Abstract: Reading the story of the genesis of La Nouvelle Héloïse in the ninth book of the Confessions, the division seems clear: whereas Julie and Claire were supposedly conceived by Rousseau as objects of love, Saint-Preux was seemingly a medium of identification. But, as Claire famously said to Julie, “does the soul have a sex?” This article takes full stock of the confusion that the complex game of identifying Jean-Jacques with Julie introduces to the novel, as much with regards to its origins as to its aesthetic and philosophical implications.
