Book Description
Humanist, skeptic, acute observer of himself and others, Michel de Montaigne (1533—92) was the first to use the term “essay” to refer to the form he pioneered, and he has remained one of its most famous practitioners. He reflected on the great themes of existence in his wise and engaging writings, his subjects ranging from proper conversation and good reading, to the raising of children and the endurance of pain, from solitude, destiny, time, and custom, to truth, consciousness, and death. Having stood the test of time, his essays continue to influence writers nearly five hundred years later.
Also included in this complete edition of his works are Montaigne’s letters and his travel journal, fascinating records of the experiences and contemplations that would shape and infuse his essays. Montaigne speaks to us always in a personal voice in which his virtues of tolerance, moderation, and understanding are dazzlingly manifest.
Donald M. Frame’s masterful translation is widely acknowledged to be the classic English version.
Customer Reviews:
Retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights ..........2005-08-28
"My library is in the third story of a tower; on the first is my chapel, on the second a bedroom with ante-chambers, where I often lie to be alone; and above it there is a great wardrobe. Adjoining my library is a very neat little room, in which a fire can be laid in winter, and which is pleasantly lighted by a window..." Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592) wrote in the chapter "On Three Kinds of Relationships". Montaigne liked being retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights between religious groups. Did these things develop, 400 years later? Montaigne tried to escape dogmatic thoughts finding a new way of writing and hammering out thoughts via his typical relaxed method of writing. Living 200 years earlier than the other genius of essay, the poor Soeren Kierkegaard, Montaigne was not as filled up with anxiety as the Danish philosopher - he instead managed to stay calm with a solid resource of optimism, though things outside his favorite tower often run very worse. His courageous goal was the overcoming of the stereotyped medieval conception of the world, in which humans usually had been overwhelmed by church- or government-authorities like puppets on a string. Montaigne established the departure to individual noticing, founded an anthropocentric view of world. This probably had something fresh to his contemporary readers. Montaignes program was to dip down in ones own mind: "Everyone, who is listening to his inner landscape of thoughts, is able to discover his identity, so that he is able to repel everything, which does not fit this." About his style of writing essayist Elias Canetti noticed: "Montaigne is most beautiful, because he does not hurry." Aged 17 Michel de Montaigne had ridden to Paris, to complete his humanistic education. There he had attached important relations, had operated with prostitutes notoriously and had squandered one the family wealth, until the father pulled the emergency brake and called him back to Bordeaux, where he had to begin a boring job at the local court (if we can trust the speculations of the French biographer Lacouture). Historically more secured is Montaigne's political identity: the France of his time had torn up, the faith splitting escalated in the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" in Paris on 24 August 1572, bloody amuck in many other French cities followed, also in Montaigne's Bordeaux. He had been the mayor, and particularly in the second term of office 1583-85, he skillfully succeeded to calm down the parties (Catholics tried to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots). His "ideology-free" position had been developed in expanded studies of the classical philosophers - and in a thereupon diametrically opposite literary attempt to justify an own individual kind of thinking and writing: precisely analyzing human conditions (using oneself as the only field, we can explore without too much strange mistakes) without being paralyzed by social regulations of how to search and communicate. "I do not proclaim doctrines of faith, but not obligatory opinions, which you can classify as a gesture alike children, trying to show their experiments: they only want to learn, not to instruct or indoctrinate." The skeptical, further-asking, essentially open dialogue of Montaigne influenced such thinkers as Diderot, Lichtenberg or Nietzsche. His writing method encouraged philosophy, psychology - and hundreds of essayists. Indeed we hope, that Montaigne's voice will never get lost ...
Retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights ..........2005-08-28
"My library is in the third story of a tower; on the first is my chapel, on the second a bedroom with ante-chambers, where I often lie to be alone; and above it there is a great wardrobe. Adjoining my library is a very neat little room, in which a fire can be laid in winter, and which is pleasantly lighted by a window..." Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592) wrote in the chapter "On Three Kinds of Relationships". Montaigne liked being retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights between religious groups. Did these things develop, 400 years later? Montaigne tried to escape dogmatic thoughts finding a new way of writing and hammering out thoughts via his typical relaxed method of writing. Living 200 years earlier than the other genius of essay, the poor Soeren Kierkegaard, Montaigne was not as filled up with anxiety as the Danish philosopher - he instead managed to stay calm with a solid resource of optimism, though things outside his favorite tower often run very worse. His courageous goal was the overcoming of the stereotyped medieval conception of the world, in which humans usually had been overwhelmed by church- or government-authorities like puppets on a string. Montaigne established the departure to individual noticing, founded an anthropocentric view of world. This probably had something fresh to his contemporary readers. Montaignes program was to dip down in ones own mind: "Everyone, who is listening to his inner landscape of thoughts, is able to discover his identity, so that he is able to repel everything, which does not fit this." About his style of writing essayist Elias Canetti noticed: "Montaigne is most beautiful, because he does not hurry." Aged 17 Michel de Montaigne had ridden to Paris, to complete his humanistic education. There he had attached important relations, had operated with prostitutes notoriously and had squandered one the family wealth, until the father pulled the emergency brake and called him back to Bordeaux, where he had to begin a boring job at the local court (if we can trust the speculations of the French biographer Lacouture). Historically more secured is Montaigne's political identity: the France of his time had torn up, the faith splitting escalated in the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" in Paris on 24 August 1572, bloody amuck in many other French cities followed, also in Montaigne's Bordeaux. He had been the mayor, and particularly in the second term of office 1583-85, he skillfully succeeded to calm down the parties (Catholics tried to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots). His "ideology-free" position had been developed in expanded studies of the classical philosophers - and in a thereupon diametrically opposite literary attempt to justify an own individual kind of thinking and writing: precisely analyzing human conditions (using oneself as the only field, we can explore without too much strange mistakes) without being paralyzed by social regulations of how to search and communicate. "I do not proclaim doctrines of faith, but not obligatory opinions, which you can classify as a gesture alike children, trying to show their experiments: they only want to learn, not to instruct or indoctrinate." The skeptical, further-asking, essentially open dialogue of Montaigne influenced such thinkers as Diderot, Lichtenberg or Nietzsche. His writing method encouraged philosophy, psychology - and hundreds of essayists. Indeed we hope, that Montaigne's voice will never get lost ...
Servant of the Humane.......2004-10-17
Montaigne was one of those paradoxical characters who was both utterly lazy and completely devoted. His essays are like he is. Lazy, glad (but not too glad), and content to let the blasted world roll by with all of its absurdities and madnesses. Yet he is also taut and tense, intellectually stimulated and willing to stimulate.
Montaigne was wise because he was one of those rare characters who accepted his own humanity without the need to curse at it, exalt it, make it seem ordinary, and make it seem simple. I almost wrote that he made complexity look simple; he almost made it look easy. He did that by have interests that were as broad as that most capacious of faces - the face of the universe. But add to that Montaigne's central conviction that in the sight of God all things are small and you begin to get at the unobtrsively strange and humane part of his art. He combines (in his interests) things that are profoundly trivial and things that are profoundly - ah - profound.
Montainge has been described as a cheerful sceptic and no few harsh and ecstatic souls have been outraged by such a combination. But his cheer was based on the fact that he was both a sceptic and a man of faith - a man of faith before this dreadful age (the age we live in) settled in with its grand bifurcation between the assertive intellect born in the Renaissance was left to battle the pseudo-faith of the fundamentalist Christians. Montaigne would have been politely bewildered to have to speak to either Karl Marx or Jerry Falwell. They would have seemed both absurd and absurdly deranged to him. He was too balanced.
He was and remains a great corrective to our mystical tendencies. He does not cancel them out but he does smack them in the teethe and put them into order. He despised that perennial human desire to destroy humanity in the name of a state higher than humanity.
Complete -- at last!.......2003-10-16
Donald Frame's translations of Montaigne's essays have long been considered one of the two finest contemporary translations available, M.A. Screech's excellent version being the other.
The essays speak for themselves, or at least should. Their popularity is well known and well deserved, and there are a number of fine essay collections available. What's great about this edition is that included with the classic essays are a few extant letters and Montaigne's travel journals, which were lost until almost two hundred years after his death. These additional pieces are not going to rival the essays in popularity -- the letters are few and formal, for instance -- but if you enjoy the mind of Montaigne you'll enjoy these extra inclusions.
