Rousseau's 1761 epistolary novel (Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse) — the best-selling novel of the 18th century — following the love between Julie and her tutor Saint-Preux, exploring the conflict between authentic feeling and social duty.
Made the novel the vehicle for the Romantic valorization of authentic feeling over social convention — the love between Julie and Saint-Preux is genuine and profound but socially impossible — expressing Rousseau's core conviction that society's demands corrupt authentic natural feeling.
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