Essays (Montaigne)

Essays
Author Michel de Montaigne
Original title Essais
Country Kingdom of France
Language Middle French
Genre Essay
Publisher Simon Millanges, Jean Richer
Publication date
 March 1580
Text Essays at Wikisource

The Essays (French: Essais, pronounced: [esɛ]) of Michel de Montaigne are contained in three books and 107 chapters of varying length. Montaigne's stated design in writing, publishing and revising the Essays over the period from approximately 1570 to 1592 was to record "some traits of my character and of my humours." The Essays were first published in 1580 and cover a wide range of topics.

Style

Montaigne wrote in a rather crafted rhetoric designed to intrigue and involve the reader, sometimes appearing to move in a stream-of-thought from topic to topic and at other times employing a structured style which gives more emphasis to the didactic nature of his work. His arguments are often supported with quotations from Ancient Greek, Latin and Italian texts such as De rerum natura by Lucretius[1] and the works of Plutarch.

Content

Montaigne's stated goal in his book is to describe man, and especially himself, with utter frankness and honesty ("bonne foi"). He finds the great variety and volatility of human nature to be its most basic features, which resonates to the Renaissance thought about the fragility of humans. According to the scholar Paul Oskar Kristeller, "the writers of the period were keenly aware of the miseries and ills of our earthly existence". A representative quote is "I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself."

He opposed European colonization of the Americas, deploring the suffering it brought upon the natives.

Citing the case of Martin Guerre as an example, he believes that humans cannot attain certainty. His skepticism is best expressed in the long essay "An Apology for Raymond Sebond" (Book 2, Chapter 12) which has frequently been published separately. We cannot trust our reasoning because thoughts just occur to us: we don't truly control them. We do not have good reasons to consider ourselves superior to the animals. He is highly skeptical of confessions obtained under torture, pointing out that such confessions can be made up by the suspect just to escape the torture he is subjected to. In the middle of the section normally entitled "Man's Knowledge Cannot Make Him Good," he wrote that his motto was "What do I know?". The essay on Sebond defended Christianity. Montaigne also eloquently employed many references and quotes from classical Greek and Roman, i.e. non-Christian authors, especially the atomist Lucretius.

Montaigne considered marriage necessary for the raising of children, but disliked the strong feelings of romantic love as being detrimental to freedom. One of his quotations is "Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out."

In education, he favored concrete examples and experience over the teaching of abstract knowledge that is expected to be accepted uncritically. Montaigne's essay "On the Education of Children" is dedicated to Diana of Foix.

The remarkable modernity of thought apparent in Montaigne's essays, coupled with their sustained popularity, made them arguably the most prominent work in French philosophy until the Enlightenment. Their influence over French education and culture is still strong. The official portrait of former French president François Mitterrand pictured him facing the camera, holding an open copy of the Essays in his hands.[2]

Chronology

Montaigne heavily edited Essays at various points in his life. Sometimes he would insert just one word, while at other times he would insert whole passages. Many editions mark this with letters as follows:

A copy of the fifth edition of the Essais with Montaigne's own "C" additions in his own hand exists, preserved at the Municipal Library of Bordeaux (known to editors as the "Bordeaux Copy"). This edition gives modern editors a text dramatically indicative of Montaigne's final intentions (as opposed to the multitude of Renaissance works for which no autograph exists). Analyzing the differences and additions between editions show how Montaigne's thoughts evolved over time. Remarkably, he does not seem to remove previous writings, even when they conflict with his newer views.

