Part 1 of 5 · freeIntroduction
The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published after his death between 1782 and 1789, mark the birth of modern autobiography. Rousseau tells his own life. The self becomes an object of literary investigation, not just a pretext for talking about History.
Rousseau breaks with aristocratic memoirs, the accounts great men wrote to glorify their deeds, and with religious confession, the avowal made to God. He is after self-understanding, not forgiveness. The book covers his childhood in Geneva, his years of wandering and his career as a writer and philosopher.
The rest is in the Sophia app.The remaining parts, the open-book quiz and the full glossary. Free to start; Premium unlocks everything.
- 2The autobiographical pact
- 3Transparency, childhood and nature
- 4Writing under persecution
- 5From Chateaubriand to Freud
Open-book quiz9 questions whose answers are in the text.
Glossary4 terms explained in a tap.
30 languagesThe same course, from French to Japanese.
