69 Letter, 328 (5: 95). 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. Because that praise exemplifies so much of what was fundamental in Rousseau's thinking, both it and the Letter as a whole are mandatory reading for anyone who wishes to understand him. 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. For an overview of the state of the scholarship on the relation of the two thinkers, see Gabrielle Radica, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, in Dictionnaire lectronique Montesquieu, September 2013 edition, http://dictionnaire-montesquieu.ens-lyon.fr/index.php?id=436 [accessed 12 June 2014]. [4], In spite of the letter being addressed directly to D'Alembert, it is undoubtedly meant to have an effect on the general population. 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. His Government of Poland and Constitutional Project for Corsica offer practical proposals for political reform in his time. His death caused a great outpouring of sentiment amongst his many readers and admirers. Mostefai quotes this letter; see Mostefai, Le citoyen de Genve, 41. Jean-Jacques Rousseau In 1758, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert proposed the public establishment of a theater in Genevaand Jean-Jacques Rousseau vigorously objected. In 1756, Rousseau left Paris. [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. This edition seeks to uncover the originality and complexity of Rousseau's argument in a text that seems to reprise traditional religious . Wed love to have you back! As these two leading figures of the Enlightenment argue about censorship, popular versus high culture, and the proper role . 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). Therefore, by examining first Montesquieu's treatment of theatre in the Persian Letters and The Spirit of the Laws, and then Rousseau's parallel treatments in Letter to d'Alembert, one discerns the degree to which Rousseau employs his predecessor's means in order to undermine his ends. The principle of the theatre is to please, it is not, Rousseau argues, functional because the characters are always distant from man. While Montesquieu's treatment of the theatre has been largely neglected by the scholarship, it appears not to have been neglected by Rousseau. The legislator's task is to make sure a society's women are in order. 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). The Letter on Providence aroused Voltaire's great interest. Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy. In order to resist this very appeal in the name of Geneva's singular and austere republican life, Rousseau adopts Montesquieu's maxims: pursue change slowly and cautiously, as even small changes to a people's way of life can inadvertently contain the seeds of radical transformation and unintended consequences. As Kelly points out, scholars have noted that Rousseau on several occasions in that work paraphrases without attribution the language of Montesquieu's Spirit; see Kelly, Rousseau and the Illustrious Montesquieu, in The Challenge of Rousseau, edited by Grace and Kelly, 21, notes 8 and 9; Leo Strauss, On the Intention of Rousseau, Social Research, 14 (1947), 45587 (45860); Antoine Adam, De quelques sources de Rousseau dans la littrature philosophique (17001750), in Jean-Jacques Rousseau et son oeuvre, problmes et recherches (Paris, 1964), 12533 (127); Michel Launay, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et son temps (Paris, 1969), 93103. Rousseau's dismay arose largely from d'Alembert's proposal that theatre be established in Geneva as it would 15 For a fuller discussion, see Thomas, Negotiating Taste in Montesquieu, 7172. 1 . Their exchange, collected in volume ten of this acclaimed series, offers a classic debate over the political importance of the arts. 19 Montesquieu, Persian Letters, letter 28, 79. Allan Bloom, "Jean-Jacques Rousseau," in History of Political Philosophy, ed. Rousseau opposed marriage without love (i.e. 17 In his consideration of this aspect of Rousseau's argument, Coleman poses the question: Why England? Neither of Coleman's proposed responses include Rousseau's specific response to Montesquieu's Book 19; see Coleman, Rousseau's Political Imagination, 110. His First Discourse, on the Arts and Sciences, won first prize in a competition run by the Dijon Academy, and he had an opera and a play performed to great acclaim. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Montesquieu's captivating depictions of the sociability that the French theatre can engender was surely an obstacle for Rousseau's opposition to its influence in Geneva. See also Radica, Rousseau, in Dictionnaire lectronique Montesquieu, September 2013 edition, 7. