Rousseau's Aesthetics of Feeling: Time, Place and the Arts in Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse (review)

In her innovative book, Karen Sullivan methodically analyzes how Rousseau's aesthetics and vision have been influenced not only by his philosophical views but also by his vision of the social power of the arts. According to Sullivan, Rousseau introduces a subjective and intuitive epistemology—that she calls his "aesthetics of feeling"—in the appreciation and involvement of the percipient in music, visual arts and literature. As Sullivan points out, for Rousseau the artist has the responsibility to engage the percipient's imagination and participation in a social context within which the work of art is taking place.

In the first chapter, Sullivan proposes an analysis of the concepts of time and place in Rousseau's novel on the arts. According to Sullivan, the concepts of time and place offer a unifying theme in Rousseau's work. After reviewing the classic arts, Sullivan proposes that the dimensions of time and space can serve as different criteria for understanding and appreciating works of art. Sullivan then proceeds to explore how, in addition to the time-space spectrum, the ethos in Rousseau's arts—morale sensitive, as it was called in the 18th century—can influence the character and the human dispositions. Whatever the type of art involved—drama, musical composition, dance or prose—Rousseau was aware that the reception of the particular work of art would be dependent on the time and space context and believed that the percipient's appreciation of and engagement in the creative process was affected by when and where the work of art was produced and presented.

In the second chapter, Sullivan analyzes the narrative values of the types of music that are present in Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse, and specifically, the narrative values of different types of music that were performed in France at the time. Place, Sullivan points out, is an important factor for the appreciation and understanding of the music by audiences in different settings and also shapes the type(s) of music that is/are created. The three types of music—the religious, the imitative and the popular—not only represent different aesthetics and acoustic styles, but also reflect the diversity of the various societies in which these types of music are created in and presented to.

In the third chapter, Sullivan extends the analysis to the visual arts and explores the different functions and meanings of the three types of visual arts that are present in Rousseau's novel. Sullivan convincingly argues that the three types of visual arts in Rousseau's novel are presented as a metaphor for the imaginative process of the percipient even though they are perceived by Rousseau as expressing the corruption and the sin of the society. Just as with music, visual arts are never independent of the artists' involvement in the time and place in which they live and that makes them more likely to engage the percipient's imagination and to increase the latter's participation and involvement in the artistic process.

In the fourth chapter, Sullivan addresses the nature of the themes of reading and writing as the main activities of the characters in Julie ou La Nouvelle Héloïse, and proposes the idea that these themes serve as narrative strategies and as subjects of reflection. For Sullivan, Rousseau's written word does not render reality but lays bare the author and the reader. Reading and writing serve various purposes in the novel such as arousing passion, maintaining virtue, and drawing the community together. In that sense, both author and reader have responsibilities. The author must create interest through his subject, while the reader must reflect on it, and discuss it in the community. Ultimately, Rousseau seeks to discourage the readers' passivity to the written word and instead seeks to stimulate active participation by leaving something for the reader to do. What makes Rousseau's...