Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du Contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique [The Social Contract]

Kevin Inston (University College London)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.04: French Writing and Culture: Eighteenth-Century and the Enlightenment, 1700-1800.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge), Síofra Pierse (University College Dublin), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Political Theory

Dates

First circulation or publication 1762

Places

Switzerland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Recommended Reading

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote the

Social Contract

(1762) in a period of great intellectual and social change. The beginning of the century was marked by the reign of Louis XIV, the model of the absolute, autocratic monarch and the end (ten years after Rousseau’s death) by the unprecedented event of the French Revolution of 1789, which caused the demise of the French monarchy and the rise of democracy as sovereign power became identified with the will of the people. Rousseau’s work forms part of the socially critical and progressivist literature which we now call Enlightenment writing. Enlightenment writing, published under and against the

Ancien régime

, could not of itself have produced revolutionary change, but did help foster the egalitarian sensibilities, attitudes, and values…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3435 words

Citation: Inston, Kevin . "Du Contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 September 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5484, accessed 24 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article