ABSTRACT
By making the contradictory trial of ‘J.J.’ into a central element of the intrigue of Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques, Rousseau revived the set of problems from Greek tragedy concerning the relations between the city and the outlaw. First, certain elements of Oedipus at Colonus and The Eumenides according to the translations available in the eighteenth century are compared with their virtual correspondents in this work. Then the way this work puts into debate the juridical exception that the staged case presents is examined with regard to the context of the judicial crisis of its epoch. Finally, what is presented by means of the fiction of the ultra-criminal J.J. about Rousseau’s political reflection on the capacity of the legitimate State, as he conceives it, to confront exceptional criminality is shown.
