How To Read Montaigne - Softcover

Cave, Terence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862079447 ISBN 13: 9781862079441

Publisher: Granta Books, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

How To Read Montaigne

By Terence Cave

Granta Books

Copyright © 2013 Terence Cave
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781862079441

‘It is the only book of its kind in the world, wild and extravagantin conception’ (II.8): this is how on one occasionMichel de Montaigne describes the extraordinary miscellanyof writings which he first published in 1580 and which hesubsequently elaborated and extended until his death in 1592.The Essais, as he called it, is a highly original outgrowth ofthe humanist, Latin-based culture of late Renaissance France.Michel de Montaigne’s father engaged tutors to speak Latin tohim from his earliest childhood, so that he was virtually bilingualin French and Latin. His family had made its money intrade and its aristocratic title was only recently acquired; hehimself had legal training and occupied prominent positions inthe local judiciary and administration. Some three years afterhis father died in 1568, he gave up these public duties, at leastfor 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 aremarkably short time he was beginning to compose fragmentsof what would become the Essais, the only originalcomposition that he published during his lifetime.

Continues...

Excerpted from How To Read Montaigne by Terence Cave Copyright © 2013 by Terence Cave. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1862079447
• ISBN 13: 9781862079441
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112