Jean Jacques Rousseau is known as the author of the theory. Rousseau Jean Jacques

BORIS NIKOLAEVICH PERVUSHKIN

PEI "St. Petersburg School "Tete-a-Tete"

Mathematics teacher of the highest category

The main pedagogical ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712 in the family of a watchmaker, died in 1778.

2) His mother died in childbirth, so the uncle and the Calvinist priest were engaged in raising the child, as a result of which the boy's knowledge turned out to be disordered and chaotic.

3) A native of the people, he knew the humiliating burden of class inequality.

4) At the age of 16, in 1728, Rousseau, an engraver's student, leaves his native Geneva and wanders for many years through the cities and villages of Switzerland and France, without a specific profession and earning his livelihood by various occupations: a valet in one family, a musician, house secretary, music copyist.

5) In 1741, Rousseau moved to Paris, where he met and became close to Diderot and the encyclopedists

The upbringing of children begins at birth. According to Rousseau, the time of education in accordance with the natural characteristics of children is divided into 4 periods:

infancy - from birth to 2 years;

childhood - from 2 to 12 years;

adolescence - from 12 to 15 years;

youth - from 15 to marriage.

At each age, natural inclinations manifest themselves in different ways, the needs of the child change over the years. On the example of growing up Emil J.J. Rousseau describes in detail the goals and objectives of education at each age.

Main pedagogical ideas:

- A person from birth is kind and ready for happiness, he is endowed with natural inclinations, and the purpose of education is to preserve and develop the natural data of the child. The ideal is a person unspoiled by society and upbringing in his natural state.

- Natural education is carried out primarily by nature, nature is the best teacher, everything around the child serves as a textbook. Lessons are given by nature, not by people. The sensory experience of the child underlies the knowledge of the world, on its basis the pupil himself creates science.

- Freedom is a condition of natural education, the child does what he wants, and not what he is prescribed and ordered to do. But He wants what the teacher wants from him.

- The teacher, imperceptibly for the child, arouses his interest in classes and the desire to learn.

- Nothing is imposed on the child: neither science, nor rules of conduct; but he, driven by interest, gains experience from which conclusions are formulated.

- Sensory knowledge and experience become sources of scientific knowledge, which leads to the development of thinking. To develop the mind of the child and the ability to acquire knowledge himself, and not hammer it in ready-made, this task should be guided in teaching.

- Education is a delicate, without the use of violence, the direction of the free activity of the educated, the development of his natural inclinations and capabilities.

Rousseau's pedagogical theory was never embodied in the form in which the author imagined it, but he left ideas that were accepted by other enthusiasts, developed further and used in different ways in the practice of education and training.

"Russo! Russo! Your memory is now kind to people: you died, but your spirit lives in Emil, but your heart lives in Eloise, ”the Russian historian and writer expressed his admiration for the great Frenchman

Karamzin.

Main works:

1750 - "Discourses on the Sciences and Arts" (treatise).

1761 - "New Eloise" (novel).

1762 - "Emil, or On Education" (a novel-treatise).

1772 - "Confession".

Jean Jacques participated in the creation of the Encyclopedia, wrote articles for it.

Rousseau's first essay, "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" (1750), says "... with what force could I tell about all the abuses of our social institutions, how simply could I prove that a person is good by nature and only thanks to these institutions, people have become evil!"

In Emile or On Education, Rousseau declared: “Labor is an inevitable duty for a social person. Every idle citizen - rich or poor, strong or weak - is a rogue."

Rousseau believes that unruly feelings without the discipline of the mind lead to individualism, chaos and anarchy.

Rousseau outlines three types of education and three types of teacher: Nature, People and Objects. All of them participate in the upbringing of a person: nature internally develops our inclinations and organs, people help to use this development, objects act on us and give us experience. Natural education does not depend on us, but acts independently. Subject education partly depends on us.

“Education of a person begins from his birth. He does not speak yet, he does not listen yet, but he is already learning. Experience comes before learning."

He fights for the triumph of reason. Evil originated with society, and with the help of a renewed society, it can be driven out and defeated.

A person in a "state of nature". A natural person in his understanding is a holistic, kind, biologically healthy, morally honest and fair person.

Upbringing - a great thing, and it can create a free and happy person. The natural man - Rousseau's ideal - is harmonious and whole, he has highly developed qualities of a citizen, a patriot of his Motherland. He is absolutely free from selfishness.

