Memory’s question and subjectivity in Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

Rousseau’s work Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire (1782) constitutes the corpus of this article. It is an incomplete autobiography, because the Genevan author dies before concluding his work. The focus of this analysis is on the Freudian theories with respect to the studies of the representation of memory. Rousseau’s work gives the 18th- century the hegemony of ideals, which were incorporated later on by the romantic lyrical prose. Taking into account the hybrid genre of the text, we will show the importance of the lyrical prose to the understanding of the philosopher’s own life, and to the writing process, considering the relevance of the author to the present day. The metaphorical work of the memory permeates this inaugural work of the French pre-Romanticism, revealing the importance of the unconscious to the understanding of the self, once identity presents a changeable character and is constructed through life. In this way, the analysis will be made from the psychoanalytical point of view, emphasizing the relations between literature and psychoanalysis using the memory theory proposed by Freud and other theorists who have made use of the Freudian’s ideas.