Between June of 1580 and December of 1581, Montaigne -- with four other nobles and a variety of servants -- traveled through France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy before returning to Bordeaux. In the journals you'll find more evidence of the author's deeply interested view of the world around him, set out in that seemingly (and charmingly) haphazard, humane style found in spades in the essays.
In one entry, for instance, you'll find him retelling (with a straight face?) a local story he has heard of a young girl who jumped up and down so strenuously during play that she turned into a boy (Montaigne claims that at least a few locals back up this tale); in other entries you'll find him more down to earth, describing, for instance, the little stoves in the homes of Germany, or the tiles that lined some of the homes in what is now Switzerland, or the murals on the walls of Jeanne D'Arc's father's home.
By 1581, when Montaigne visited Rome, the treasures of the Vatican had become a mandatory stop on any well-informed traveller's itinerary. To his delight, Montaigne was shown ancient Roman and ancient Chinese manuscripts, the love letters of Henry VIII, and the classics of history and philosophy. Then, as now, the Vatican Library was one of the greatest in the Western world.
This journal is an interesting view of 16th-century Europe (the architecture, the topography, the manners and customs) through a master stylist's eyes. It's nice to have back in print an edition of Montaigne's complete works, especially since it uses Donald Frame's translations.
A wonderful, complete collection.......2003-08-17
The late Donald Frame's translation is, as Harold Bloom credits, superb. Add to it the quality and aesthetics of the Everyman's series and this is an unbeatable edition of Montaigne's works. I plan to buy several copies of this edition as gifts.
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- Belongs In Everyone's Library: The Perfect Essays
- Essays
- Brilliant translation, but the editing is annoying.
- The definitive philosopher
- One of the world's great comforts
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Michel de Montaigne - The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics)
Michel de Montaigne
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
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Customer Reviews:
Belongs In Everyone's Library: The Perfect Essays.......2007-03-13
What's not to like about Montaigne? Everytime I pick through parts of his essays [and it does not matter where one begins] I find myself in deep thought. Sometimes I feel as if Montaigne were speaking to me. I have the Donald Frame translation. Although I have read the Cohen translation too, and I do have a copy of it somewhere in this jungle I call my library. I have just recently purchased this Penguin edition, with another yet another translation. But no matter, the words and wit of Montaigne are, and will be as timeless as long as people are willing to open these pages and gather meaning from them. And I will always continue to do so.
These essays were meant to be read and re-read. And you know, I never tire of reading Michel de Montaigne. This mans works have been a part of my life for as long as I can recall. And how many times can you remember picking up the same books over and over again to reach words of wisdom? And Montaigne's humble wisdom and honest look at himself is what makes these essays so profound and enjoyable to read. Why? Because he took a long hard look deep into his own soul and wrote for himself, and to himself: And in turn, he imparted these essays to the rest of us. Which I am forever grateful to him for. If you have never read Montaigne, it's time you do. Highly recommended. Should be required reading in all schools today.
Essays.......2006-03-15
Montaigne. He has lessons for us all, I've found.
Some of the lessons are hard. He writes about everything, but most of all, he writes about himself. There is a painful clarity to his work - but that cliche term does nothing to properly explain what it is he accomplishes with his writing.
At thirty-three, Montaigne decided to retire to his home and write. He had vague ideas about writing a gentleman's book on warfare, and the first few essays reflect that. But, as he progressed, he kept going on little side journeys into his own thoughts and opinions. At first, Montaigne reigned himself in, struggling to stay true to the path he had decided for himself.
Happily for us, he failed.
He abandoned the idea of writing for gentlemen - though there are still slight evidences of this throughout the work. Instead, he decided to focus on the one thing he knew better than anybody else in the entire world - Montaigne. Who else could know more, or would bother to take as much time exploring this one man than the man himself? And why not explore his own mind - every day, he has to live and deal with the advantages and disadvantages, the habits and the thoughts, the opinions and the ironies of being Montaigne. Thus, he decided, it was worth exploring. In his view, there was nothing more important than understanding one's self. If you cannot understand yourself, how can you expect to understand anybody else?
