Julie, or the New Heloise

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Julie, or the New Heloise

First edition title page
Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Original title Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse
Country France
Language French
Genre(s) Epistolary novel
Publisher Rey
Publication date 1761
Media type Print
ISBN NA

Julie, or the New Heloise (French: Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse) is an epistolary novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published in 1761 by Rey (Amsterdam). The original edition was entitled Lettres de deux amans habitans d'une petite ville au pied des Alpes ("Letters from two lovers living in a small town at the foot of the Alps").

The novel’s subtitle points to the history of Heloise and Pierre Abélard, a medieval story of passion and Christian renunciation. The novel was put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Although Rousseau wrote it as a novel, a philosophical theory about authenticity permeates through it. He explores autonomy and authenticity as moral values. A common interpretation is that Rousseau values the ethics of authenticity over rational moral principles. He also illustrates that you should only do what society asks of you when it's congruent with the "secret principles" and feelings which constitute your core identity. Acting inauthentically is self-destructive.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

This plot summary is taken from Judith Shklar's seminal Men and Citizens:

[Nouvelle Héloïse] begins with Saint-Preux . . . declaring his love to Julie d'Etange. As he is merely the tutor of this daughter of a nobleman, he assumes from the first that he will be rejected. This does not happen, and they presently become lovers. Julie's letters are at first mostly addressed to her cousin, the more level-headed Claire, who is eventually in everyone's confidence and who acts as a sort of one-woman chorus throughout, observing, predicting and lamenting. Julie's father, though not her mother, is inflexibly opposed to the marriage of the young lovers. Julie hopes to force her father to consent by becoming pregnant, but she has a miscarriage.
At this point Lord Eduard Bomston, an immensely rich English peer and a friend of Julie's father, appears. He takes a great liking to Saint-Preux, but the latter suspects him of having designs on Julie. In a jealous rage he challenges Lord Eduard to a duel. This disaster is finally averted and Lord Eduard's generosity is proven by his efforts to persuade Baron d'Etange to permit the marriage. This fails and he and Saint-Preux go off to Paris, from where the latter writes Julie a series of devastating accounts of life in the capital.
While they are gone Julie's mother discovers the correspondence and is very upset, and soon after she falls ill and dies. Even though the two events are unrelated Julie feels guilty and thinks that she is to blame for her mother's death. In this state of mind she consents to renounce her lover and to marry M. de Wolmar, an older man whom her father has chosen for her. During the wedding she undergoes a profound inner change, a conversion to virtue. She now feels ready to accept her duties as a wife and mother. In her pursuit of virtue she is at every step helped by her extraordinary husband, a man as wise as he is good. Although she cannot bring herself to tell him of her relationship with Saint-Preux, he knows and forgives everything.
Saint-Preux is thrown into utter despair by Julie's marriage and contemplates suicide. He is dissuaded by Lord Eduard, who finds a position as engineer on a vessel going on a trip around the world for him. After ten years Saint-Preux returns and is made welcome by Wolmar and his wife. Julie now has two children and her life is wholly devoted to them and to running a model estate at Clarens with Wolmar. The rest of the book describes these efforts, Julie's virtue, Wolmar's wisdom, the beauty of their English garden and the prosperity of their estate. Julie's only sorrow appears to be that Wolmar is an atheist. He never speaks of it, always attends church for the sake of appearances, but he is a convinced unbeliever. This disturbs Julie, although Wolmar never tries to alter her faith. The more beneficent Wolmar is, the more he does to cure Saint-Preux of his old infatuation, the more religious and miserable his wife becomes. In the end, as it seems certain that Saint-Preux will marry Claire and settle down at Clarens to become the tutor of the Wolmar children, she tells him of her profound malaise and boredom. There is a short break in the story just before this that deals with Lord Eduard's amorous adventures in Italy. An appendix is also devoted to this delightful subject.
The final section is brief. Julie jumps into a lake to rescue one of her children, catches cold and dies. She is very happy to die, because she is now perfectly aware that all her virtue has not helped her to forget Saint-Preux. She loves him as much as ever. As she dies she gives an account of her tolerant and loving religious beliefs, but her greatest hope is to be reunited in heaven with Saint-Preux. Wolmar looks thoughtful, but never admits to conversion.[1]

[edit] Reception history

Historian Robert Darnton has argued that Julie "was perhaps the biggest best-seller of the century."[2] Publishers could not print copies fast enough so they rented the book out by the day and even by the hour. According to Darnton, there were at least 70 editions in print before 1800, "probably more than for any other novel in the previous history of publishing."[3]

