Word: restif
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Dates: during 1935-1935
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...intellectual conflicts of his time moved him as other men are moved by pain or fear, compelled him to state simple, fundamental truths, although he suffered the torments of the damned in doing so. Remaining ten essays in the volume trace the Rousseau tradition through the careers of Restif de la Bretonne, Alexandre de Tilly, Hugo and others to its modern representative in Marcel Proust. Restif, "the gutter Rousseau," wrote the 18th Century equivalent of True Confession stories, carried Rousseau's ideas to the logical absurdity of idealizing prostitution. A more impressive figure, Tilly was a minor Casanova...