Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Automata in the Romantic Period
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
January 2015
Journal / Book Title
Romanticism, Rousseau, Switzerland
Abstract
Scholars have long puzzled over the significance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s lyrical scene (scène lyrique), Pygmalion, particularly its composition during a key moment of the author’s life: his return to Switzerland, following the banning of Emile in France.1 Frederick the Great granted Rousseau temporary refuge in Neuchâtel (or Neuenburg, as the city’s Prussian ruler called it) on 16 August 1762 (Cook 88). The area around Neuchâtel stood at the centre of automata manufacturing, owing, in part, to the steady migration of French Calvinist artisans there over two centuries (Voskuhl 45). Only thirty-two (walking) kilometres separate Môtiers, where Rousseau likely composed Pygmalion in 1762, from La Chaux-de-Fonds, where the watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721–90) and his team worked on their masterpieces beginning in 1767: the Writer (l’Écrivain), the Draughtsman (le Dessinateur), and the Lady Musician (la Musicienne).2 Like Jaquet-Droz, Rousseau’s father Isaac was a watchmaker.
DOI
10.1057/9781137475862_5
Book Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Journal ISSN / Book ISBN
Print ISBN 978-1-349-50189-2
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Nielsen, Wendy, "Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Automata in the Romantic Period" (2015). Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 21.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/english-facpubs/21
Published Citation
Nielsen, W.C. (2015). Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Automata in the Romantic Period. In: Esterhammer, A., Piccitto, D., Vincent, P. (eds) Romanticism, Rousseau, Switzerland. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137475862_5