The Essays

  1. "That Men by Various Ways Arrive at the Same End"
  2. "Of Sadness or Sorrow"
  3. "That Our Affections Carry Themselves Beyond Us"
  4. "That the Soul Expends Its Passions Upon False Objects"
  5. "Whether the Governor Himself Go Out to Parley"
  6. "That the Hour of Parley Is Dangerous"
  7. "That the Intention is Judge of Our Actions"
  8. "Of Idleness"
  9. "Of Liars"
  10. "Of Quick or Slow Speech"
  11. "Of Prognostications"
  12. "Of Constancy"
  13. "The Ceremony of the Interview of Princes"
  14. "That Men are Justly Punished for Being Obstinate"
  15. "Of the Punishment of Cowardice"
  16. "A Proceeding of Some Ambassadors"
  17. "Of Fear"
  18. "Not To Judge of Our Happiness Till After Death"
  19. "That To Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die"
  20. "Of Imagination"
  21. "That the Profit of One Man is the Damage of Another"
  22. "Of Custom; We Should Not Easily Change a Law Received"
  23. "Various Events from the Same Counsel"
  24. "Of Pedantry"
  25. "Of the Education of Children"
  26. "Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity"
  27. "Of Friendship"
  28. "Nine and Twenty Sonnets of Estienne De La Boitie"
  29. "Of Moderation"
  30. "Of Cannibals"
  31. "That a Man is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances"
  32. "We are to Avoid Pleasures, Even at the Expense of Life"
  33. "Fortune is Often Observed to Act by the Rule of Reason"
  34. "Of One Defect In Our Government"
  35. "Of the Custom of Wearing Clothes"
  36. "Of Cato the Younger"
  37. "That We Laugh And Cry for the Same Thing"
  38. "Of Solitude"
  39. "A Consideration Upon Cicero"
  40. "Relish for Good and Evil Depends Upon Our Opinion"
  41. "Not to Communicate a Man's Honour"
  42. "Of the Inequality Amongst Us"
  43. "Of Sumptuary Laws"
  44. "Of Sleep"
  45. "Of the Battle of Dreux"
  46. "Of Names"
  47. "Of the Uncertainty of Our Judgment"
  48. "Of War Horses, or Destrier"
  49. "Of Ancient Customs"
  50. "Of Democritus and Heraclitus"
  51. "Of the Vanity of Words"
  52. "Of the Parsimony of the Ancients"
  53. "Of a Saying of Caesar"
  54. "Of Vain Subtleties"
  55. "Of Smells"
  56. "Of Prayers"
  57. "Of the Most Excellent Men"
  58. "Of the Resemblance of Children to Their Fathers"
  59. "Of Profit and Honesty"
  60. "Of Repentance"
  61. "Of Three Commerces"
  62. "Of Diversion"
  63. "Upon Some Verses of Virgil"
  64. "Of Coaches"
  65. "Of the Inconvenience of Greatness"
  66. "Of the Art of Conference"
  67. "Of Vanity"
  68. "Of Managing the Will"
  69. "Of Cripples"
  70. "Of Physiognomy"
  71. "Of Experience"
  72. "Of Age"
  73. "Of the Inconstancy of Our Actions"
  74. "Of Drunkenness"
  75. "A Custom of the Isle of Cea"
  76. "To-Morrow's a New Day"
  77. "Of Conscience"
  78. "Use Makes Perfect"
  79. "Of Recompenses of Honour"
  80. "Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children"
  81. "Of the Arms of the Parthians"
  82. "Of Books"
  83. "Of Cruelty"
  84. "Apology for Raimond Sebond"
  85. "Of Judging of the Death of Another"
  86. "That Our Mind Hinders Itself"
  87. "That Our Desires are Augmented by Difficulty"
  88. "Of Glory"
  89. "Of Presumption"
  90. "Of Giving the Lie"
  91. "Of Liberty of Conscience"
  92. "That We Taste Nothing Pure"
  93. "Against Idleness"
  94. "Of Posting"
  95. "Of Ill Means Employed to a Good End"
  96. "Of the Roman Grandeur"
  97. "Not to Counterfeit Being Sick"
  98. "Of Thumbs"
  99. "Cowardice the Mother of Cruelty"
  100. "All Things Have Their Season"
  101. "Of Virtue"
  102. "Of a Monstrous Child"
  103. "Of Anger"
  104. "Defence of Seneca and Plutarch"
  105. "The Story of Spurina"
  106. "Observation on a War According to Julius Caesar"
  107. "Of Three Good Women"

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Titi Lucretii Cari De rerum natura libri sex (Montaigne.1.4.4)". Cambridge Digital Library. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  2. ↑ Mitterrand.org
  3. ↑ Montaigne, Michel de. The Complete Essays. Trans. M. A. Screech. London: Penguin, 2003 (1987), p. 1284
  4. ↑ Les Essais (1595 text), Jean Céard, Denis Bjaï, Bénédicte Boudou, Isabelle Pantin, Hachette, Pochothèque, 2001, Livre de Poche, 2002.

References

External links

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