Franco-Genevan philosopher of Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism
(11.) This appears to me as clear as Day-Light, and Icannot conceive whence our Philosophers can derive all the Passions they attribute to natural Man.
Rousseau began with the theatre, for which he had no aptitude. A one-act comedy, Le Café, failed in 1694, and he was not much happier with a more ambitious play, Le Flatteur (1696), or with the opera Venus et Adonis (1697).
Rousseau tak vyrůstal u svého strýce a později byl poslán na výchovu ke kalvinistickému pastorovi. Učil se písařem, později rytcem, ale toto jej nenaplňovalo, a tak z učení utekl a cestoval.