The question of memory and the reconstitution of remembrances in Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is to study the theme of memory in Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire, the last work that composes the autobiographical trilogy of the philosopher from Geneva, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The metaphorical work of memory crosses this inaugural work of French Pre-Romanticism, revealing the importance of the unconscious in understanding the being. Based on the psychoanalytic studies promoted by Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), we try to unveil some forgotten remembrances, or rather masked by social repressions to reconstruct, thus, Rousseau's existence.