But what was truly astonishing regarding Julie's popularity was not just its sales statistics, but the emotions it brought out in its readers. Readers were so overcome that they wrote to Rousseau in droves, creating the first celebrity author.[4] One reader claimed that the novel nearly drove him mad from excess of feeling while another claimed that the violent sobbing he underwent cured his cold. Reader after reader describes their "tears," "sighs," "torments," and "ecstasies" to Rousseau.[5] One wrote in a letter to Rousseau after finishing the novel:

I dare not tell you the effect it made on me. No, I was past weeping. A sharp pain convulsed me. My heart was crushed. Julie dying was no longer an unknown person. I believed I was her sister, her friend, her Claire. My seizure became so strong that if I had not put the book away I would have been as ill as all those who attended that virtuous woman in her last moments.[6]

Like this reader, people became deeply invested in the lives of the characters in the novel, to an extent that was entirely new in fiction. In fact, some readers simply could not accept that the book was fiction. One woman wrote to Rousseau asking:

Many people who have read your book and discussed it with me assert that it is only a clever fabrication on your part. I can't believe that. If so, how could a mistaken reading have produced sensations like the ones I felt when I read the book? I implore you, Monsieur, tell me: did Julie really live? Is Saint-Preux still alive? What country on this earth does he inhabit? Claire, sweet Claire, did she follow her dear friend to the grave? M. de Wolmar, milord Edouard, all those persons, are they only imaginary as some want to convince me? If that be the case, what kind of a world do we inhabit, in which virtue is but an idea?[7]

Other readers identified less with the individual characters and more with their general struggles. They saw in Julie a story of temptation, sin and redemption that resembled their own lives.[8]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books

  • Santo L. Aricò, Rousseau’s Art of persuasion in La nouvelle Héloïse, University Press of America, Lanham, 1994 ISBN 9780819196187
  • (French) Nouchine Behbahani, Paysages rêvés, paysages vécus dans La Nouvelle Héloïse de J.-J. Rousseau, Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, 1989 ISBN 9780729403931
  • (French) L’Amour dans la nouvelle Héloïse : texte et intertexte : actes du colloque de Genève, 10-11-12 juin 1999, Éd. Jacques Berchtold, François Rosset, Droz, Genève, 2002 ISBN 9782600008082
  • (French) Jean-Marie Carzou, La Conception de la nature humaine dans la Nouvelle Héloïse, Sauret, Paris, 1966
  • (French) Charles Dédéyan, Jean-Jacques Rousseau : la Nouvelle Héloïse, ou, l’éternel retour, Nizet, Saint-Genouph, 2002 ISBN 2207812692
  • (French) Charles Dédéyan, La Nouvelle Héloïse de Jean-Jacques Rousseau : étude d’ensemble, SEDES-CDU, Paris, 1990 ISBN 9782718127811
  • Maurice R Funke, From saint to psychotic: the crisis of human identity in the late 18th century : a comparative study of Clarissa, La Nouvelle Héloise, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, P. Lang, New York, 1983 ISBN 9780820400013
  • James Fleming Jones, La Nouvelle Héloïse, Rousseau and utopia, Droz, Genève, 1977
  • Peggy Kamuf, Fictions of Feminine Desire: Disclosures of Héloïse, U of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1982 ISBN 9780803227057
  • (French) François van Laere, Une Lecture du temps dans la Nouvelle Héloïse, La Baconnière, Neuchâtel, 1968
  • (French) Laurence Mall, Origines et retraites dans La nouvelle Héloïse, P. Lang, New York, 1997 ISBN 9780820433493
  • (French) William Mead, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ou le Romancier enchaîné ; étude de la nouvelle Héloïse, Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1966
  • (French) Daniel Mornet, La Nouvelle Héloïse de J.-J. Rousseau ; étude et analyse, Mellottée Paris, 1929
  • (French) This article is based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia. Perry Reisewitz, L’Illusion salutaire : Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Nouvelle Héloïse als ästhetische Fortschreibung der philosophischen Anthropologie der Discours, Romanistischer Verlag, Bonn, 2000 ISBN 9783861431039
  • (French) Yannick Séité, Du Livre au lire : La nouvelle Héloïse, roman des lumières, Champion, Paris, 2002 ISBN 9782745305176
  • (French) Étienne Servais, Le Genre romanesque en France depuis l’apparition de la Nouvelle Héloïse jusqu’aux approches de la Révolution, M. Lamertin, Bruxelles, 1922
  • (French) Anne Tilleul, La Vertu du beau : essai sur La nouvelle Héloïse, Humanitas nouvelle optique, Montréal, 1989 ISBN 9782893960074