There are moments of 'painful clarity', as I said above. Montaigne discusses (his) impotence, his imperfect marriage, the disappointments he has created in others, the times when he did not do what he should. But he also talks about how he can make himself a better person, and how, in a lot of ways, he is an admirable person. It is important to realise that Montaigne is not writing an apology for himself. He is putting himself on to paper, 'warts and all', and declaring it true. There is a point in one of the essays where he declares that he wouldn't want anyone to lie about the person he is, even if they flattered him or praised him. This is, in a nutshell, Montaigne's thinking. He is not concerned with being the greatest person ever known - he is concerned with understanding himself.
Four hundred years on, what is there to offer us, the modern reader, in Montaigne? An infinity of wisdom. Could I, in honesty, completely and unwaveringly disect myself for the consumption of both myself and others? I don't think so. I very much fear that the answer is no. And yet - why not? Is it shame? I don't think so, as I have nothing major to hide. Perhaps, then, it is simply the fear of unrealised ideas and thoughts. If I am unaware of myself, I cannot present it. Montaigne was and is aware of himself and thus manages to accurately describe the person that he is.
Montaigne's essays are invaluable not only for the man that they portray, but for the wisdom in what is spoken. Montaigne has thought about so many aspects of what it is to be a human and alive, and we can all learn from this. The topics he discusses go beyond mere 16th century issues, and deal with concepts, ideas and concerns that affect us now, and will affect us always. Absolutely essential reading.
Brilliant translation, but the editing is annoying........2006-01-20
This English translation of Montaigne's Complete Essays is wonderful. Although I like it better than Donald Frame's version, I actually prefer J.M. Cohen's to either. Cohen's translation is only a selection, unfortunately. If you need the Complete Essays, go with Screech.
Screech's version, however, has a very annoying problem. As in Frame's translation, letters are used within the text to note differences between the three major editions of the Essays (A, B, C). Frame's version uses small capital letters inserted within the text; they are unobtrusive and can be ignored. Screech's version, however, uses full-sized letters within brackets with a lot of space surrounding them. They are just too darned disruptive. Why in the heck did they do this? Perhaps they intended it for academic or scholarly use. It's a shame. I hope that Penguin will issue a new edition or revision that will take care of this problem.
Use the "Look Inside" feature of this book to decide for yourself.
The definitive philosopher.......2005-11-29
In the entire history of western philosophy, there is not one person I can praise more than Michel de Montaigne. Normally, any book over 500 pages tends to become tedious to me, and works of philosophy over that length become insufferable. The best praise I can give this book is to say that at 1200 pages, I was not the least weary of it. In fact, I wished it was longer! Montaigne is the definitive philosopher, a man driven to write out of boredom, who presents his essays as his views, never trying to categorize and name realities, but simply marvelling over everything, from literature to pets. His broad learning and wonderfully disorganized style lead the reader on a journey into the what ifs, and whys of existence. Montaigne is the epitome of a renaissance man. His views in most situations are more modern than yesterday. He speaks out for the virtues of women, carefully denounces war, subtly questions the more extraneous doctrines of Catholicism, and even denounces colonialism and promotes respect of racial and cultural differences. This is not a man one would have expected to find in the 1500s. But here he is. And his text! Often saying that his memory was weak, MOntaigne demonstrates it by going off on wild tangents for thirty pages, only to realize that he has succeeding in proving his original idea without his knowledge. His sentences and rich prose leap across the pages, and dance with ideas of the sublime and the ridiculous, ideas which he does not so much attempt to resolve as ponder upon a page. He never once falls into the philosopher's folly of stating his views as though they were fact, and is often very careful to say, "This is what I think" in one way or another. He never attempts to convince the reader, for he originally never intended his essays to have a reader. In situations where he would challenge authority, he is always careful to say, for instance, "But my own views are nothing, the church of course knows better". More than any other work of philosophy, the Essays are an adventure, leading one through the soul of a man, a man who thought so little of himself but was so great. It reads almost as a novel, and at the end, after 1200 pages of Essays, Montaigne stands before the reader as clearly as any historical or fictional figure ever has. This is the true Magnum Opus of western philosophy.
