Professor of French John C. O'Neal has edited a volume of essays on Rousseau for Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC), a publication of the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford, England. Titled The Nature of Rousseau's 'Rêveries': physical, human, aesthetic, the volume brings together the work of international specialists to explore new approaches to the defining feature – the 'nature' – of the Rêveries. In essays which range from studies of botany or landscape painting to thematic or stylistic readings, authors re-examine Rousseau's intellectual understanding of and personal relationship with different conceptions of nature.
Drawing connections between this text and earlier theoretical writings, authors analyze not only the philosophical and personal implications of Rousseau's reflections on the outer world but also his attempts to examine and validate both his own nature and that of 'l'homme naturel'. In The Nature of Rousseau's 'Rêveries': physical, human, aesthetic, the contributors offer new insights into the character of Rousseau's last major work and suggest above all its experimental, elusive quality, hovering between inner and outer worlds, escape and fulfillment, experience and writing. They underline the unique richness of the Rêveries, a work to be situated not simply at the end of Rousseau's life, but at the very center of his thought.
