Émile (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- First Published: 1762
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Novel of ideas
- Time of Work: Eighteenth century
- Setting: France
- Principal Characters: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, Sophie
- Genres: Long fiction, Philosophical realism, Problem novel
- Subjects: Child rearing or parenting, Children, France or French people, Education or educators, Eighteenth century, Orphans or orphanages, Tutors or tutoring
- Locales: France
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s treatise on education—a novel in name only—is addressed to mothers in the hope that, as a result of learning Rousseau’s ideas on education, they will permit their children to develop naturally without letting them be crushed by social conditions. Children cannot be left to themselves from birth, because the world as it is would turn them into beasts. The problem is to educate a child in the midst of society in such a manner that society does not spoil her or him.
In Émile, Rousseau argues that education comes from nature, from other people,...
[The entire page is 2345 words long]
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