Rousseau, Douglass, both prose writers; Whitman, Tennyson and Wordsworth, all three, poets. What bind them together, what is their common denominator? Nationalism, democracy, love for the common man, singing praises for the ordinary man on the street, fighting for the rights of the poor, seeking the liberation of the downtrodden from oppression, glorifying the human being - man! These are elements that are common to them.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Consider Jean-Jacques Rousseau who according to Lillian Hornstein of New York University. (The Reader's Companion to World Literature. New York: Dryden Press, 1956), was not even a thinker nor a writer at the beginning but ending up writing words that inspired worlds. It is bandied around, that the totality of the theme of his writing is man and his role in society. Many ideas about modern democracy came from his writings. He powered the Romantic Movement. He could and did express...
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