Essays (Montaigne)

Essay

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	Essay 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 the conquest of the New World, 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: passages written 1571–1580, published 1580
B: passages written 1580–1588, published 1588
C: passages written 1588–1592, published 1595 (posthumously)^[3]^[4]

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

That Men by Various Ways Arrive at the Same End
Of Sadness or Sorrow
That Our Affections Carry Themselves Beyond Us
That the Soul Expends Its Passions Upon False Objects
Whether the Governor Himself Go Out to Parley
That the Hour of Parley Dangerous
That the Intention is Judge of Our Actions
Of Idleness
Of Liars
Of Quick or Slow Speech
Of Prognostications
Of Constancy
The Ceremony of the Interview of Princes
That Men are Justly Punished for Being Obstinate
Of the Punishment of Cowardice
A Proceeding of Some Ambassadors
Of Fear
Not To Judge of Our Happiness Till After Death
That To Study Philosopy is to Learn to Die
Of Imagination
That the Profit of One Man is the Damage of Another
Of Custom; We Should Not Easily Change a Law Received
Various Events from the Same Counsel
Of Pedantry
Of the Education of Children
Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity
Of Friendship
Nine and Twenty Sonnets of Estienne De La Boitie
Of Moderation
Of Cannibals
That a Man is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances
We are to Avoid Pleasures, Even at the Expense of Life
Fortune is Often Observed to Act by the Rule of Reason
Of One Defect In Our Government
Of the Custom of Wearing Clothes
Of Cato the Younger
That We Laugh And Cry for the Same Thing
Of Solitude
A Consideration Upon Cicero
Relish for Good and Evil Depends Upon Our Opinion
Not to Communicate a Man's Honour
Of the Inequality Amongst Us
Of Sumptuary Laws
Of Sleep
Of the Battle of Dreux
Of Names
Of the Uncertainty of Our Judgment
Of War Horses, or Destrier
Of Ancient Customs
Of Democritus and Heraclitus
Of the Vanity of Words
Of the Parsimony of the Ancients
Of a Saying of Caesar
Of Vain Subtleties
Of Smells
Of Prayers
Of the Most Excellent Men
Of the Resemblance of Children to Their Fathers
Of Profit and Honesty
Of Repentance
Of Three Commerces
Of Diversion
Upon Some Verses of Virgil
Of Coaches
Of the Inconvenience of Greatness
Of the Art of Conference
Of Vanity
Of Managing the Will
Of Cripples
Of Physiognomy
Of Experience
Of Age
Of the Inconstancy of Our Actions
Of Drunkenness
A Custom of the Isle of Cea
To-Morrow's a New Day
Of Conscience
Use Makes Perfect
Of Recompenses of Honour
Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children
Of the Arms of the Parthians
Of Books
Of Cruelty
Apology for Raimond Sebond
Of Judging of the Death of Another
That Our Mind Hinders Itself
That Our Desires are Augmented by Difficulty
Of Glory
Of Presumption
Of Giving the Lie
Of Liberty of Conscience
That We Taste Nothing Pure
Against Idleness
Of Posting
Of Ill Means Employed to a Good End
Of the Roman Grandeur
Not to Counterfeit Being Sick
Of Thumbs
Cowardice the Mother of Cruelty
All Things Have Their Season
Of Virtue
Of a Monstrous Child
Of Anger
Defence of Seneca and Plutarch
The Story of Spurina
Observation on a War According to Julius Caesar
Of Three Good Women

Notes

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

References

Essays by Michel de Montaigne

External links

The Charles Cotton translation of some of Montaigne's essays:
- plain text version by Project Gutenberg
- HTML version at the University of Adelaide
- searchable HTML version at Oregon State University
The complete, searchable text of the Villey-Saulnier edition from the ARFTL project at the University of Chicago (French)
Essays Books 1-3 read by Librivox volunteers

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