One of the world's great comforts.......2005-11-29
I cannot praise this book highly enough. It is one of those rare books that can change your life. Sure, many people say something similar about a particular book, but it is genuinely true in this instance. Montaigne is wise, humane, and very humourous. If I had to live on an island and could only take three books with me, this would be one of them. And, it would be an easy choice to make. I have read the Essays cover to cover twice already and plan to do so again many times in my life.
Here are some general points you might want to keep in mind when reading Montaigne's Essays: First, he doesn't always stick to the topic announced at the beginning of an essay. Sometimes, an essay appears to be about a particular topic but ends up being about something else entirely. Second, even when Montainge makes a half-hearted attempt at staying on topic, the journey is still the scenic route instead of a straight shot (but, this is half the fun of his Essays). Third, Montaigne's Essays are a perfect crash course on the wisdom to be found in the writings of the Latin authors. Finally, Montaigne is surprisingly skeptical and relativistic on many issues. This is obviously why his Essays are so relevant even today.
Now for a word on translations. The two primary translations that are easily available are this Penguin edition translated by Screech and the Stanford University Press edition translated by Frame. Each edition has its advantages and disadvantages, and it's a shame the editions can't be combined to create the perfect translation.
The Penguin/Screech edition includes the original and a translation of all Montaigne's foreign language quotations. The vast majority of these are in Latin; so, if you know some Latin, this is helpful. It also includes very helpful notes on obscure literary and historical issues, which provides for greater understanding. However, if you read the introduction and Screech's notes carefully, you will realize he does have an agenda. Screech plays down Montaigne's skepticism and tries to portray Montaigne as being more religious than he was.
As to the Stanford/Frame edition, its translation is much closer to the original French than Screech's. If you put the French text and Frame's translation side by side, you'll see what I mean (even if your French is pretty weak like mine). And, Frame does not play down Montaigne's skepticism - he lets Montaigne speak for himself. But, Frame's translation does have some flaws. It does not include the original for foreign language quotations. And, when Frame translates Latin poetry, he almost always makes it rhyme even when the original Latin does not rhyme. I find this jarring and not true to the original. Frame also does not include any helpful notes.
All in all, I'd like to combine Frame's translation of Montaigne's French with Screech's original and translation of all foreign language quotations. This would be the best possible version of the Essays.
This book is one of the finest products of the human mind. You will not regret the significant amount of time it will take to read these Essays. And, if you read them carefully, you'll never look at the world the same way again.
Customer Reviews:
The birth of the modern--for the human in all of us.......2007-08-24
Michel de Montaigne was and is a very special benchmark in the history of Western civilization. He was not the first diarist or journalist with whom brooding souls throughout history have kept company--Marcus Aurelius, Seneca the Younger, St. Augustine, and others preceded him in that regard--but he was, perhaps, one of the first to do so with such scathing honesty, such hands-in-the-air bewilderment, humbling admissions of ignorance, and a deep, abiding compassion for humanity. He lived amid the birth pangs of a Europe on the cusp of modernity, and felt its political, philosophical, religious, cultural, and emotional tensions with every fiber of his being. One senses he knew that the only way to deal with the impending seismic shift was to ask anew the timeless questions of "who am I?" and "what do I know?" without any of the traditional sets of training wheels or safety nets. Not the Church, not the state, not tradition, not custom, not even common sense--everything deserved to be examined afresh. He manages to do so in a way that is far from the arid formalism of Descartes or the tendentious and smug skepticism of Hume; reading his essays is like a set of spiritual exercises. His erudition is profound, his observations keenly insightful, and his boundless curiousity wonderful to get lost in. The "Apology for Raymond Sebonde" is worth the price of the book alone. Everyone from Shakespeare to Ralph Waldo Emerson has had the man from Bordeaux on his or her nightstand, and for a timeless treat, you should as well.
Physics major likes this book.......2007-03-27
I'm a physics major and I had to use this for an honors English class. It was pretty inspiring to know that strange, yet profound thoughts in essay form can be appreciated.
