Psychological Ambiguity in La Nouvelle Héloïse

PSYCHOLOGICAL AMBIGUITY IN LA NOUVELLE HELOisE Hans Wolpe "The land of the chimera is of this world the only worthy dwelling place; and such is the emptiness of all things human, that outside of the self-existing Being, there is nothing beautiful but that which does not exis!.'" This quotation from La Nouvelle Heloise could symbolize the whole work and serve as its epigraph. For indeed this "book of enchantment," as it has been so aptly called, unfolds in an atmosphere which borrows little, if anything, from objective reality. The distorting effect of Rousseau's imagination has always been fully discussed in any serious analysis of his political writings, but we turn to studies of La Nouvelle Heloise to find that this factor has been hardly touched upon. Everything combined from the very first to cloud the real question: whence the aesthetic value of the work, its illusion of reality? Rousseau's contemporaries were entranced by it but were deluded into hailing it as the sensational revelation of actual trials of love. "Julie: Or La Nouvelle Heloise: Or Letters of Two Lovers from a Little Town at the Foot of the Alps, collected and published by Jean-Jacques Rousseau": the full title shows why contemporaries believed they were reading authentic letters which had fallen into the hands of, and were being made public by, Rousseau..His readers discussed Julie, Saint-Preux, Wolmar, and aaire as if they were real people. They took sides; they made value judgments. The issue was further obscured by envious, ironic, and defensive reactions from the critics who resented the novel's literary success. They interpreted the work as a diptych: the first panel portraying the triumph of passion, the second that of moral virtue: and then proceeded to attack it as psychologically unsound. Modern scholars have contributed little to clarify the issue. They have attempted to explain the novel by stating that it is based on 280 HANS WOLPE Rousseau's personal experience, on his passionate and umequited love for Mme d'Houdetot. She prompted, according to Mornet, Gerin, and Seilliere, "the hallucination of his whole being," "a desperate love," and "a love quasi-satisfied by that of his beloved for another.'" We know that Rousseau met Mme d'Houdetot in the spring of 1756 at a time when he had already begun his work on La Nouvelle Heloise, and had abandoned himself in his solitude to erotic dreams, which, in his own opinion, were a "delirium." From his account of his flowering love, we can see the extent to which his passion is rooted in fiction and is indebted to the imagination-to mimesis: "To finish me off, she spoke to me of Saint Lambert as would an impassioned mistress-we were both drunk with love, she for her lover, I for her. Our sighs, our delightful tears mingled!" In no way are we dealing here with a spontaneous and natural passion, but rather with a feeling which is already literary, and as such, artificial. We have entered directly into the "land of the chimera." Rousseau did not love women; this can never be too often repeated. It was the tender, voluptuous, and false memories of them which he delighted in evoking. This enchanted atmosphere, which is found in his novel, gave him much more satisfaction than love itself would have done. Eros had always found in Jean-Jacques a sorry standard-bearer. The verdict of an expert Italian courtesan is proof enough: "Lascia Ie donne e studia la mathematica." Forgetful of the land of the chimera, most scholars, sensitive and intelligent as they may be, cannot get away from prosaic reality. F. C. Green, with Gerin, and so many others, holds that La Nouvelle Heloise is founded on experience. "Saint Preux is Rousseau himself. Julie sums up all the women he has loved: MIles. de Graffenried and Galley, Mlle. Serre, Mme. d'Houdetot. Wolmar is simply a more sensitive Saint Lambert.. ..'" In Green's opinion, Rousseau identifies himself with Saint Preux, and as Rousseau cannot tolerate a Saint Lambert getting the better of him, he cannot permit Wolmar to prevail over Julie's lover. On her deathbed Julie realizes that she has always...