The New Heloise in the Correspondence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

By deciphering the secrets of a work or by following the metamorphoses of a profuse theme we penetrate the most intimate aspects of a creation. We follow its inner mechanisms and try to shed light on its aspects and disguises its aims and instincts in order to present the sketch of its movements. This is why despite the multiplicity of studies devoted to the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau penetrating his writing workshop is considered today to be a very remarkable challenge. And although the study of correspondence is far from being an entirely new approach having long preoccupied not only literary critics but also collectors archivists biographers and philologists the fact that it is analysed genetically gives it a remarkable new importance. Can the 'creative process' really be revealed through a writer's correspondence? Is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's correspondence a mere writer's autobiography or another escort subject of his works a disturbing palimpsest where reality is aborted.