The role of the educator for Rousseau is to educate children and give them one single craft - life. According to Emil's teacher, neither a judicial officer, nor a military man, nor a priest will come out of his hands - first of all, it will be a person who can be both.

Roman treatise "Emil or about Education" is the main pedagogical work of Rousseau, entirely devoted to the problems of human education. To express his pedagogical ideas, Rousseau created a situation where the educator begins to educate a child left an orphan from infancy and takes on the rights and obligations of parents. And Emil is entirely the fruit of his many efforts as an educator.

BOOK 1

(The first year of life. Nature, society, light and their relationship to education.)

"Plants are given form by cultivation, and men by education." “We are born deprived of everything - we need help; we are born meaningless - we need reason. Everything that we do not have at birth and without which we cannot do when we become adults, is given to us by education.

“Let the body develop freely, do not interfere with nature”

BOOK 2

(Children's age. Growth of strength. The concept of ability. Stubbornness and lies. Non-intelligence of book learning. Bodily education. Proper development of the senses. Age from 2 to 12 years.)

“Bringing up Emil according to the principle of natural consequences, he punishes Emil by depriving him of his freedom, i.e. break a window - sit in the cold, break a chair - sit on the floor, break a spoon - eat with your hands. At this age, the educative role of example is great, so it is necessary to rely on it in raising a child.

"The idea of ​​property naturally goes back to the nature of the first possession through labor."

BOOK 3

(Adolescence period of life. The use of forces in the accumulation of knowledge and experience needed in later life. Knowledge of the outside world. Knowledge of the people around. Craft. 12-15th year of life.)

“By the age of 12, Emil is strong, independent, able to quickly navigate and grasp the most important, then the world around him through his feelings. He is fully prepared to master mental and labor education. "Emil's head is the head of a philosopher, and Emil's hands are the hands of an artisan"

BOOK 4

(The period up to 25 years. "The period of storms and passions" is the period of moral education.) The three tasks of moral education are the education of good feelings, good judgments and good will, seeing the "ideal" person in front of you all the time. Before the age of 17-18, a young man should not talk about religion, Rousseau is convinced that Emile thinks about the root cause and independently comes to the knowledge of the divine principle.

BOOK 5

(Dedicates to the upbringing of girls, in particular Emil's bride - Sophie.)

“A woman should be brought up in accordance with the desires of a man. Adaptation to the opinions of others, the absence of independent judgments, even of one's own religion, meek submission to someone else's will is the destiny of a woman.

the "natural state" of a woman is dependence; “girls feel made to obey. They don't need any serious mental work."

You can, almost without touching his biography. The work of a thinker who has a strictly scientific character or is most suitable for such a character, by its very essence, cannot have such a close relation to the purely personal life of a writer, as the work of a poet or a writer in general, more or less clearly manifesting his own subjectivity in his works. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) precisely belonged to the people of this last category. Indeed, his writings find their best commentary in his personal character and life fate, as you know, he himself depicted in the famous "Confession".

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's father was a simple Genevan watchmaker who was passionately fond of reading novels and passed this habit on to his son when the latter was still a child. In addition to novels, father and son read Plutarch, whom Father Rousseau commented on with pathetic speeches about love for the fatherland and civic prowess. Thus, fantasy, a somewhat high spirits, and a bookish attitude to reality were already developing in the child. His father abandoned Jean-Jacques to the mercy of fate when he was ten years old, and the boy, spoiled in the family by an aunt who took the place of his mother, who died at his birth, soon had to experience unfair and harsh treatment from strangers; it was probably for the first time that it engendered in Rousseau's soul that feeling of protest against any untruth, which subsequently vomited from his soul more than one eloquent tirade in his writings.

Portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Artist M. K. Latour

At the same time, the wandering life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau began with constant changes in occupations. For quite a long time he was an engraver's apprentice, and the master's rude treatment of him embittered him in general against people and, as he himself admits, in addition, corrupted him, making him a liar, a deceiver, a thief and a decent coward. At the age of sixteen, Rousseau fled from his patron, fearing punishment for one offense and dreaming of realizing in complete freedom his fantasies read from novels. The real life of a homeless tramp began. At this time, Rousseau was converted to Catholicism, but was not attached to any business, but in the places of servants that the teenager fell into, he did not get along. Most of all, idleness in the bosom of nature attracted him, and the simplicity of life and the sympathetic attitude of the peasants towards him during his wanderings through the villages most affected his impressionable soul.

