Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse [Julie, or The New Heloise]

Robin Howells (Birkbeck, University of London)

Ed. by David Williams, University of Sheffield
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.04: French Writing and Culture: Eighteenth-Century and the Enlightenment, 1700-1800.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge), Síofra Pierse (University College Dublin), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1761

Places

Switzerland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Epistolary
Novel
Sentimental

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Rousseau’s long letter-novel was an immediate and enduring best-seller in France and much of Europe. Its language of sensibility, its twin cult of passion and virtue, and its visionary power challenged and changed the fashions of its own time, and it would become a key work for several generations of Romantics.

Set principally by Lake Geneva, the story centres on a young tutor, Saint-Preux, and his female pupil who fall in love. But he is a commoner, and Julie’s noble father will not hear of a mésalliance. Forced to keep their passion a guilty secret, the couple succumb to it. To save her reputation, Julie’s cousin Claire sends the tutor away and his friend milord Edouard takes him to Paris. Julie’s father requires her to renounce Saint-Preux and accept the husband of his choice,

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1283 words

Citation: Howells, Robin. "Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 January 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4301, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article