Rousseau as Dante character

I love mental experiments like this one. Here’s Wilson imagining Rousseau in… well, he doesn’t say whether it’s in Inferno or elsewhere, though I’m afraid that’s probably where it would be:

“I am the clockmaker’s son of Geneva who said that man has made man perverse. When for the third time the cruel captain closed the gates, I made the sky my roof, and found in Annecy the love that Geneva had denied.”

Actually, this could be a weird but powerful business idea for some talented literature graduates. You’d send them a brief autobiography and a confession of your worst sins, and they’d write you up as a Dante character.