From My Own Voice's World To Polyphonic Voices' World

The Epistolary Novel The New Heloise, one of Rousseau' s most famous literary works, has far-reaching implications in the history of literature. But commentaries of such works have been less concerned with those implications. Previous research has been mainly concerned about the ideological world, while little research was concerned with the art forms. This thesis puts The New Heloise into the system of the Epistolary Novels, and talks about its development in the Narrative art of Epistolary Novels. The novel changed "my own voice' s world" to the "polyphonic voices' world" , and made the epistolary novel have the features of the Polyphonic novels.This thesis is in three parts: A review of the developments of the Epistolary Novel is given first, in order to say how The New Heloise used and improved this kind of novel. Then the thesis discusses its polyphonic voices' world from different parts, such as different voices of the narrators, interactive dialogues, multiple focus on the same thing, uncertainties of the main characters and equal talks between two different thoughts. Finally, the lasting contributions and influences of The New Heloise are briefly discussed.