Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his wars: On Music Dictionary

Rousseau’s musical and musicological œuvre is a great platform to show that the metaphor, especially the metaphor of war is, for him, at the same time both active and destructive, both fruitful and fatal, that, even though used in the context of art, has nothing to do with it. During all his “wars”, the ghost that trails him is representation. Even his new musicology, the anthropology of music, cannot handle the problem. Rousseau's example also demonstrates the uncertainty of this use of the metaphor in musicological and theoretical discourse. His Music Dictionary, published in 1767, announces one eminently technical, lexicographic work, a set of definitions of terms in alphabetical order that is an open field in which everything can be found, as Valéry would put it. Meanwhile, music shows that it “knows” better, though it persistently refuses to determine the nature of this knowledge. If we understand music as language, we try to give meaning to the sensory, which is possible only through representation (Lacoue-Labarthe). That is why Rousseau's great struggle, even if he overpowered all his opponents, from Rameau to himself, always necessarily fails. But Rousseau is one of those who have managed to fail fabulously. For him, the secret remains intact, the music of the world, mourned after, a tune that has been lost in advance. There is only a trace of his attempt, his fantastic failure, his work in and on music. His obligatory recitative, singing, a voice whose cry clearly condemns both psychology and biography. Fortunately, with Rousseau, the metaphor, both the one of war and the one of language, is sung