The Role of the Reader in Rousseau's «Confessions»

by Catherine A. Beaudry

Jean-Jacques Rousseau created the autobiographical genre in 1766 when he began his Confessions. Before him, readers were familiar with Christian apologetics and memoirs, but not with a modern autobiography. This book examines the role Rousseau requires his rhetorical reader to play, if he be in earnest, and it offers the contrasting reactions of real readers who when faced with the final version of the text were stunned by what they read, for...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820416479
• ISBN13: 9780820416472
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi
• Length: 174 Pages