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Jean Jacques Rousseau

Uploaded by CatLover on Aug 02, 2004

Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva on June 28th 1712, his mother died a few days after his birth. Some ten years later his father, a watchmaker by trade, left Geneva following a quarrel with a member of an influential family leaving his two sons to be raised by their aunt and uncle.
Rousseau was apprenticed at the age of thirteen firstly to a notary and then to a coppersmith, but after three years he ran away. After several days of wanderings he was directed to the household of the wealthy and charitable Madame Louise de Warens at Annecy in Savoy who subsequently sent him to a hospice institution offering accomodation in Turin.

Some two years later and after unsuccessfully embarking on several employments (including seminarian and music teacher), and after making a trip to Paris (from which he returned on foot!), Rousseau became secretary and companion to Madame de Warens at her new home at Chambéry. He continued in this role for about eight years and was able to find time to unsystematically learn much about philosophy, and to regularly attend the theater, alongside the performance of his duties.

Rousseau left Madame de Warens household in 1740 (she had taken a new lover) and took on a number of employments as a clerk or as a tutor. In 1742 he went to Paris, where he earned his living as a music teacher, music copyist, and political secretary. He became a close friend of the French philosopher Denis Diderot, who commissioned him to write articles on music for the French Encyclopédie .

In 1745 Rousseau became involved with Thérèse Lavasseur, a chambermaid who worked in the hotel in which he lodged. Their affair successively generated five children each of whom were given over to the foundling home at a very early age.

He lived a life of relative poverty and obscurity until his later thirties. It was an essay that is usually referred to by its abbreviated title "Discours sur les sciences et les arts" (Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts) written in 1750 in response to a competition announced by the Academy of Dijon that first brought him to public notice. Not only did it win first prize but its content won a public celebrity after an edited version was published towards the end of 1750.

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Uploaded by:   CatLover

Date:   08/02/2004

Category:   Biographies

Length:   11 pages (2,575 words)

Views:   9398

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