[edit] Articles

  • (French) Nouchine Behbahani, Paysages rêvés, paysages vécus dans La Nouvelle Héloïse de J. J. Rousseau, Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, 1989, ISBN 9780729403931
  • (French) Jacques Berchtold, “L’Impossible Virginité du jardin verbal : les Leçons de la nature selon la Lettre IV, 11 de La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Éd. et préf. Jürgen Söring, Peter Gasser, Rousseauismus: Naturevangelium und Literatur, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 1999, p. 53-83 ISBN 9783631349168
  • (French) Nadine Bérenguier, “Le ‘Dangereux Dépôt’ : Virginité et contrat dans Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, July 1997, n° 9 (4), p. 447-63
  • (French) André Blanc, “Le Jardin de Julie”, Dix-huitième Siècle, 1982, n° 14, p. 357-376
  • (French) Luciano Bulber, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau, peintre de la nature-état d’âme dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny, 1988, n° 35 (4), p. 415-29
  • (French) Henri Coulet, “Couples dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Littératures, Fall 1989, n° 21, p. 69-81
  • (French) Catherine Cusset, “Cythère et Elysée: Jardin et plaisir de Watteau à Rousseau”, Dalhousie French Studies, Winter 1994, n° 29, p. 65-84
  • (French) Claude Labrosse, Éd. K. Kupisz, G.-A. Pérouse, J.-Y. Debreuille, “La Figure de Julie dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Le Portrait littéraire, Lyon, PU de Lyon, 1988, p. 153-58
  • (French) Michel Delon, “La Nouvelle Héloïse et le goût du rêve”, Magazine Littéraire, Sept 1997, n° 357, p. 36-8
  • (French) Arbi Dhifaoui, “L’Épistolaire et/ou la violence dans La Nouvelle Héloïse de Rousseau”, Éd. et intro. Martine Debaisieux, Gabrielle Verdier, Violence et fiction jusqu’à la Révolution, Tübingen, Narr, 1998, p. 357-66
  • (French) Jean Ehrard, “Le Corps de Julie”, Éd. Raymond Trousson, Michèle Biblio. Mat-Hasquin, Jacques Lemaire, Ralph Heyndels, Thèmes et figures du siècle des Lumières : mélanges offerts à Roland Mortier, Genève, Droz, 1980, p. 95-106
  • (French) Anne Srabian de Fabry, “L’Architecture secrète de La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Australian Journal of French Studies, 1982 Jan.-Apr., n° 19 (1), p. 3-10
  • (French) Anne Srabian de Fabry, “Quelques observations sur le dénouement de La Nouvelle Héloïse“, French Review, Oct 1972, n° 46 (1), p. 2-8
  • (French) R. J. Howells, “Désir et distance dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1985, n° 230, p. 223-232
  • (French) R. J. Howells, “Deux histoires, un discours : La Nouvelle Héloïse et le récit des amours d’Émile et Sophie dans l’Émile”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1987, n° 249, p. 267-294
  • (French) François Jost, “La Nouvelle Héloïse, Roman Suisse”, Revue de Littérature Comparée, 1962, n° 35, p. 538-565
  • (French) Tanguy L’Aminot, “L’Amour courtois dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Piau-Gillot, Colette Éd. Desné, Roland Éd. L’Aminot, Tanguy Éd. Modernité et pérennité de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Champion, Paris, 2002, p. 241-57
  • (French) Claude Labrosse, “Nouveauté de La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Jan-Apr 2001, n° 13 (2-3), p. 235-46
  • (French) J.-L. Lecercle, “L’Inconscient et création littéraire : sur La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Études Littéraires, 1969, n° 1, p. 197-204
  • (French) Annie Leclerc, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau : l’Amour au pays des chimères”, Magazine Littéraire, Par 1995, n° 331, p. 31-34
  • (French) Pierre Rétat, Litteratures, “L’Économie rustique de Clarens”, 1989 Fall; 21: 59-68
  • Laurence Mall, “Les Aberrations de l’errance : le Voyage dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Australian Journal of French Studies, 1994, n° 31 (2), p. 175-87
  • (French) Francine Markovits, “Rousseau et l’éthique de Clarens : une économie des relations humaines”, Stanford French Review, 1991, n° 15 (3), p. 323-48
  • (French) Ourida Mostefai, Lectures de La Nouvelle Héloïse, N. Amer. Assn. for the Study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ottawa, 1993 ISBN 9780969313236
    • (French) Philip Knee, “Wolmar comme médiateur politique”, p. 117-27
    • (French) Guy Lafrance, “L’Éthique de La Nouvelle Héloïse et du Vicaire Savoyard“, p. 141-50
    • Jim MacAdam, “Reading Julie Amour-propre-ly”, p. 107-16
