Free PDF Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theatre (Agora Editions), by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theatre (Agora Editions), by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Free PDF Politics and the Arts: Letter to M. D'Alembert on the Theatre (Agora Editions), by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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This excellent translation makes available a classic work central to one of the most interesting controversies of the eighteenth century: the quarrel between Rousseau and Voltaire. Besides containing some of the most sensitive literary criticism ever written (especially of Moli�re), the book is an excellent introduction to the principles of classical political thought. It demonstrates the paradoxes of Rousseau's though and clearly displays the temperament that led him to repudiate the hopes of the Enlightenment.
- Sales Rank: #236129 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cornell University Press
- Published on: 1968-10-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.46" h x .48" w x 5.07" l, .38 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 196 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"This careful translation is an effort to revive interest in a neglected work of Rousseau, a moral polemic condemning drama as a mode of public entertainment. Written in 1758, the letter was a spirited response to d'Alembert's article in L'Encyclop�dia suggesting that Geneva establish a theater. Bloom's systematic and thoughtful analysis of Rousseau's arguments and their intellectual background provides an illuminating way into the essay."―American Scholar
About the Author
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 78) was a leading Genevan philosopher and political theorist and one of the key figures of the Enlightenment.
Most helpful customer reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Rousseau's Blast Against Falstaff as King
By Doug - Haydn Fan
In this work Rousseau took to task the French theater and, to a great extent, much of what passed for enlightened thinking about censorship and republican government. It is difficult for a modern reader to tolerate his arguments after they have largely been displaced by the concepts of our own Media age: the essential goodness of total freedom of the arts, uncensored publications, and all that goes with these.
Rousseau's rhetorical criticism of the theater, and the French Enlightenment figures, such as Voltaire, is carefully considered and extensive. He separates the intellectual deceits from what he considers bedrock issues, such as the absolute importance of a virtuous citenzry, and offers up a strict, severe Calvinist indictment of the foibles of passing off political thought as scientific reasoning. Rousseau makes no cheap arguments - his attack on the French theater is not predicated on some cheap vulgar play deserving of our disdain, but instead he confronts Moliere's masterpiece, the Misanthrope. And Rousseau shows in a magnificent reading of the play, which he admires, how Moliere deliberately subverts the truth for the effect of comedy. In this, Rousseau believes, virtue has been damaged more than we recognize. Rousseau believes comedy, and comic characters, strike at the heart of society's greatest strengths, pride in civic virtue, unity of purpose, repect for its leaders. He concludes that the theater is far more dangerous than the simple divertisement and amusement we think it, that supporters would have us believe. And he roundly rails against those who suggest the theater has the ability to improve society.
Much of what Rousseau argues echoes in our own society. However reactionary it all sounds at first, there is a deeply troubling truth in the pictures he draws of the duplicity behind Enlightenment pronouncements. He is also quick to point out conceited Philosophical attitudes devoid of any strict self-appraisal or self-criticism. Much of what he writes sounds almost upside down from modern accepted belief.
Harsh it certainly is, but Rousseau is very challenging, and his final words, for this essay was written near the end of his life, are not easily dismissed as final rantings of old age and bitterness with the future.
Although I am certainly not a conservative, I would suspect this book would be interesting to anyone holding such political views. For others, it offers a chance to see the darker side of what many of us take too readily for granted: freedom of press, an open - wide-open - popular theater (i.e. the movies) and the certaintude that many Democrats have in the absolute rightness of their beliefs. Rousseau throws buckets of cold water on all of us, and plays Prince Hal as King to our infatuation with the Falstaffian ethos.
There is an excellent and very necessary introduction by Allan Bloom.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
ROUSSEAU’S ARGUMENT AGAINST THE THEATER
By Steven H Propp
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. He wrote other books such as The Social Contract and Other Essays, The Confessions, The Creed of a Priest of Savoy, Emile: Or On Education, etc.
This book contains the 1758 letter that Rousseau wrote to d’Alembert, in response to an article d’Alembert wrote for the Encyclopedia, in which he suggested that Geneva should have a theater. Perhaps surprisingly, given that Rousseau was somewhat of a composer [e.g., Rousseau: Le Devin du Village], he opposed such a theater. But his letter also gives his ideas on many other issues.
Rousseau states, “in general, I am the friend of every peaceful religion in which the Eternal Being is served according to the reason he gave us. When a man cannot believe what he finds absurd, it is not his fault; it is that of his reason. And how shall I conceive that God would punish him for not having made for himself an understanding contrary to the one he received from Him?... Certainly the orthodox, who see no absurdity in the mysteries, are obliged to believe them. But if the Socinians find the mysteries absurd, what can be said to them?... They will begin by proving to you that it is an absurdity to reason about what cannot be understood. What to do, then? Leave them alone.” (Pg. 11-12)
He states, “I maintain that, if the Scripture itself gave us some idea of God unworthy of Him, we would have to reject it on that point, just as you reject in geometry the demonstrations which lead to absurd conclusions. For, of whatever authenticity the sacred text may be, it is still more believable that the Bible was altered than that God is unjust or malevolent.” (Pg. 13)
He contends, “If the beauty of virtue were the product of art, virtue would long ago have been disfigured! … even if I am again to be regarded as wicked for daring to assert that man is born good, I think it and believe that I have proved it. The source of the concern which attaches us to what is decent and which inspires us to aversion for evil is in us and not in the plays. There is no art for producing this concern, but only for taking advantage of it. The love of the beautiful is a sentiment as natural to the human heart as the love of self; it is not born out of an arrangement of scenes; the author does not bring it; he finds it there; and out of this pure sentiment, to which he appeals, are born the sweet tears that he causes to flow.” (Pg. 23)
He argues, “the moral effect of the theater can never be good or salutary in itself, since… we find no real kind of utility without drawbacks which outweigh it. Now, as a consequence of its very lack of utility, the theater, which can to nothing to improve morals (manners), can do much toward changing them. In encouraging all our penchants, it gives a new ascendency to those which dominate us. The continual emotion which is felt in the theater excites us, enervates us, enfeebles us, and makes us less able to resist our passions. And the sterile interest taken in virtue serves only to satisfy our vanity without obliging us to practice it.” (Pg. 57)
He observes, “I will be asked who forces the poor to go to the theater. I answer: first, those who establish it and give them the temptation. In the second place, their very poverty … makes some relaxation necessary for the poor in order to bear it. They do not consider themselves unhappy because they work without respite when everybody else does the same; but is it not cruel to the one who works to be deprived of the recreations of the idle?... this very amusement which provides a means of economy for the rich, doubly weakens the poor, either by a real increase in expenses or by less zeal for work…” (Pg. 114-115)
This letter is one of Rousseau’s most fascinating works; and the kinds of issues he addresses actually seem quite “modern,” in terms of debates taking place nowadays about contemporary culture.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By valentina
Excellent. thank you very much.
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