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Romanticizing adolescence: Godwin's St. Leon and the matter of Rousseau.(William Godwin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

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From: Studies in Romanticism
Date: 20020922
Author:Chandler, Anne

LATE IN WILLIAM GODWIN'S ST. LEON: A TALE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY (1799), when an alchemist spies on the daughters he earlier abandoned, the scene is linked with the mythos of Jean-Jacques Rousseau--especially with Rousseau's infamous abdication of fatherhood--through St. Leon's chosen disguise, an Armenian caftan. This costume, Rousseau's palliative for urinary pain, is a blatantly gratuitous detail in context, for St. Leon has just used the elixir vitae to transform himself from a wizened Inquisition fugitive into a fresh-faced, unrecognizable youth. (1) Indeed, the puerility ...

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