Wanting to show us his experiments, not indoctrinating ..........2005-08-28
"My library is in the third story of a tower; on the first is my chapel, on the second a bedroom with ante-chambers, where I often lie to be alone; and above it there is a great wardrobe. Adjoining my library is a very neat little room, in which a fire can be laid in winter, and which is pleasantly lighted by a window..." Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592) wrote in the chapter "On Three Kinds of Relationships".
Montaigne liked being retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights between religious groups. Did these things develop, 400 years later? Montaigne tried to escape dogmatic thoughts finding a new way of hammering out thoughts via his typical relaxed method of writing. Living 200 years earlier than the other genius of essay, the poor Soeren Kierkegaard, Montaigne was not as filled up with anxiety as the Danish philosopher - he instead managed to stay calm with a solid resource of optimism, though things outside his favorite tower often run very worse.
His courageous goal was the overcoming of the stereotyped medieval conception of the world, in which humans usually had been overwhelmed by church- or government-authorities like puppets on a string. Montaigne established the departure to individual noticing, founded an anthropocentric view of world. This probably had something fresh to his contemporary readers.
Montaignes program was to dip down in ones own mind: "Everyone, who is listening to his inner landscape of thoughts, is able to discover his identity, so that he is able to repel everything, which does not fit this." About his style of writing essayist Elias Canetti noticed: "Montaigne is most beautiful, because he does not hurry."
Aged 17 Michel de Montaigne had ridden to Paris, to complete his humanistic education. There he had attached important relations, had operated with prostitutes notoriously and had squandered the family wealth, until the father pulled the emergency brake and called him back to Bordeaux, where he had to begin a boring job at the local court (if we can trust the speculations of the French biographer Lacouture).
Historically more secured is Montaigne's political identity: the France of his time had torn up, the faith splitting escalated in the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" in Paris on 24 August 1572, bloody amuck in many other French cities followed, also in Montaigne's Bordeaux. He had been the mayor, and particularly in the second term of office 1583-85, he skillfully succeeded to calm down the parties (Catholics tried to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots).
His "ideology-free" position had been developed in expanded studies of the classical philosophers - and in a thereupon diametrically opposite literary attempt to justify an own individual kind of thinking and writing: precisely analyzing human conditions (using oneself as the only field, one can explore without too much strange mistakes) without being paralyzed by social regulations of how to search and communicate.
"I do not proclaim doctrines of faith, but not obligatory opinions, which one can classify as a gesture alike done by children, trying to show their experiments: they only want to learn, not to instruct or indoctrinate."
The skeptical, further-asking, essentially open dialogue of Montaigne influenced such thinkers as Diderot, Lichtenberg or Nietzsche. His writing method encouraged philosophy, psychology - and hundreds of essayists. Indeed we hope, that Montaigne's voice will never get lost ...
"A Great Anthology of Montaigne's Essays".......2001-11-09
Montaigne's writings are eloquent, rich in allusions and anecdotes, and above all they sparkle with philosophical insights. Immortal names like Cicero, Homer, Virgil, and Horace are cited on every page, and reveal that the classical world of the past and the humanistic world of the present were very real to him. These essays also display Montaigne's mistrust of systematic philosophy, and show his support of faith and divine revelation over human reason. Montaigne's writings played a considerable role in setting the stage for later philosophers, like Descartes, to establish a new system of knowledge independent of the sense perception. This edition is a faithful translation from the original, and preserves beyond others the pristine clarity of Montaigne's ideas.
The Original French Essayist.......2001-07-27
Some authorities consider Montaigne the first essayist. His writing style is clear and his thought has common sense. Yet he is still encumbered by the classics. The ancients weigh on him like a stone. The celbrated erudition he displays in nearly every essay by quoting classical authors and envoking their names frequently is impressive but also distracting. I know that in expressing this opinion I differ from the majority of Montaigne's readers. But I believe that he had to much reverence for the classics.
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Ensayos Completos/ Complete Essays (Biblioteca Avrea)
Michel De Montaigne
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Montaigne: Complete Essays
Michel de Montaigne
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Customer Reviews:
Brilliant.......2006-06-23
The best thing for an afternoon with nothing planned. Or for something short to read in-between things. Full of wisdom, wit, and depricating self-knowledge
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