Philosophically, the “Essays” are Renaissance productions. They channel the wisdom of the ancient schools, borrowing from Epicureanism, skepticism and Stoicism for adages and exemplars. As Montaigne speaks to his readers, antiquity instructs and reproves modernity.
Amid the sanguinary terrors of his time, he advanced a kind of neo-Stoicism: The wise man would retreat to the private realm and insulate his soul from the torments of the surrounding world. On this point, the style of the “Essays” met their substance. Montaigne’s private ruminations exemplified the cloistered mind. “In this confusion that we have been in for thirty years,” he wrote, “every Frenchman, whether individually or as a member of the community, sees himself at every moment on the verge of the total overthrow of his fortune.” Only clear-eyed knowledge, of human inadequacy and of fortune’s volatility, would elevate us above the beasts.
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Montaigne will not consistently appeal to our modern temper. Like many neo-Stoics, he counseled a politics of outward obedience to established hierarchies. Fear of religious zeal perhaps made him too much the servile conformist to settled dogmas. His deference to fate could cultivate an indifference to the suffering of others.
And yet the “Essays” retain an enduring capacity to instruct and a timelessness that even erudite historicizing—including Mr. Desan’s full-bore effort—cannot fully subvert. Montaigne’s intellectual modesty; his interiority; his humane engagement with the foreign; his love of the inner soul; his scorn for vainglory and ambition: These traits of the “Essays” have the capacity to edify. They rebuke societies enraptured by superficialities or torn apart by political idols. Montaigne’s was such a society, and so perhaps is ours.
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Amid the sanguinary terrors of his time, he advanced a kind of neo-Stoicism: The wise man would retreat to the private realm and insulate his soul from the torments of the surrounding world. On this point, the style of the “Essays” met their substance. Montaigne’s private ruminations exemplified the cloistered mind. “In this confusion that we have been in for thirty years,” he wrote, “every Frenchman, whether individually or as a member of the community, sees himself at every moment on the verge of the total overthrow of his fortune.” Only clear-eyed knowledge, of human inadequacy and of fortune’s volatility, would elevate us above the beasts.
[---]
Montaigne will not consistently appeal to our modern temper. Like many neo-Stoics, he counseled a politics of outward obedience to established hierarchies. Fear of religious zeal perhaps made him too much the servile conformist to settled dogmas. His deference to fate could cultivate an indifference to the suffering of others.
And yet the “Essays” retain an enduring capacity to instruct and a timelessness that even erudite historicizing—including Mr. Desan’s full-bore effort—cannot fully subvert. Montaigne’s intellectual modesty; his interiority; his humane engagement with the foreign; his love of the inner soul; his scorn for vainglory and ambition: These traits of the “Essays” have the capacity to edify. They rebuke societies enraptured by superficialities or torn apart by political idols. Montaigne’s was such a society, and so perhaps is ours.
- More Here
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