9. Death and the good life

For Montaigne death forms part of any life that is worth living. “Death and the good life” considers Montaigne’s writing and thought on the end of life and on living life. Montaigne is optimistic in his earlier essays about the freeing effects of inspecting and accepting mortality. Later, less confident that we can detach ourselves from the constraints of earthly existence, he is firmly convicted that death is inextricably bound up with life. In fact, he states, we rub shoulders with death every day. However, no writer can please everyone and Montaigne is no exception and this is arguably the most evident in his writing on these two weighty topics.

2. Montaigne’s life: a sketch

“Montaigne’s life—a sketch” covers Montaigne’s culturally rich childhood and his profound friendship with the poet Étienne de La Boétie in early adulthood, which was curtailed by La Boétie’s early death. Montaigne took an active part in political life. His early “retirement” to the country, where he wrote the Essays, was not final. Having gained a reputation as a mediator between warring Catholic and Protestant factions, he retired again at fifty-two. Montaigne’s hopes that his writings might lead to another deep friendship were partly realized in his mentorship of Marie de Gournay, one of his first editors, who spent many years promoting his work after his death at fifty-nine.

8. Skepticism

How does the identification of Montaigne as a skeptic coexist with his Roman Catholic beliefs and practice? “Skepticism” classifies the Montaignian approach as “Pyrrhonist”—a school of skepticism that prioritized investigation over conclusion. Having read the ancient thinkers, Montaigne was in a strong position to discuss skepticism in his influential essay “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” in which he conflated ideas from Academic and Pyrrhonian schools. Some critics have expressed a wish that Montaigne was willing to subject his Christian beliefs to his usual level of scrutiny, but for him to have falsified his faith would have obscured his overall mission—to be known and understood.

6. America

What did Montaigne think of the New World? “America” looks at two of his essays, “On Coaches” and “On Cruelty.” Montaigne saw virtue as a sliding scale, seeing natural goodness, including his own, as less evolved, whereas a man overcoming dark urges carried more weight. Montaigne abhorred cruelty, and while he did not see the New World’s inhabitants as innocent, he mourned the lost opportunities for brotherhood in the Old World’s razing of the New for “pearls and pepper” and found in the tribes a useful rhetorical device for contrasting their “savage” behavior, such as cannibalism, with the more calculated cruelties of the Old World.

4. Friendship, family, love

“Friendship, family, love” locates some of Montaigne’s pronouncements on these topics in a Renaissance context. At the time, the word amitié covered a broader spectrum of love than friendship—though Montaigne’s friendship with la Boétie was tinged with eroticism. What are we to make of his disparaging comments about women? Surprisingly aware of the sexual double standards of his day, Montaigne believed that a good marriage resembled a friendship and that books—“children of the mind”—were as significant as flesh-and-blood children. What would his wife and daughter think of these writings, and how should we judge his shifting claims?

1. Writing oneself

Did Montaigne invent the essay? “Writing oneself” reminds us that Montaigne was not the first author to add personal experience and reflection to nonfiction writing. Montaigne loved the moral essays of Plutarch, the letters of Seneca, and the writings of his contemporary, Erasmus. The title in French, Essais, could be read as assays or attempts. Indeed, the Essays became depictions of Montaigne’s cognitive processes at work. It is suggested that the hunger for expression and intimacy in Montaigne’s writing originated in the death of a beloved friend, with whom Montaigne might otherwise have expressed these thoughts in conversation.

5. Free and sociable solitude

How does Montaigne’s early essay “On Solitude” fit with his sociable nature and public profile? “Free and sociable solitude” describes the qualities of Montaigne’s ideal solitude. He argued that some withdrawal is a service that not only restores us to ourselves but improves us for our return to our colleagues and loved ones. Returning to the theme of an essential or ruling pattern, Montaigne proposed that being fully ourselves was a duty and that improving our self-knowledge and self-reliance could be an effective defense against loss or even death, as well as a welcome relief from the bureaucracy of political life and the war raging outside.

7. Providential diversity

Montaigne delighted in diversity, but did he prioritize it over sameness? “Providential diversity” covers his writings that warn against the human tendency to judge what is unfamiliar as inferior and barbaric, a tendency Montaigne tried to avoid in life and which he returns to throughout the Essays. He did not advocate that we return to the innocent state of children but that we recognize that our thoughts could be as flexible as a child’s. His conclusion that we should conform in public life was based partly on conservatism and partly on a belief in divine providence, that God put us in positions that are not for us to question.

3. Learning for living

“Learning for living” explores Montaigne’s thoughts on education. While he was a voracious reader who believed in absolute truths, for Montaigne the greatest victories were found in conversation, debate, and changing one’s mind. Montaigne arrived at the idea of a forme maistresse, one translation of which is “ruling pattern” or “essential pattern”—a core of selfhood that is not immune to change, but secure enough to encourage some long-term traits while discouraging others. Montaigne would not have argued that this essential pattern rendered education useless, but he saw the limits of pedagogy while championing its virtues.