Abstract
Yves Touchefeu : Rousseau and Homer. The opposition, for J.-J. Rousseau, of the values of nature and the polity is well known, as is the fact the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and the Essay on the Origin of Language celebrate the beginning of society which, at the dawn of history, allowed for a golden mean between the indolence of primitive life and the tension of civil life. This explains why Rousseau paid such passionate attention to Homer, for the world of Achilles and Ulysses led him to precisely those important moments at which emerging society was as if in tune with the natural order. The reference to Homer is particularly present in Emile. While this treatise on education begins by opposing categorically the education of the individual and that of the citizen, the Homeric imagery invites the reader to dream of a time when the two figures of "natural man" and "citizen" were not yet clearly separated into their contradictory relationship.
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