Sullivan, Karen

Dr. Karen Sullivan is Assistant Professor of French Language and Literature at Queens College/City University of New York. She completed her Ph.D. in French Literature at Columbia University.

Rousseau's Aesthetics of Feeling

2007 0-7734-5317-2
This study breaks new ground by focusing on the role of the arts in Rousseau’s novel, Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse, and through them demonstrates the underlying consistency of his thought. Although he never elaborated a formal aesthetic doctrine, Rousseau’s ideas on the arts provide the foundation for the novel and can be discerned therein. Moving between his theoretical and literary writings, this study reveals how Rousseau achieved his aesthetic and ethical goals, examining his alternation between the roles of censor and champion of the arts. This book contains 12 black and white photographs.