Romanticism, Nature, and Self-Reflection in Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker is a quintessential example of Romanticist literature in Rousseau's corpus. The work departs from mimetic aesthetics in that it does not seek to describe and thereby recreate la belle nature. Yet, as we will argue, nature is central to the work in that it serves as inspiration for Rousseau in formulating his thoughts and insights about his emotional states, and communing with nature enables his examination of his conflicted and tormented psyche; further, the work is romanticist in that (as in the Confessions) its readers are given a clear view into its author's soul. This paper will examine the role of nature in Rousseau's Reveries, and the ways in which la belle nature has acted as a catalyst in triggering Rousseau's self-reflections in this work. The importance of la belle nature to the Reveries, and the autobiographical nature of the text, makes this work an enormously important, and yet oft neglected contribution to the literary works that inspired the Romantic movement. The mimetic approach to aesthetics can be dated at least as far back as Plato. (1) Plato's Socrates depicts art as an imitation of nature in Book X of the Republic. During the Enlightenment, the mainstream view of aesthetics, and the centrality of the concept of imitation within it can be expressed, for instance, by the words of Abbe Dubos, who authored Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting (which was first published in 1719 and was being reprinted in the 1750s), who said: "Just as a painting imitates the features and colors of nature, so does the musician imitate the sounds, accents, signs, and inflections of the human voice, together with all the sounds with which nature expresses its feelings and passions." (2) As Timothy Blanning notes, imitation here does not mean simply copying, it "involved the seeking the best elements of nature at its finest (la belle nature) and reproducing them in a painting, sculpture, poem, piece of music, or whatever." (3) The creation of art was governed by rules; Blanning quotes Sir Joshua Reynolds' statement in 1769, delivered to the Royal Academy in London, that "[artistic] models, which have passed through the approbation of ages, should be considered by them [aspiring artists] as perfect and infallible guides; as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism." (4) In 1749, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences as an entry for the annual essay competition by the Academy of Dijon; participants were asked to write on the question of whether progress of the arts and the sciences had had a positive effect on morals, and Rousseau argued that progress in these domains had in fact corrupted morals. The essay won first prize and was published in 1950. In 1753, Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, also an entry for the Dijon Academy's competition that year. The essay, while reviewing many of the arguments of his first discourse, introduced the concept of the 'noble savage,' and the "transmutation of this figure into the corrupt and civilized man who peoples cities and dominates society." (5) Then, in 1761, Rousseau published an epistolary novel, titled Julie, or The New Heloise. The book consisted of a collection of letters exchanged between the principal characters (Julie, her tutor and lover Saint-Preux, her cousin and friend Claire, and Julie's subsequent husband Baron de Wolmar) (6). Although Rousseau was the sole author, he published the novel as not its author but its editor, i.e., as someone who had stumbled onto these letters (7). The novel was a runaway bestseller, going through more than seventy editions before the century's end. (8) What made this novel different was not just its emotional appeal (for there were certainly other books with that feature) (9), or its "passages of real erotic intensity" (10), but, as Blanning argues, its "autobiographical dimension." (11) As Maurice Cranston has noted, the work aimed to impact the reader by its authenticity, in contrast to "the manifest artificiality of neoclassical literature. …