How Confessions drew on Robinson Crusoe
A documented line of influence: Jean-Jacques Rousseau demonstrably engaged Daniel Defoe’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe · 1719
EnlightenmentThe influenced
Confessions
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1782
EnlightenmentRelevance
6/10
On Confessions’s page
- Rousseau frames his own life through Defoe's — calling himself "another Robinson Crusoe" as he settles into quarantine in the lazaretto
- He prized Robinson Crusoe above all books in Emile, the one fit reading for a natural education; in the Confessions he simply becomes its hero
- Read Crusoe's solitude first and you see the self-image Rousseau is borrowing to dramatize his own
On Robinson Crusoe’s page
- Defoe's solitary survivor became a self-image other men reached for — in his Confessions Rousseau calls himself "another Robinson Crusoe," arranging his 21-day quarantine in the lazaretto
- Rousseau had already crowned Robinson Crusoe the one book his Emile may read — "the most felicitous treatise on natural education"
- The castaway alone with his ingenuity became the template for the self-sufficient modern self