| Subcategories |
 |
Literature & Fiction |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Montaigne: Essays
written by Michel de Montaigne
Studio : Penguin (Non-Classics)
by Penguin (Non-Classics)
Publisher : Penguin (Non-Classics)
Released : 1993-07-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780140178975
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 8 reviews)
List Price : $15.00
Our Price : $6.99
|
|
| |
|
What it is like to be a human being - Observations of a probing mind |
In 1580, Michel de Montaigne dedicated this "honest book" to his family and friends. It may be called an extended autobiography; but it is quite unusual in its scope as well as its candor. Having tasted the life of courtier, parliamentarian, world traveler and mayor of Bordeaux, Montaigne retreated to his castle to explore an intriguing subject close to home: himself.
"Que sçais-je?" (What do I know?) was his motto; he had it engraved on a medal he wore around his neck. Using the ancient philosophers and poets as guideposts, he examines his beliefs and his prejudices, the validity of received wisdom, and the conduct of men in his position at a time of civil unrest and social upheaval.
With disarming honesty, he lists his shortcomings, his physical as well as his mental limitations. We hear about his poor memory (which often betrays him into misquoting his sources), his lack of and disdain for scholarship, his inability to deliver a good speech although he held public office, and his ignorance of even the basic concepts of land management although he inherited his father's estate.
He tells us what he eats and drinks, how he dresses and sleeps, and how he suffers from kidney stones. His insatiable curiosity attacks any subject that comes his way. The religious strife of his time gives rise to probing questions concerning truth, loyalty, fanaticism, and tolerance. A Catholic himself, he had friends and relatives among the Huguenots and deplored the persecution of religious dissenters. (Remarkably, his Essays were placed on the Index during the Counter-Reformation, after they had been in circulation for almost a century).
Sometimes his opinions stray far afield - as when he suggests that the discovery of South America would have been a happier event had Alexander been in charge instead of the Spaniards. Or when he strongly advocates entrusting the care and feeding of infants to wet nurses rather than the biological mothers - despite the fact that all but one of his six daughters died in infancy. Que sçais-je, indeed...
He did not believe that women were capable of friendship, or of sound reasoning, or of handling financial matters. It wasn't until late in life that he met a woman, his adopted daughter Mlle de Gournay, whom he considered his equal.
He wrote his best and wisest essays toward the end of his life. His thoughts on Experience and Judgment are well worth reading today. |
| |
|
not bad |
Montaigne's essays are one of the most respected books in western literature. I was doing a survey of great books lists and montaigne was one of the most represented. I never heard of him so I was compelled to dive right in.
Of course Montaigne deserves his rep - and you can peek other reviews for many reasons to read this stuff. basically he takes many of those classic philosophical essays from the greeks and romans and adds earthy autobiographical flavor. so theyre both readable relatable and worldly.
THis specific collection lacks many of the more tangential and colorful essays. So it may be worth getting one of those "complete" volumes.
Montaigne gets really repetitious after a whiles - so it might be worth visiting this book slowly over a long period of time, rather than burning through it at once.
If you like Montaigne I would highly recommend senecca (one of montaigne's big influences) - who was nero's tutor and a singular individual (brutal and bizarre). I would also recommend "the anatomy of melancholy" a smartazz book that runs rings around montaigne - making fun of him and kicking his arse about 40 years later. |
| |
|
The Zenith of intuitive reasoning |
Michel(Eyquem)de Montaigne
French courtier and author
(born Feb. 28,28,1533,Chateux de Montaingne,France
died-Sept. 23,1592,Chateaux de Montaigne)
He served as a counselor at the Bordeaux Parliament.There he met the lawyer
Etienne de La Boetie,with which he formed an extraordinary friendship.The void left by La Boetie's death in 1563 likely led Montaigne to begin his writing career.He retired to his chateaux in 1571 to work on his 'Essais'
(1580,1588),a series of short prose reflections on subjects that form one of the most captivating and intimate self-portraits ever written.
"'''At once deeply critical of his time and deeply involved in its struggles,he sought understanding through self-examination,which he developed into a description of the human condition and an ethic of authenticity,self-acceptance,and struggles,he sought understanding through
self-examination,which he developed into a description of the human condition,and an ethic of authenticity,self-acceptance;and tolerance..."
(excerpt from the Columbia Encyclopedia on a profile of Montaigne)
It reminds me alot of Dr. Samuel Johnson's writings on self-examination, in his brilliant series of essays called 'THE RAMBLER',and also an amazing text on the diseases of the imagination.Montaigne is a fascination study.The essays are exquisitely written and the subject matter is continuosly changing,which makes it difficult to put down.This collection of essays along with the writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson come highly reccomended.Enjoy.
|
| |
|
"Reader, thou hast here an honest book..." |
Montaigne is considered the father the personal essay. And within them, it seems, there is not a topic he didn't cover. After serving in the Bordeaux Parlement, in 1570 "he retired to his chateau...to read, think, and write." This is where his essays are born, late in his life, and soon to be suffering from kidney stones, which would take his life (he discusses his mistrust of doctors in "Of The Resemblance Of Children To Their Fathers")
The tone of essays reveal someone who was highly skeptical and pessimestic. But you quickly gain a sense of how intelligent and honest this man was. Montaigne, in the preface, implies the essays are written to discover and reveal himself and recommends that no one should waste their "leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject." Although, here he is greatly mistaken. Montaigne, to me, was a genius; and there is so much wisdom one can part with after reading only a few of his essays, as can be seen in his influence over brillant minds like Shakespeare and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Any library would seem bare without him.
Some favorite quotes from his essays:
"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."
"A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude."
"Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom." |
| |
|
An enlightened consciousness |
Michel de Montaigne is considered by many to be the inventor of the literary form of the essay, so the collection from which these excerpts come is important in several ways. Montaigne was a humanist and a skeptic in his philosophical approach, and essentially looked at his own experience as the first topic for examination always.
The book of Essays was one he worked on periodically throughout his life, issuing different editions, the first of which appeared in 1580. Montaigne's style of writing is sometimes stream-of-consciousness, sometimes structured in more formal styles.
Montaigne's stated task in his preface to the reader is for self-examination, but it becomes very clear that Montaigne sees himself as an 'everyman' character. He strives for full-disclosure; indeed, he writes that were he another culture 'which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws', then he might have appeared naked.
This is a complete set of the Essays, together with a helpful introduction and notes for reading. As Montaigne added to his essays periodically, they are not necessarily in the order he wrote them, but this collection has preserved their order according to his standards.
Montaigne's essays show a pessimism and skepticism, perhaps based on the kinds of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants going on, in France and elsewhere, as well as the periodic flare of plague. He was a humanist who saw cultures as having value internal to themselves and preferred to not universalise morals, laws and other ideas.
Montaigne was sometimes conventional in thought (seeing marriage as necessary for children, and distrusting the idea of romantic love), but other times he was very much a free thinker (particularly when it came to religious dogma or absolutist kinds of philosophical paradigms). Montaigne had respect for those who followed religious codes and ways of life, but distrusted those who tried to impose such ideas upon others.
Montaigne added to his essays twice in major ways, but did not strive for consistency or systematic ways of thinking - he declined to remove previous essays if they contradicted new writings.
Montaigne is perhaps the most important French philosopher prior to the Enlightenment. His essays remain popular because they have a sense of the modern and the current about them.
|
| |
|
|
|
