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Montaigne

Michel Eyquem, Lord of  Montaigne (1533-1592)

      The Essays of Michel de Montaigne embody with enormous force the appearance of a powerful "self" capable of forging a view on the world. Montaigne goes very far in this new way of understanding  writing and formulating it with absolute clarity.

"I have not made my book any more than it has made me - a book of one substance with its author, proper to me and a limb of my life. Have I wasted my time so continuosly and carefully telling myself of myself? Those who merely think and talk about themselves occasionally do not examine the basics and do not go as deep as one who makes it his study , his work and his business, who with all good faith and with all his might binds himself to keeping a long-term account. (1)

     This  statement by Montaigne leaves no doubt as to his conception of the "self" as an entity externalized by writing. The "self" becomes objective and comes to life in order to express itself. " My book"- would come to say-   is "me", but its entity, being a book read by others, also makes it an "other" for the "self". In this way we could take the Essays as an example of a writing of the "other-self".
   
    On the advice of his father Michel Eyquem studied law and then served as a magistrate for twenty years. However, after the death of his father, seeing himself in possession of a fortune that allowed him to live on rents, he retired in 1571 to his tower of the castle of Montaigne. There he proclaims his relief at being able to dedicate forever for himself.
     My purpose here is  to pick up excerpts from the Essays that have inspired me. In some cases they have illustrated me about everyday life and life in general and in others  I have identify myself with what is said in them. Montaigne was never a theoretical, epeculative or discursive philosopher. Instead, his object of study was always himself and life. What else is there to reflect on?

(1) Michel de Montaigne.  1991 The Complete Essays. London: Penguin Books P. 755

The Complete Essays (1571-1592)

To the Reader

You have here, Reader, a book whose faith can be trusted, a book which warns you from the start that I have set myself no other end but a private family one. I have not been concerned to serve you nor my reputation: my powers are inadequate for such a design. I have dedicated this book to the private benefit of my friends and kinsmen so that, having lost me (as they must do soon) they can find here again some traits of my character and of my humours. They will thus keep their knowledge of me more full, more alive. If my design had been to seek the favour of the world I would have decked myself out better and presented myself in a studied gait. Here I want to be seen in my simple, natural, everyday faslhion, without striving or artifice: for it is my own self that I am painting. Here, drawn from life, you will read of my defects and my native form so far as respect for social convention allows: for had I found myself among those peoples who are said still to live under the sweet liberty of Nature's primal laws, I can assure you that I would most willingly have portrayed myself whole, and wholly naked. 
And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable  that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain.
Farewell
From Montaigne;
This first of March, One thousand, five hundred and eighty."


'Do what thou hast to do, and known thyself' - that great precept is often cited by Plato; (2), each clause of it embraces our entire duty, generally, and similarly embraces its fellow. Whoever would do what he has to do would see that the first thing  he must learn is to know what he is and what is properly his. And whoever  does know himself never consider external things to be his; about  all other things he loves and cultivates himself: he rejects excessive concerns as well as useless thoughts and resolutions. [Folly never thinks it has enough, evem when it obtains what it desires, but W]isdom is happy with is to hand and is never vexed with itself] (3)

Michel de Montaigne. Essais. Book I, Chapter III " Our emotions get carried away beyond us"

              (2) Plato.  Timaeus, 72a. Cf. Erasmus, Adages , Nosce  teipsum (I,VII,XCV)
              (3) Cicero Tusc, disput,. V, xviii



We should have wives, children, property and above all, good health  ......if we can : but we should not become so attached to them  that our hapiness depends on them. We shoul set aside a room, put ourselves, at the back of the shop, keeping it entirely free and establishing there  our true liberty, our principal solitude  and asylum. Within it our normal conversation should be of ourselves, with ourselves, so privy that no commerce or communication with the outside world should find a  place there


Michel de Montaigne, Ensayos. Libro I. Capítulo XXXIX  "De la soledad"




Things in respect to themselves have, per adventure, their weight, measures, and conditions; but when we once take them into us, the soul forms them as she pleases. Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato, indifferent to Socrates. Health, conscience, authority, knowledge, riches, beauty, and their contraries, all strip themselves at their entering into us, and receive a new robe, and of another fashion, from the soul; and of what colour, brown, bright, green, dark, and of what quality, sharp, sweet, deep, or superficial, as best pleases each of them, for they are not agreed upon any common standard of forms, rules, or proceedings; every one is a queen in her own dominions. Let us, therefore, no more excuse ourselves upon the external qualities of things; it belongs to us to give ourselves an account of them. Our good or ill has no other dependence but on ourselves. 'Tis there that our offerings and our vows are due, and not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary, they draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their own mould. 

Michel de Montaigne, Ensayos. Book I. Chapter 50  "On Democritus and Heraclitus"