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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2020
In book V of Rousseau's Émile, ou De l’éducation, the young hero, the perfect – and hypothetical – target of the natural education programme, meets Sophie, the perfect partner, and feelings start to blossom. However, before they can marry, his tutor takes a somewhat reluctant Emile on a two-year tour. Emile is to imitate the deeds of Telemachus, for whom Sophie has a deep fascination after reading Fenelon's book. The travel plan is conceived as one of useful travel that will complement and complete Emile's political education; but it is also a counter-practice to most existing cases of travel.
Among the works considered in this survey of French arts of travel, Émile is unquestionably the one with the most lasting impact. Interestingly, its chapter on travel is ‘unloved’ by many specialists. Most works on Rousseau and on Émile devote no more than a brief section to it, occasionally lamenting its lack of originality; the controversial nature of this text is often overlooked. Rousseau's other ‘mobilities’ receive far more attention: thus, Sarga Moussa's entry on ‘Voyage’ in the Dictionnaire de Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions this plan only in the last of its 10 paragraphs. Even within works that analyse the chapter on travel in Émile, Rousseau's harshly critical comments on travel literature receive the most attention. Only a handful of works investigate his ideas on travel itself, and rarely pay attention to the relation these ideas bear to the longer tradition of ars apodemica. The first layer, the political education of Emile through the travel experience, was discussed briefly but insightfully by Henri Coulet; metaphorical aspects of the conception were studied by Georges Van Den Abbeele. The travel plan is peculiarly placed in the same chapter as the programme of education for Sophie: this has inspired pertinent comments regarding the underlying conception of sexual politics. Juliette Morice provides a convincing analysis of the essential, but often overlooked, place of travel within Rousseau's conception of education.
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