Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau / Year: 1712-1778 / Genre: AutobiographyConfessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of
his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist
and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and
alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he
came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique
insight the relationship between an elusive but essential inner self and the variety of
social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods
and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability,
self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all,
Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey
what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence.
