Romanticism and Civilization: Love, Marriage, and Family in Rousseau's Julie

by Mark Kremer Associate Professor of Politics, Hillsdale College

Overview

Romanticism and Civilization examines romantic alternatives to modern life in Rousseau’s foundational novel Julie. It argues that Julie is a response to the ills of modern civilization, and that Rousseau saw that the Enlightenment’s combination of science and of democracy degraded human life by making it bourgeois. The bourgeois is man uprooted by science and attached to nothing but himself. He lives a commercial life and his materialism and calculations penetrate all aspects of his existence. He is neither citizen, nor family man, nor lover in any serious sense: his life is meaningless. Rousseau’s romanticism in Julie is an attempt to find connectedness through the sentiments of private life and wholeness through love, marriage, and family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498527484
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	05/18/2017
Series:	Politics, Literature, & Film
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Mark Kremer is associate professor of political science at Kennesaw State University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Bourgeois, Nature, and Civic Virtue: Sexual Relations in Three SocietiesChapter 2 Rousseau's Romantic Reform of Christian Piety, Aristocratic Honor, and Patriarchal Authority
Chapter 3 Rousseau's Romantic Alternatives: Love and Family

Editorial Reviews

In Romanticism and Civilization, [there] is a reader and imitator of Richardson and Prévost, a would-be stoic and Platonist, a novelist wise enough to separate his novel from politics, and a writer who manages to synchronize the conservative values of Christian piety, aristocratic honor, and patriarchal authority in Julie.

European Romantic Review

Along with insightful comparisons of the several communities the novel depicts, Kremer presents vivid and astute portraits of all the main characters and their relationships to each other.. .. In his book, Kremer admirably places front and center the true seriousness and scope of Rousseau’s reflections.. . For its valuable insights and erudition, Kremer’s book makes a good companion to the study of Julie and of Rousseau more generally.

The Review of Politics