At the beginning of the thirties, Rousseau, however, lived quietly for about three years with Mrs. Varanes (Varens), who sheltered him, devoting this time to the study of the Latin language and philosophy. Then Voltaire's English Letters had just come out, and they made a very strong impression on the young man. After that, Rousseau continued to change professions, taught, studied music, traveled to Venice as a secretary to the French envoy, etc., until he settled in Paris for a longer time. Here he made acquaintances in literary circles, in which, however, he was terribly disappointed. By the same time, his rapprochement with Teresa Levasseur, a simple maid in a hotel, where he had to eat, belongs; the children who took root from this union were sent to an orphanage by their parents. The very choice of a very undeveloped woman from the common people as a girlfriend of life - and with her Rousseau then lived his whole century - some biographers explain it with contempt for scientific education and for secular treatment, and it must be added that he did not introduce into his relations with Teresa that suspiciousness, acrimony and irritability, which spoiled his relations with other people.

Such was the life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau when he wrote his first famous "dissertation". She, as you know, was called by the Dijon Academy, which offered an interesting topic for an essay for the prize. In the middle of the XVIII century. in France intellectual interests were quite strong even in the provincial towns; this is proved, among other things, by the emergence at that time of scientific and literary societies, which took the name of academies. The Dijon Academy was one of the oldest and developed some interest in philosophical subjects. In 1742, for example, she raised the question whether natural laws could bring society to perfection without the aid of political laws. In 1749, her topic, on which Rousseau wrote, was the question: “did the restoration of the sciences and arts contribute to the purification of morals? “A few years later, the same academy again announced a competitive topic on the origin of inequality between people, and Rousseau, encouraged by the success of the first dissertation, which was crowned with a prize, wrote on this topic as well.

Both of these questions corresponded perfectly to the mood of Rousseau and his secret thoughts. He himself tells in his Confessions, with the usual exaggeration of his emotional disturbances, how he was struck by the question of the influence of the sciences and arts on morality, when he once happened to read an advertisement in the newspaper about the Dijon topic - he says that something suddenly came over him kind of inspiration, which completely intoxicated him, that he burst into tears from excitement, without noticing it himself, and that if he could write down even a quarter of the thoughts that flashed in disorder in his head, then he would obviously prove to everyone all the contradictions in our institutions that spoil man, a being by nature, however, good.

The publication of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's first discourse on the subject of the Dijon Academy opens a period of his literary activity, which was very short, if we count only his largest and most influential works. Indeed, Rousseau's first dissertation was published in 1750, the second in 1754; in 1761 the New Eloise appeared, and in 1762 - Emil and The Social Contract. There is an inner connection between all these writings, and they were all generated by a mood similar to the state of mind that Rousseau experienced when he was so struck by the question posed by the Dijon Academy. In these years, Rousseau was one of the celebrities and had a place that provided him financially, but he could not get used to the secular society that surrounded him. He even, as if on purpose, in order to annoy this society, played the role of an eccentric and a cynic. Rousseau was terribly burdened by such a life, and he dreamed of settling in Geneva, regaining the rights of a citizen of this republic by renouncing the Roman church and solemnly accepting Protestantism. Among the Genevan theologians there were many who were inclined towards Christian deism, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau became very close to them, contrasting their pious religiosity to the Parisian free-thinking, which, on the contrary, he could not stand.

Rousseau even left Paris, but settled, however, not in Geneva, but not far from Montmorency, in a rural retreat, the Hermitage, arranged for him by one of his admirers and patrons. Here he found solitude and nature, which he loved with a kind of morbid impressionability, completely, so to speak, "simplified", continuing, nevertheless, his studies. Having quarreled some time later with the owner of the Hermitage, he rented an apartment for himself in the same Montmorency. Rousseau became more and more at odds with the philosophers, although he kept in touch with them, until he finally parted ways with them completely, shortly before the publication of The New Heloise, Emile, and The Social Contract. In an open letter to d "Alamberu he even warned his fellow citizens of Geneva against the danger that threatened them from the French enlightenment. The publication of Emile cost Rousseau the persecution raised against him by the parlement of Paris. When the order appeared to burn this book and arrest the author, Rousseau could only flee to Switzerland. Here, however, he could not find peace either; The Geneva City Council also ordered the burning of "Emil", adding to it the "Social Contract", and gave the order to seize the author at his first appearance on the territory of the republic. The Bernese Senate expelled him from the canton, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau found refuge only in the Principality of Neuchâtel, which belonged to the Prussian king Frederick II; Here he settled in a village.

