Rousseau's Legacy: Emergence and Eclipse of the Writer in France

315 Pages·1995·24.66 MB·English

by  Dennis Porter

Rousseau's Legacy
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Rousseau's Legacy
Emergence and Eclipse
of the Writer in France
DENNIS PORTER
New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1995
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 1995 by Dennis Porter
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Porter, Dennis, 1933-
Rousseau's legacy : emergence and eclipse
of the writer in France / Dennis Porter
p. cm. Includes index.
ISBN 0-19-509107-8
]. French literature—History and criticism—Theory, etc.
2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712—1778—Influence.
3. Authorship—Social aspects—France—History.
4. Politics and literature—France—History.
5. Literature and society—France—History.
6. Authors and readers-—France—History.
7. France—Intellectual life.
8. Autobiography.
I. Title. PQ71.P67 995
840.9'007-—dc20 94-26408
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For my friends, wherever they are
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Contents
Introduction, 3
1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Putting the Polis in Command, 22
2. Stendhal: Overpoliticization and the Revenge of Literature, 71
3. Charles Baudelaire: Portrait of the Poet as Antiwriter, 106
4. Jean-Paul Sartre: Writer, Militant, Graphomaniac, 143
5. The Cultural Twilight of Roland Barthes, 189
6. Marguerite Duras: Autobiographical Acts, Celebrity Status, 212
7. Epilogue: From Althusser's Theory of a Murder to Foucault's
Aesthetics of Existence, 238
Notes, 269
Index, 297
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Rousseau's Legacy