The Essays
A Selection
A survey of one of the giants of Renaissance thought, The Essays: A Selection collects some of Michel de Montaigne's most startling and original works, translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech in Penguin Classics. To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself. On Some Lines of Virgil opens out into a frank discussion of sexuality and makes a revolutionary case for the equality of the sexes. In On Experience he…
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May 3, 1994Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born in 1533, the son and heir of Pierre, Seigneur de Montaigne (who had two previous children who died soon after birth). He was brought up to speak Latin as his mother tongue and always retained a Latin turn of mind; though he knew Greek, he preferred to use translations. After studying law he eventually became counselor to the Parlement of Bordeaux. He married in 1565. In 1569 he published his French version of the Natural Theology of Raymond Sebond; his Apology is only partly a defense of Sebond and sets skeptical limits to human reasoning about God, man and nature. He retired in 1571 to his lands at Montaigne, devoting himself to reading and reflection and to composing his Essays (first…
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Michel de Montaigne
The Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne; Translated by Donald M. Frame; Introduction by Stuart Hampshire
The Essays
Michel de Montaigne; Translated and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech
The Complete Essays
Michel de Montaigne
Essays
Michel de Montaigne; Translated with an Introduction by J. M. Cohen