is also among the greatest self-portraits in world literature -which suggests, even more than the impact of Rousseau's thought, the extent to which the very high opinion he had of himself was ultimately justified.