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In addition, Montesquieu's treatment of the theatre seems to have been a fitting topic for Rousseau's engagement. Il cite ce pour quoi il crit. Montesquieu devotes the entirety of Part 4 of Spirit to commerce and population. However, tragedies are not as dangerous as comedies, because the characters more closely resemble French citizens. For example, when Aricia, Hippolytus's beloved, begs him to tell his father that Phaedra had deceived him, he responds: What more should I/ Have told him? THINKERS. 90 Cf. Because of the natural respect men have for the moral sense and timidity of women, for men to be amongst women as actresses will be a further threat to men's morality. He reasons that even if comedy writers write a play that is morally acceptable, the audience will not find it funny. Yet in the Letter his encomia cross from enthusiastic to the fervid. For Rousseau, tragedies in particular instil a sense of moral ambiguity by depicting individuals in fundamental, irreconcilable conflicts.Footnote52 Such stories condition people to empathise with characters who have severe moral flaws, yet nonetheless are admirable because they act genuinely. 12 Forman-Barzilai, Emergence of Contextualism in Rousseau, 438, 442, 448, 45354; Pamela K. Jensen, Rousseau's French Revolution, in The Challenge of Rousseau, edited by Eve Grace and Christopher Kelly (Cambridge, 2012), 23052 (231, 238, 245); Mostefai, Le citoyen de Genve, 5, 8082, 90. In Rousseau's opinion, true love for the nurturing, feminine mother, instead of lustful love for a mistress, goes hand in hand with patriotism and civic harmony. 57 theatre subverted the immediacy, the joyous spontaneity, the doux sentiment, of republican communion; see Forman-Barzilai, Emergence of Contextualism in Rousseau, 437. As soon as they are elected, it is a slave, it is nothing; see Rousseau, Social Contract, in Collected Writings, IV, 3.15, 192. [7] With impartiality, he decided it fit for publication (he himself at one time worked as a censor). A decade later, Rousseau would discern that same power, but would respond by endeavouring to proscribe itat least as far as Geneva is concerned. It is an exciting little work that takes what appears to be an innocuous suggestion about adding a public theater to Geneva, and turns it into a brutal critique of the Enlightenment. de Montesquieu rightly calls a fine law the one which excludes from public office the citizens who fail to pay their own debts or those of [their] fathers after their death.Footnote5, What d'Alembert intended as an encomium, Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarded as an outrage.Footnote6 In 1758 Rousseau penned an open letter to d'Alembert expressing his indignation at the essay's claims regarding his beloved birthplace. The best alternative to theatres is open-air festivals, in nature, to provide a unifying, patriotic spirit. At the end of The New Eloise, when Julie has made herself ill in an attempt to rescue one of her children from drowning, she comes face-to-face with a truth about herself: that her love for Saint-Preux has never died. [4], The trend of the Enlightenment among philosophers, since Descartes and Spinoza, was to move towards a society with minimized restrictions. Cody Valdes provided perspicacious editorial assistance. Despite being treated unfairly, Hippolytus adheres to a steadfast set of moral principlesand the playwright makes sure that the audience is aware of this. When d'Alembert approached Montesquieu to contribute to the Encyclopdie, he volunteered to submit in lieu of d'Alembert's requested pieces on democracy and despotism a single entry devoted to Taste, and his corpus testifies to his sustained interest in art and aesthetics.Footnote15 Montesquieu focuses his attention on theatre in particular a handful of times in The Spirit of the Laws and once in the Persian Letters. In this regard see Downing A. Thomas, who suggests in passing, for example, that Rousseau seems to accept Montesquieu's teaching in Spirit that the mores of a given people fundamentally influence their taste, as Rousseau repeats that very formula in the Letter: Downing A. Thomas, Negotiating Taste in Montesquieu, Eighteenth Century Studies, 39 (2005), 7190 (76). At each side you can see, in little compartments called boxes, men and women acting out scenes together [des hommes et des femmes qui jouent ensemble des scnes muettes ]. Register to receive personalised research and resources by email. Rousseaus essay critiqued the immorality of the Parisian theater and argued that a theater in Geneva would have a similarly corruptive effect on their society. Nonetheless, taken together, these apparently contrasting accounts reveal that Montesquieu sees value in the theatrical experience in its entirety. 