Throughout his life, Rousseau suffered from severe emotional distress, and feelings of deep inferiority and guilt. Rousseau's actions and writings reflect his attempts to overcome this sense of inadequacy and to find a place in world that only seemed to reject him. His political philosophy influenced the development of the French Revolution, and his theories have had a great impact on education and literature.Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland on June 28, 1712 and later died on July 2, 1778. He was the second of two sons born to Isaac and Suzanne Bernard Rousseau. Tragically, his mother died while giving birth, and along with this his father blamed him for her death, leaving Rousseau with unbearable guilt. As a boy, he read Plutarch's Lives and contemporary novels, but did not receive much formal schooling. At the age of thirteen Rousseau became and engraver's apprentice. In 1728, he ran away from Geneva saying that he was forced to endue cruel punishment from his master. Around the age of seventeen he was taken in by a priest that introduced him to Madame Louise de Warens, to whom he was sent for conversion and baptism into the Roman Catholic religion. However, she soon became his mistress in an on and off relationship that lasted until 1736 due to its increasing agony.Rousseau was often in trouble for fighting and stealing. As a result of living this way, he fled to Paris in 1741 seeking fame. He composed an opera called Les Muses galantes, which led to a correspondence with Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and other French philosophers, some of whom were engaged in producing the Encyclopedia. Rousseau contributed several pieces on music to this project. But, it was not until he read about an essay contest being administered by the Academy of Dijon in 1749 that he found his true subject; to oppose society as it then existed and point out new paths for it to follow. The question for the contest asked whether t...