    • (French) Laurence Mall, pp. 163-73”, “L’Intérieur et l’extérieur : Étude des lettres parisiennes dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, p. 163-73
    • (French) Jean Roussel, pp. 61-72”, “La Nouvelle Héloïse et la politique : de l’écart à l’emblème”, p. 61-72
    • (French) Teresa Sousa de Almeida, “La Circulation des lettres dans le roman ou le Partage des pouvoirs”, p. 175-84
    • (French) Jean Terrasse, pp. 129-39”, “Jean-Jacques, Saint-Preux et Wolmar : aspects de la relation pédagogique”, p. 129-39
    • (French) Loïc Thommeret, “De La Nouvelle Héloïse aux Confessions, une triade infernale”, p. 213-21
    • (French) María José Villaverde, “L’Égalité dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, p. 73-84
  • Ruth Ohayon, “Rousseau’s Julie; Or, the Maternal Odyssey”, College Language Association Journal, Sept. 1986, n° 30 (1), p. 69-82
  • (French) Robert Osmont, “Expérience vécue et création romanesque : le sentiment de l’éphémère dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Dix-huitième Siècle, 1975, n° 7, p. 225-42
  • (French) Paul Pelckmans, “Le Rêve du voile dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Revue Romane, 1982, n° 17 (1), p. 86-97
  • (French) René Pomeau, “Le Paysage de La Nouvelle Héloïse : l’Asile, l’espace”, The Feeling for Nature and the Landscape of Man, Éd. Paul Hallberg, Gothenburg, Kungl. Vetenskaps & Vitterhets-Samhället, 1980, p. 132-42
  • (French) Jean Roussel, “La Douleur de Saint-Preux”, Éd. Carminella Biondi, Carmelina Imbroscio, Marie-Josée Latil, Nadia Minerva, Carla Pellandra, Adriana Sfragaro, Brigitte Soubeyran, Paola Vecchi, La Quête du bonheur et l’expression de la douleur dans la littérature et la pensée françaises. Genève, Droz, 1995, p. 371-9
  • (French) Jean Roussel, “La Faute, le rachat et le romanesque dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Travaux de Littérature, 1995; 8: 209-20
  • (French) Timothy Scanlan, “Perspectives on the Nuits d’amour in Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse“, AUMLA, Nov 1993, n° 80, p. 93-9
  • (French) Norbert Sclippa, “L’Idéal politique et l’idée de Nation dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, politique et nation, Intro. Robert Thiéry, Paris, Champion, 2001,
XXIV, p. 101-8
  • (French) Norbert Sclippa, “La Nouvelle Héloïse et l’aristocratie”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1991, n° 284, p. 1-71
  • (French) Norbert Sclippa, “La Nouvelle Héloïse, la noblesse et la bourgeoisie”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1989, n° 265, p. 1617-1619
  • (French) Jean-Paul Sermain, “La Nouvelle Héloïse ou l’invention du roman-poème””, Éd. Colette Piau-Gillot, Roland Desné, Tanguy L’Aminot, Modernité et pérennité de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paris, Champion, 2002, p. 227-40
  • (French) Jean Sgard, “De Cunégonde à Julie”, Recherches et Travaux, 1996, n° 51, p. 121-30
  • (French) Lieve Spaas, “D’un Clarens à l’autre : structures du désir sexuel dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1991, n° 284, p. 73-82
  • (French) Jean Starobinski, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau : Jours uniques, plaisirs redoublés”, Thèmes et figures du siècle des Lumières : mélanges offerts à Roland Mortier, Éd. Raymond Trousson Michèle Mat-Hasquin, Jacques Lemaire, Ralph Heyndels, Genève, Droz, 1980, p. 285-97
  • (French) Raymond Trousson, “De Jacques à Jean-Jacques ou du bon usage de La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Éd. Elio Mosele, Intro. Pierre Brunel, George Sand et son temps, I-III. Slatkine, Genève, 1994, p. 749-66
  • (French) Raymond Trousson, “Le Rôle de Wolmar dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Éd. Raymond Trousson, Michèle Mat-Hasquin, Jacques Lemaire, Ralph Heyndels, Thèmes et figures du siècle des Lumières : mélanges offerts à Roland Mortier, Genève, Droz, 1980, p. 299-306
  • (French) Joseph Waldauer, “La Solitude et la communauté dans La Nouvelle Héloïse“, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 1989, n° 265, p. 1271-4
  • Hans Wolpe, “Psychological Ambiguity in La Nouvelle Héloise“, University of Toronto Quarterly, 1959, n° 28, p. 279-90

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Shklar, Judith. Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1969), 232-3.
  2. ^ Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York: Viking (1984), 242.
  3. ^ Darnton, 242.
  4. ^ Darnton, 243-4.
  5. ^ Darnton, 242-3.
  6. ^ Qtd. in Darnton, 243.
  7. ^ Qtd. in Darnton, 245.
  8. ^ Darnton, 246-7.
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