35 Theseus is the only character in the play to use the word tratre, which occurs on six different occasions in the work, all concentrated in the first and second scenes of Act 4 and all applied to Hippolytus. While Rousseau and Montesquieu dispute the goodness of theatre and the desirability of women's active role in society, they agree on something much more fundamental. Online: Amazon (Recommended translation) Google Books (Free preview available). Rousseau and D'Alembert managed to maintain their friendship after the response, though somewhat at a distance. 63 See Spirit, 28.22, 56162, where Montesquieu declares that men's connection to women is related, in part, to the fact that women are quite enlightened judges of a part of the things that constitute personal merit. Of course, Montesquieu does not broach the specific issue that Rousseau considersthat is, the spread of the theatre in modern times into the small, virtuous mountainside republic. [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. It greatly deceives itself; it is free only during the election of the members of Parliament. At one point, Rousseau states his concern simply as this: in a state as small as the republic of Geneva, all innovations are dangerous and [they] ought never to be made without urgent and grave motives.Footnote79 This passage mirrors Montesquieu's teaching throughout The Spirit of the Laws, which he encapsulates in its preface: changes can be proposed only by those who are born fortunate enough to fathom by a stroke of genius the whole of a state's constitution.Footnote80 Thus, with an inflection borrowed from Montesquieu, Rousseau warns any would-be proposer of improvements to Geneva that even seemingly small and well-intentioned, but ill-considered, changes can have significant deleterious consequences. He posits that Rousseau had in mind Montesquieu's analysis of duels in Spirit, 28.2024; see Coleman, Rousseau's Political Imagination, 83 note 9. Careful consideration of Rousseau's Letter in light of Montesquieu's Persian Letters and Spirit of the Laws reveals a much more pervasive influence, however. A theatre in Geneva would cause the hardworking people to be distracted and pre-occupied if they were to develop a taste for it. Rousseau refers to ancient Sparta, where the most virtuous and appreciated women were those who were modest and generally not spoken about. He states that though men have their vices, like drinking, they are far less harmful to society than women's vices. In the early 1750s, Rousseau had a string of successes. He makes it clear that the growth of society, reason, and language makes man capable of amazing things, but at the same time, such growth will "ruin" him. [4], Rousseau portrays Geneva in a very romantic and positive light, where people are productive, happy and hard at work, but he also recognizes the extreme wealth and poverty in the city. Women naturally have power over men via resistance in the area of relationships and this power can be extended to the play, where women can have the same control over the audience. Spirit, 4.8, 41; Spirit, 19.5, 310. We use cookies to improve your website experience. The publication of Rousseau's sentimental novel Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise in 1761 gained him a huge following. See also Coleman's instructive discussion of Rousseau's proposal: Coleman, Rousseau's Political Imagination, 8389. Rousseau was the least academic of modern philosophers and in many ways was the most influential. 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. First, Montesquieu describes them as timide, a term which Rousseau adopts. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. Rousseau was the least academic of modern philosophers and in many ways was the most influential. You'll also receive an email with the link. Thus, consideration of Rousseau's Letter helps to establish the formative character of the elder's thought on that of the younger. 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. It is not hard to excuse Phaedra, who is incestuous and spills innocent blood.Footnote53. He met Madame des Warens, a noted Catholic lady of leisure, in Savoy. Therefore, the substantial difference in their perspectives on theatre in France is that whereas Montesquieu identifies theatre as improving French morals and manners, Rousseau simply maintains that it can slow the rate of further debauchery. We're sorry, SparkNotes Plus isn't available in your country. He became friends with the Enlightenment figure Diderot, who commissioned him to write articles for the famous Encyclopdie. 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. 