Reveries of the Solitary Walker

By: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Published November 22nd 1979 by Penguin Classics (first published 1782)

Category: Arts

Pages: 160 pages

ISBN: 9780140443639

Description:
The struggle between Rousseau's yearning for solitude and his need for society is the central theme of the Reveries.

In the two years before his death in 1778, Jean-Jacques Rousseau composed the ten meditations of Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Combining philosophical argument with amusing anecdotes and lyrical desriptive passages, they record the great French writer's sense of isolation and alienation from a world which he felt had rejected his work. As he wanders around Paris, gazing at plants and day-dreaming, Rousseau looks back over his life in order to justify his actions and to elaborate on his ideal of a well-structured society fit for the noble and solitary natural man.