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See also: born at See also: Paris on the 6th of See also: April 1671; he died at Brussels on the 17th of See also: March 1741
.
The son of a shoemaker, he was well educated and early gained favour with Boileau, who encouraged him to write
.
He began with the theatre, for which he had no aptitude
.
A one-
See also: act See also: comedy, Le Cafe, failed in 1694, and he was not much happier with a more ambitious See also: play, Le Flatteur (1696), or with the See also: opera of See also: Venus et See also: Adonis (1697)
.
He tried in 1700 another comedy, Le Capricieux, which had the same See also: fate
.
He then went with Tallard as an attache to See also: London, and, in days when literature still led to high position, seemed likely to achieve success
.
His misfortunes began with a See also: club squabble at the Cafe See also: Laurent, which was much frequented by See also: literary men, and where See also: Rousseau indulged in lampoons on his companions
.
A shower of libellous and sometimes obscene verses was written by or attributed to him, and at last he was turned out of the cafe
.
At the same
See also: time his poems, as yet only singly printed or in See also: manuscript, acquired him a See also: great reputation, due to the dearth of genuine lyrical See also: poetry between Racine and See also: Chenier
.
He had in 17or been made a member of the Academie See also: des inscriptions; he had been offered, though he had not accepted, profitable places in the revenue department; he had become a favourite of the libertine but influential coterie of the See also: Temple; and in 1710 he presented himself as a See also: candidate for the Academie francaise
.
Then began the second chapter of an extraordinary See also: history of the animosities of authors
.
A copy of verses, more offensive than ever, was handed round, and gossip maintained that Rousseau was its author
.
Legal proceedings of various kinds followed, and Rousseau ascribed the See also: lampoon to See also: Joseph Saurin
.
In 1712 Rousseau was prosecuted for defamation of character, and, on his non-appearance in See also: court, was condemned See also: par contumace to perpetual exile
.
He spent the rest of his See also: life in See also: foreign countries except for a clandestine visit to Paris in 1738, refusing to accept the permission to return which was offered him in 1716 because it was not accompanied by See also: complete rehabilitation
.
See also: Prince See also: Eugene and then other persons of distinction took him under their See also: protection during his exile, and he printed at See also: Soleure the first edition of his poetical See also: works
.
Voltaire and he met at Brussels
in 1722
.
Voltaire's Le Pour el le contre is said to have shocked Rousseau, who expressed his sentiments freely
.
At any See also: rate the latter had thenceforward no fiercer enemy than Voltaire
.
His See also: death elicited from Lefranc de Pompignan an ode of real excellence and perhaps better than anything of Rousseau's own See also: work
.
That work is divided, roughly speaking, into two contrasted divisions
.
One consists of formal and partly sacred odes and cantatas of the stiffest character, of which perhaps the Ode d la See also: fortune is the most famous; the other of brief epigrams, sometimes licentious and always, or almost always, See also: ill-natured
.
As an epigrammatist Rousseau is only inferior to his friend See also: Alexis See also: Piron
.
In the former he stands almost alone
.
The frigidity of conventional diction and the disuse of all really lyrical rhythm which characterize hisSee also: period do not prevent his odes and cantatas from showing at times true poetical faculty, though cramped, and inadequate to explain his extraordinary vogue
.
Few writers were so frequently reprinted during the 18th century, but even in his own century La Harpe had arrived at a truer estimate of his real value when he said of his poetry: " Le fond n'est qu'un lieu commun See also: charge de declamations et meme d'idees fausses."
Besides the Soleure edition mentioned above Rousseau published another issue of his work in London in 1723
.
The chief edition since is that of J
.
A
.
Amar (5 vols., 1820), preceded by a See also: notice of his life
.
M
.
A. de Latour published (1869) a useful though not complete edition, with notes and a See also: biographical introduction
.
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