Title
“Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Automata in the Romantic Period,” in Rousseau, Switzerland, and Romanticism: New Prospects, eds. Angela Esterhammer, Patrick Vincent, and Diane Piccito (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 68-83.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
5-5-2015
Journal / Book Title
Rousseau, Switzerland, and Romanticism: New Prospects
Abstract
This comparative essay argues for the necessity of reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s lyrical scene Pygmalion alongside the cultural phenomenon of musical automata such as those created in the workshops of Jacques de Vaucanson and Pierre Jaquet-Droz. Examining Rousseau’s Pygmalion in relation to automata sheds light on Swiss contributions to Romantic-era discourse about the power of emotion over imagination, creation, and procreation. Rousseau’s melodrama—one of the first in that genre—demonstrates the ways in which genuine affect allows the human artist to create new life. The impact of Pygmalion on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Goethe’s life and work, and eighteenth-century British, French, and German theater history further illustrates the ways in which Rousseau’s text anticipates Romantic-era fascination with artificial life.
Book Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Journal ISSN / Book ISBN
978-1137475855
Book Editor(s)
Angela Esterhammer, Patrick Vincent, and Diane Piccito
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Nielsen, Wendy, "“Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Automata in the Romantic Period,” in Rousseau, Switzerland, and Romanticism: New Prospects, eds. Angela Esterhammer, Patrick Vincent, and Diane Piccito (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 68-83." (2015). Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 14.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/english-facpubs/14
Published Citation
Wendy C. Nielsen, “Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Automata in the Romantic Period,” in Rousseau, Switzerland, and Romanticism: New Prospects, eds. Angela Esterhammer, Patrick Vincent, and Diane Piccito (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 68-83.