In the 20th century, [Montaigne] is fully recognized in all his aspects as a great writer, and his public is worldwide. Most of his readers see him as friend, mentor, and master of the essay, of the “art of being truthful,” and of the art of living. (page 396, volume 12, The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974)
In my rereading of selections from Great Books of the Western World guided by The Great Ideas Program, I’ve again reached Montaigne’s The Essays. The eighth reading in the eighth volume of The Great Ideas Program, Ethics: The Study of Moral Values by Mortimer J. Adler and Seymour Cain (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1962) considers another selection of the essays (11 of 107) in The Essays.
Adler and Cain consider the characteristics of Montaigne’s essays, the selected essays, and five specific questions on the reading. Here I’ll sketch Montaigne’s life, comment on Montaigne’s use of the essay, list the titles of the essays assigned for the reading, outline Adler and Cain’s guide to the essays, and share the questions which Adler and Cain ask about the reading.
Montaigne’s Life
This summary of Montaigne’s life is copied from my earlier article on The Essays, https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2017/12/08/9-montaignes-the-essays/. My primary sources for it were the biographical note on pages v-vi of the volume on Montaigne in Great Books of the Western World (volume 25; Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952) and “Montaigne, Michel de” in The New Encyclopedia Britannica (volume 12; Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974).
Montaigne was born Michel Eyquem on February 28, 1533, in the Château of Montaigne near Bordeaux. His father was a prosperous merchant and lord of the seigneury of Montaigne, and his mother was descended from a family of Spanish Jews that had recently converted to Catholicism. He was their third son, but by the death of his older brothers became heir to the estate.
Montaigne was brought up gently and until he was six was taught to speak only Latin. At that age he was sent to the Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux. After seven disappointing years there, he studied law at Toulouse. In 1554 his father obtained a position for him in a new tax court in Bordeaux. In 1557 the court was abolished and its members were absorbed into one of the regional bodies that composed the Parlement of France, the king’s highest court of justice.
In 1565 Montaigne married Françoise de La Chassaigne, whose father was also a member of the the Parlement of Bordeaux. Although fond of women, he accepted marriage unenthusiastically as a social duty. However he lived on excellent terms with his wife and bestowed some pains on the education of their daughter, Léonore, the only one of six children to survive infancy.
In 1568 Montaigne’s father died, leaving him the lord of Montaigne. Two years later he sold his Parlement position, abandoned the name of Eyquem, and retired to his estate, intending to collect his ideas and write. While there (1571-1580) he wrote the first two books of The Essays, which were published in 1580 at Bordeaux.
The year after publishing The Essays Montaigne left the estate for extensive travel determined to find relief from internal disorders that had been troubling him. In 1581 while he was at La Villa in Italy, he learned that he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux. Returning there he served as mayor efficiently and was re-elected to a second term, which ended in 1585. He again retired to Montaigne but shortly after was driven from his estate by the plague.
Montaigne had begun revising The Essays almost immediately after their publication, perfecting their form and added new ones. While in Paris in 1588, he supervised the publication of the fifth edition of The Essays, the first to contain Book III. However he continued working on The Essays after returning to his estate, not writing any new books or chapters but adding numerous passages.
Sometime after returning to his estate in 1588, Montaigne was stricken with quinsy, which brought about a paralysis of the tongue. On the evening of September 13, 1592, he had his wife call together some of his neighbours so that he might bid them farewell. He requested mass to be said in his room and died while it was being said. He was 59.
Montaigne’s Use of the Essay
This comment on Montaigne’s use of the essay is copied from my earlier article on The Essays, https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2017/12/08/9-montaignes-the-essays/.
An essay is “a literary composition of moderate length, dealing in an easy, cursory way with a single subject, usually representing the writer’s personal experience and outlook” (page 963 of volume III of The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974). Although earlier authors wrote essays, the term essai was first applied to the form by Montaigne, to emphasize that his compositions were just attempts to express his personal thoughts and experiences.
Adler and Wolff say that the most outstanding property of Montaigne’s essays is their intensely personal nature. They note that he often observes that his essays are products of leisurely speculation rather than products of experimentation and that he establishes his position by use of quotations and examples rather than by argument. Thus “both in method and intent … Montaigne is not a philosopher” (page 103, Mortimer J. Adler and Peter Wolff , A General Introduction to the Great Books and to a Liberal Education, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1959).
However they continue by asserting that “in aim and outlook, though not in method, Montaigne is akin to the modern social scientist. His concerns and subject matter fall into the field of history, anthropology, psychology, and sociology; all of these are the branches of social or behavioral science. And so, though the matter of his book is on one way himself, in another it is all of human behavior.” (same source as the previous quotation).
Essays Assigned in the Reading
That to study philosophy is to learn to die
Of moderation
Of cannibals
That we are to avoid pleasure, even at the expense of life
That the relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them
Of drunkenness
Of cruelty
Of glory
Of virtue
Of anger
Of repentance
The Essays can be read at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3600/pg3600-images.html.
Outline of Adler and Cain’s Guide to the Assigned Essays
I uses the beginning of “Of repentance” to show how Montaigne uses himself to illustrate the human condition and to show his sense of the changeability of things. I also identifies three characteristics of Montaigne’s essays that may prove irritating if the reader is looking for a definite doctrine: 1. he copies copiously from the writings of the past; 2. he indulges in various digressions from the subject he is dealing with; and 3. it is often hard to tell what the main topic of an essay is.
II shows how these three essays demonstrate Montaigne’s closeness to the ancient Stoics: “That to study philosophy is to learn to die”, “That the relish of good and veil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them”, and “Of glory.”
III considers what Montaigne views as the main virtue, moderation, in “Of moderation” ; a deplorable but not so bad vice, drunkenness, in “Of drunkenness”; and what he views as one of the most dangerous of passions, anger, in “Of anger.”
IV discusses in “Of cruelty” the nature of virtue. In it Montaigne distinguishes three types or levels of virtue: the state in which virtue has become a fixed and settled habit of soul, the state in which a person struggles successfully with very urgent and powerful natural impulses, and a state of natural innocence and goodness. The vice which upsets Montaigne most is cruelty. The unfavourable comparison between civilized and primitive society made in “Of cruelty” is developed fully in “Of cannibals.”
V considers “Of repentance.” Montaigne defines repentance as “a recanting of the will and an opposition to our fancies.” He observes that it is a matter of action, not of mere thoughts or wishes, and that it should be directed to the future, to what can be changed, not to the past, which he regards for all practical purposes as determined.
Questions Asked by Adler and Cain on the Assigned Essays
- Does Montaigne think that good and evil are merely a matter of opinion?
- Does Montaigne believe that our conduct should be governed by the moral standards of our place and time?
- Is man good in a state of nature?
- Is a man’s treatment of animals subject to ethical judgment?
- Does Montaigne have a social ethic?
Bob's Corner 