How To Read Montaigne

by Terence Cave

Overview

Montaigne (1533-92) is commonly regarded as an early modern sceptic, standing at the threshold of a new secular way of thinking. He is also known for his ground-breaking exploration of the 'subject' or the 'self'. Terence Cave discusses these and other key aspects of the Essais (Montaigne's major work) not as philosophical themes but as features in the mapping of a mental landscape: the project of the Essais is cognitive rather than philosophical. Similarly, he reads the Essais not as 'essays' in the literary sense but as 'trials' or 'soundings' in which the manner of writing - the shape of the sentences, the use of metaphors and other figures - is crucial. Taking passages from many different chapters of the Essais, this book guides the reader through Montaigne's investigation of the 'subtle shades and stirrings' of the mind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783781225
Publisher:	Granta Books
Publication date:	07/03/2014
Series:	How to Read
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	977 KB

About the Author

Terence Cave is Emeritus Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance and other studies in early modern French culture.
Terence Cave is Emeritus Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance and other studies in early modern French culture.

Read an Excerpt

‘It is the only book of its kind in the world, wild and extravagant

in conception’ (II.8): this is how on one occasion

Michel de Montaigne describes the extraordinary miscellany

of writings which he first published in 1580 and which he

subsequently elaborated and extended until his death in 1592.

The Essais, as he called it, is a highly original outgrowth of

the humanist, Latin-based culture of late Renaissance France.

Michel de Montaigne’s father engaged tutors to speak Latin to

him from his earliest childhood, so that he was virtually bilingual

in French and Latin. His family had made its money in

trade and its aristocratic title was only recently acquired; he

himself had legal training and occupied prominent positions in

the local judiciary and administration. Some three years after

his father died in 1568, he gave up these public duties, at least

for a while, in order to devote himself to his domestic responsibilities.

This ‘retirement’ also had another purpose, however:

it gave him leisure to read, reflect and write, and within a

remarkably short time he was beginning to compose fragments

of what would become the Essais, the only original

composition that he published during his lifetime.

Table of Contents

Series Editor’s Foreword vi

Acknowledgements viii

A Note on the Text ix

Introduction 1

1 Documenting the Mind 7

2 Essaying 18

3 Philosophies 31

4 Belief 46

5 Thinking with a Conscience 58

6 Travel 72

7 Documenting the Self 83

8 Conversation 96

9 Writing for the Future 106

Notes 117

Chronology 124

Suggestions for Further Reading 127

Editorial Reviews

'These [How to Read] books let you encounter thinkers eyeball to eyeball by analysing passages from their work' Terry Eagleton, New Statesman

From the Publisher