Gender in Rousseau’s Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse and Its German Reception: Radical or Moderate?
In: The Radical Enlightenment in Germany
Author:
Monika Nenon
Monika Nenon
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Abstract
Taking Jonathan Israel’s division of the Enlightenment into different camps as a starting point, this essay focuses on Rousseau’s novel Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse and several prominent German authors such as Sophie von La Roche, Goethe, and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and the way they creatively responded to that work. Special attention is given to the female protagonists with a view to the conception of gender exhibited through them and the ideas of happiness and love that motivate them. It turns out that Rousseau’s notion of gender cannot easily be subsumed under any of the common headings and that it is taken up in different ways by each of these authors.