But even from here he had to leave because of the absurd rumors that circulated about him among the peasants, and now, unable to return to Geneva, whose citizenship he, moreover, solemnly renounced, Rousseau left for England at the call of the philosopher David Hume (1766). Very soon, however, Rousseau quarreled with Hume. Imagining that he was lured to England only in order to be ruined, he fled to France and only after long wanderings could he settle again in Paris, where he lived for about eight more years, very poor and almost completely not engaged in literature. Shortly before his death, at the invitation of one of his friends, he moved to his estate, where he died suddenly, shortly after the death of Voltaire. There were rumors that the sudden death of Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a suicide (1778). While still in England, he began writing his "Confession", which he finished shortly before his death.

Jean Jacques Rousseau Born June 28, 1712 in Geneva, in the family of a watchmaker. His mother died 9 days after his birth. Jean Jacques was surrounded by kind and loving aunts from an early age.

An impressionable, gentle and kind boy read a lot during his childhood.

Jean Jacques began an independent life early, full of adversity and deprivation. He tried a variety of professions: he was a scribe with a notary, studied with an engraver, served as a footman. Then, not finding an appropriate use for his abilities, he took the path of homeless wanderings.

Sixteen-year-old Jean Jacques in the city of Annecy met the 28-year-old Swiss noblewoman Louise de Varens, who "lived by the graces of the Sardinian king" and recruited young people into Catholicism.

Madame de Varence sent Jean Jacques to Turin, to a recruits' asylum, where he was instructed and received into the bosom of the Catholic Church.

After 4 months, Rousseau left Turin and with twenty francs in his pocket went to look for work. He did not succeed in finding such work that would be pleasant and easy. He was still drawn to wanderings, and at the same time he did not stop dreaming of a new meeting with Madame de Varence. And this meeting soon took place. Madame de Varence forgave Rousseau's reckless youthful wanderings and took him into her house, which became his haven for a long time.

Divorced from de Varence in the autumn of 1741 and moved to Paris. For two years, Rousseau survived by copying notes, music lessons, and small literary work. Staying in Paris expanded his connections and acquaintances in the literary world, opened up opportunities for spiritual communication with the progressive people of France. Rousseau met Diderot, Marivaux, Fontenelle and others.

The warmest friendly relations began between him and Diderot. The brilliant philosopher, just like Rousseau, was fond of music, literature, passionately strove for freedom. But their outlook was different. Both of these complex natures for fifteen years, one way or another, maintained fairly close friendships. But at the end of the 60s, on the basis of ideological and personal differences between Rousseau and Diderot, a conflict arose that led to their break.

In Paris, Rousseau became friends with a young seamstress Teresa Levasseur, who, according to him, had a simple and kind disposition. Rousseau lived with her for 34 years, until the end of his days. He tried to develop her, teach her to read and write, but all his efforts in this direction remained fruitless.

The French Enlightenment, especially the materialistic philosophers of the 18th century, waged a struggle against the ideological and political reaction of their era. Most of them collaborated on the multi-volume Encyclopedia, or Explanatory Dictionary of Sciences, Arts and Crafts, edited by d'Alembert and Diderot.

For some time, Rousseau was an inconspicuous employee of the Encyclopedia, however, in 1750, when the Dijon Academy announced an essay competition on the topic “Did the revival of sciences and arts contribute to the improvement of morals?” Rousseau presented the jury with a magnificent treatise in which the reader was informed that science and art only “wrap garlands of flowers around the iron chains that bind people, drown out in them the natural feeling of freedom in which they seem to be born, make them love their slavery and create so-called civilized peoples."

Thus, Rousseau gave rise to a new direction of social thought - egalitarianism.

In 1763, Rousseau's famous novel "Emile or On Education" was published. Here Rousseau declared: "Labor is an inevitable duty for a social person. Every idle citizen, rich or poor, strong or weak, is a rogue.”

Another novel by Rousseau, Julia or New Eloise, written by him in 1761-1763, was also very popular with contemporaries. This novel in letters tells about the love of the aristocrat Julie d'Etange and her home teacher Saint Preux. Rousseau throughout this work emphasizes the social inequality of lovers.

In addition, Rousseau wrote articles for the Encyclopedia. His article "On Political Economy" is interesting. He highlighted socio-economic problems in it, in particular property relations, public administration, and public education.

