Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Doctrine of the Arts: v. 90 (European University Studies) - Softcover

Robinson, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3261033797 ISBN 13: 9783261033796

Publisher: Peter Lang AG, 1984

Synopsis

This is the first book to set out comprehensively Rousseau's theoretical statements on the arts: music and opera, theatre, fiction, poetry, the visual arts and dance. These statements are seen in terms of the phases of his intellectual development: the early years, the social criticism of the 1750s, the future-orientated theory of Emile and other texts, and finally the increasing self-scrutiny. This approach, conscious at all times of the element of personal commitment in his thinking, permits a sympathetic understanding, if not a resolution, of the famous paradoxes. The chief of these, his simultaneous condemnation and practice of drama, music and literature, is seen less as a personal contradiction than as a pointer to the ills of society which outrage him. Despite the huge social, political and economic upheavals since his death in 1778, Rousseau emerges as a thinker who has much to teach those concerned for the health of the arts in a modern world and for the moral values which attend them.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peter Lang AG
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3261033797
• ISBN 13: 9783261033796
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 530