“Tudo será para nós real, para vós teatro”: leitura da carta a D’alembert de Rousseau a partir do seu discurso sobre a desigualdade

Abstract

This project will present a reading of Rousseau’s Lettre à d’Alembert (1758) resorting to notions developed by the author in some of his other works, mainly, in his Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes. Initially published as a response to the article Genève written by d’Alembert for the seventh volume of the Encyclopedia, the Letter is part of a debate in which some of the greatest writers of the French Enlightenment were engaged. In the Letter, Rousseau directly addresses D’Alembert; however, when it comes to the question of the pedagogical function of the theater, Rousseau's critique is also directed to Voltaire and Diderot, who regarded the theater scene as highly important. Going beyond the traditional analyzes that approach the Letter in metaphysical or “theological” terms, Rousseau’s critique of the spectacle is the first social critique on the theater and brings a new and original notion of “history”, developed by Rousseau in the Discours, a work that is in the center of the debate that engaged these philosophers and gave rise to Rousseau’s writing of the Lettre à d’Alembert. A reading comparing these two works by Rousseau will be the object of this work.