Abstract

Rousseau in Our Time

The article focuses on the book "Jean-Jacques Rousseau," by F.C. Green. Professor Green's book is a happy reminder that there is no such thing as a definitive biography. Each generation must rewrite the previous generation's biograraphies: sometimes in the interest of historical truth, for new documents keep coming to light; and sometimes in a process which they must not minimize, the perpetual readjustment that takes place between present and past. The figure of Jean-Jacques is presently in eclipse. The ideas which he blazoned forth seem rather elementary to century and often naive. But if there is any writer who merits re-evaluation, it is this petulant, quarrelsome, yet inspired individual who saw his way through to certain fundamental truths of feeling which made him, as has been said, the first modern man.