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. He concludes that as a result of his new reflections, he embraces a conclusion directly opposed to the one I drew from the first, namely, that when the people is corrupted, the theater is good for it, and bad for it when it is itself good.Footnote81 Rousseau reaches this conclusion immediately after he transmits, without naming his source, Montesquieu's description of French society: Rousseau allows the point that in certain places [the theatre] will be useful for attracting foreigners [utiles pour attirer les trangers],Footnote82 just as Montesquieu argues that the politeness of a society attracts foreigners to it [une politesse qui attire chez elle les trangers].Footnote83 Moreover, whereas Montesquieu declares that the society of women spoils mores and forms taste [la socit des femmes gte les murs, et forme le got],Footnote84 Rousseau admits that the theatre, where women are made the preceptors of the public,Footnote85 is useful for maintaining and perfecting taste [pour maintenir et perfectionner le got] when decency is lost.Footnote86 Rousseau yet again deploys Montesquieu's ideas when he says that a theatre can be useful for increasing the circulation of money [pour augmenter la circulation des espces], just as Montesquieu says that the prominent place of women and their tastes in society constantly increases the branches of commerce [on augmente sans cesse les branches de son commerce].Footnote87 Rousseau borrows and transmits all of these points of Montesquieu. He begins the first of these two chapters with a bold criticism of Plato, accusing him of promulgating laws that are against nature: If a slave, says Plato, defends himself and kills a free man, he should be treated as a parricide. As a dutiful daughter, Julie marries Wolmar and Saint-Preux goes off on a voyage around the world with an English aristocrat, Bomston, from whom he acquires a certain stoicism. Montesquieu on the French Theatre and Sociability in the, 3. In the remaining 10 years of his life Rousseau produced primarily autobiographical writings, mostly intended to justify himself against the accusations of his adversaries. On Rousseau's awareness of these apparent paradoxes, see Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Letter to D'Alembert on the Theatre," in Politics and the Arts, trans. The letter attracted remarkable attention; over four hundred articles and pamphlets were written in response to it. [2], In the Letter, Rousseau rejected the traditional notion of male politicians being responsible for moral reform, and thought it was women's responsibility. Listen on ); Episode details. Description. Rahe explains that it is not simply the case that the two thinkers were opposedtheir thought is much more entwined: For the arguments that Rousseau deployed against enlightenment and commercial society and those that he presented on behalf of ancient Sparta [] were for the most part borrowed from Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws; see Rahe, Soft Despotism, 77. He explains that he terms prejudices not what makes one unaware of certain things but what makes one unaware of oneself.Footnote44 Through our feelingsthat is, through emotional responses to the actions on stage, the theatre reminds people that despite their integration into societies sustained by a multiplicity of political, civil, and religious codes, a natural human core still remains. 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. 0:00. Discount, Discount Code Spectacles and Sociability: Rousseau's R . 2. mile is a book that seems to appeal alternately to the republican ethic of The Social Contract and the aristocratic ethic of The New Eloise. Montesquieu makes the Parisian theatre a setting in his Persian Letters when his character Rica, a young Persian, describes his outing to this hub of French sociability. 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]. Whereas Montesquieu sees the theatre as a salutary way of teaching morality and sympathy, Rousseau condemns it as a corrupting influence. That minimal creed put Rousseau at odds with the orthodox adherents of the churches and with the openly atheistic philosophes of Paris, so that despite the enthusiasm that some of his writings, and especially The New Eloise, excited in the reading public, he felt himself increasingly isolated, tormented, and pursued. shooting on crenshaw and adams today, why draupadi cursed ghatotkacha, Montesquieu, September 2013 edition, 7 's instructive discussion of Rousseau 's proposal: Coleman, condemns! Appears not to have been neglected by Rousseau entirety of Part 4 of Spirit to and! Acceptable, the audience will not find it funny to maintain their friendship the. With the link morally acceptable, the audience will not find it.! Over the political importance of the younger, the audience will not find it.! Coleman, Rousseau, & quot ; in History of political Philosophy ed!, in Savoy managed to maintain their friendship after the response, though at. 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