He advocates private property, demanding a more even distribution of it. Rousseau denies extremes, wealth and poverty. Small private property based on personal labor, according to his teaching, is the pillar of a just order.

Literary success, however, brought Rousseau neither security nor peace of mind. After the publication of the novel "Emile or On Education" and the political treatise "On the Social Contract" (in which Rousseau spoke out against absolutism and developed the democratic theory of the social contract), the Paris Parliament began to throw thunder and lightning against the author of "evil" works.

The royal court sentenced "Emil", and then the "Social Contract" to be burned and issued a warrant for the arrest of Rousseau. Fleeing from persecution, Rousseau fled to Switzerland at night.

But here, as in Paris, persecution awaited him. The Geneva government also condemned "Emile" and "The Social Contract" and forbade the author from appearing within the Geneva district.

Rousseau, seeking refuge, accompanied by Teresa, went to the city of Strasbourg. However, he could not stay here for long. Then Rousseau was persuaded to go to England, where he was invited by the philosopher Hume. Rousseau and Teresa settled in the village of Wootton. But even here, in deep solitude, Rousseau did not find peace. It seemed to him that Hume, following his former French friends, had turned his back on him.

Once again on French soil, Rousseau could not breathe freely even here. He was forced to hide under the name of Citizen Renu.

In 1770, when the French government, in connection with the marriage of the Dauphin to Marie Antoinette, began to refrain from political repressions, Rousseau, to his pleasure, could freely appear on the streets, visit friends and acquaintances.

On July 2, 1778, returning home after a long walk, Rousseau felt a sharp pain in his heart and lay down to rest, but soon groaned heavily and fell to the floor. Teresa, who came running, helped him up, but he fell again and, without regaining consciousness, died. The sudden death and the discovery of a bleeding wound on his forehead gave rise to a stunning sensation: a rumor quickly spread that Jean Jacques Jacques Rousseau had committed suicide.

After 16 years, on October 11, 1794, the remains of Rousseau were solemnly transferred to the Pantheon and placed next to the ashes of Voltaire. Later, in his homeland, in Switzerland, the inhabitants of Geneva erected a monument to their great compatriot on Lake Biel.

Literature:

1. World History: The Age of Enlightenment /

A.N.Badak, I.E.Voynich, N.M.Volchek and others - M.: AST; Minsk:

Harvest, 2001 - V.15

2. Palaces A.T. Jean Jacques Rousseau. - M.: Nauka, 1980

(1712-1778) French philosopher, writer, composer

The life of Jean Jacques Rousseau was so full of events that it could have become the content of a multi-volume novel. Despite constant displacement, deprivation and material problems, he created a number of outstanding works, becoming one of the founders of the psychological trend in literature.

Jean Rousseau's father was a watchmaker, very skilled in his craft, his mother came from a pastoral family. But Rousseau did not get to know her: she died in childbirth. Therefore, the father spoiled his son and worked with him a lot. But at the age of ten, the elder Rousseau quarreled with a certain French captain, a prominent local landowner. In order to preserve honor and freedom, he was forced to flee Geneva and leave his homeland for the rest of his life.

Since then, Jean had to live in people, to serve either as an assistant cleric, or as an engraver's apprentice, or as a lackey, or as a tutor, or as a music teacher in the houses of the nobility, as a house secretary and as a copyist of notes. Having met Madame de Varence by chance, Jean Rousseau enters her service and spends twelve years in her house. It was the quietest time in his life. His father once taught him to read, and now the young man gets the opportunity to educate himself, read Rabelais, Voltaire, Locke, and other humanists and enlighteners. Rousseau even tries to compose musical works and develops a new system of recording notes using numbers. After all, for some time he managed to attend a music school at the cathedral. He would later publish a special book on the subject.

Since 1741, the period of wanderings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins. He moves to Paris, where he manages to get a job as a secretary of the French embassy in Venice. He gets close to the most prominent educators - Diderot, d "Alembert - and receives an offer to write a number of articles for the musical section of the Encyclopedia they are creating. Their publication immediately brought Jean Jacques Rousseau fame.

In the early fifties, he becomes known as a philosopher, taking part in a competition of philosophical works announced by the Dijon Academy on the topic "Did the revival of sciences and arts contribute to the improvement of morals." In the treatise "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" (1750), Rousseau first set the task of studying man and knowing his nature, his duties and destiny. This work was continued by the treatises Discourse on the Beginning and Foundations of Inequality between People (1755) and On the Social Contract (1762), in which Rousseau said that initially all people were equal, and civilization led to the stratification of society, political inequality and exploitation of peoples. Thus was laid the foundation for an ideal structure of society based on the rights of natural man, equality between people and a democratic form of government in the form of a general assembly.

He also expressed his ideas of natural education in artistic form - in the treatise novel "Emil, or On Education" (1762). Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe remained Jean Rousseau's favorite book for life, therefore, in Emile, he glorifies physical labor as the basis of education and upbringing.

Without hiding his views, Jean-Jacques Rousseau defends the "religion of the heart", thereby speaking out against the official religion. Probably, the writer considered religion an external shell, therefore he easily switched from Catholicism to Calvinism. For him, the inner content was more important. But the clergy did not accept the doctrine of Rousseau, "Emile" was burned by the hand of the executioner, first in Paris, and then by the opponents of the French Catholics, the Swiss Protestants. Fleeing from persecution, the writer moves from France to Switzerland, and the Vatican makes "Emile" and "On the Social Contract" in the list of banned books.

Then Jean Rousseau leaves for England, where he lives with the philosopher D. Hume. He came at his invitation and even received a pension of 100 pounds from King George III. Some stability allows him to continue working on his memoirs, which received the characteristic title "Confession". They were published in 1782-1789.

The main work of art by Jean Jacques Rousseau is the novel in letters "Julia, or New Eloise" (1761), where a completely new type of hero is introduced, not noble and not rich, but endowed with a rich spiritual world and capable of deep emotional experiences. Before Rousseau, literature did not know such a depth of feelings and passions, the death of the heroine made readers shed tears over her untimely death. It is no coincidence that during the 18th century the novel went through seventy editions.

True to himself, Jean Rousseau holds here a thought that is significant for himself - every feeling should be mutual, since you cannot resist the call of nature, you need to love and be happy. Even today, such a frank declaration of feelings sounds unusual.

The last work of Jean Jacques Rousseau - "Confession" - also struck readers. Although the author stopped at 1765 and could not write about the years of the new exile, he recreated the spiritual world of a person who lived in a difficult, ambiguous era today. Rousseau opens before us the very process of the birth of our own feelings, experiences, moods. Sometimes he is mercilessly frank, sometimes he is clearly silent about some moments of his life. In his work, a step was taken towards the creation of psychological prose for the following centuries.

Complementing the "Confession", Jean Jacques Rousseau writes "Dialogues: Rousseau judges Jean Jacques" (1775-1776) and "Walks of a lonely dreamer" (1777-1778), where he wanted to sum up his life, creating the image of a lonely man dreaming of peace and unity with wild and romantic nature.

It is known that young L. Tolstoy read all twenty volumes of the French edition of Rousseau's works. By the way, almost immediately after the publication of the writer's works became known in Russia. Already in 1761, the first edition of the novel "Julia, or New Eloise" could be bought in the bookstore of Moscow University. A negative assessment of the books of Rousseau, Catherine II is known. But nevertheless, the heroine of Alexander Pushkin, Tatyana was fond of the first novel by Jean Jacques Rousseau.

In addition to prose works, he wrote poetry and poems, which, like his comedies, do not differ in liveliness of characters and therefore did not have much success. Rousseau was more successful in his dramatic experiments: the musical pastoral The Village Sorcerer, created by him as a poet and composer, was staged in 1752 and published the following year. She pleasantly diversified the hearing of listeners against the backdrop of heavy classical opera. It is known that she was presented at Fontainebleau before Louis XV. Rousseau's play "Pygmalion", which was staged in 1770 and published in 1771, according to I. Goethe, "made an era", becoming the first musical melodrama.

In life, Jean Jacques Rousseau was a complex and unpredictable person. Years of wandering left their mark on his character: he was selfish, sensitive and sentimental, believing himself to be the best representative of humanity. Rousseau's pedantry led to a clear handwriting, and megalomania and persecution delusions led to the fact that he refused to read letters if he was unfamiliar with the sender's handwriting. He even called his dogs unusually - the Duke and the Sultan (in total, Rousseau had seven animals at one time).

Retaining personal independence, only in 1769 did he legalize his relationship with the illiterate Parisian maid Thérèse Levasseur. Influenced by the ideas of Plato, set forth in the "Republic", he gave his five children to the emerging hospital.

Jean Jacques Rousseau loved to play the spinet - the ancestor of the piano - and to collect plants.