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Penguin Classics Complete Essays

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Michel de Montaigne is considered by many to be the inventor of the literary form of the essay, so the collection from which these excerpts come is important in several ways. Montaigne was a humanist and a skeptic in his philosophical approach, and essentially looked at his own experience as the first topic for examination always.

The book of Essays was one he worked on periodically throughout his life, issuing different editions, the first of which appeared in 1580. Montaigne's style of writing is sometimes stream-of-consciousness, sometimes structured in more formal styles.

Montaigne's stated task in his preface to the reader is for self-examination, but it becomes very clear that Montaigne sees himself as an 'everyman' character. He strives for full-disclosure; indeed, he writes that were he another culture 'which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws', then he might have appeared naked.

This is a complete set of the Essays, together with a helpful introduction and notes for reading. As Montaigne added to his essays periodically, they are not necessarily in the order he wrote them, but this collection has preserved their order according to his standards.

Montaigne's essays show a pessimism and skepticism, perhaps based on the kinds of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants going on, in France and elsewhere, as well as the periodic flare of plague. He was a humanist who saw cultures as having value internal to themselves and preferred to not universalise morals, laws and other ideas.

Montaigne was sometimes conventional in thought (seeing marriage as necessary for children, and distrusting the idea of romantic love), but other times he was very much a free thinker (particularly when it came to religious dogma or absolutist kinds of philosophical paradigms). Montaigne had respect for those who followed religious codes and ways of life, but distrusted those who tried to impose such ideas upon others.

Montaigne added to his essays twice in major ways, but did not strive for consistency or systematic ways of thinking - he declined to remove previous essays if they contradicted new writings.

Montaigne is perhaps the most important French philosopher prior to the Enlightenment. His essays remain popular because they have a sense of the modern and the current about them.

When reading Montaigne's essays, I had to continually pinch myself out of the notion that I was reading the innermost secrets of a thoroughly modern human being. Far from the reaches of cell phones, televisions, automobiles, miracle drugs, 7-11 stores and the internet, Michel De Montaigne (1533-1592) via his essays, at once conveys the essence of the universal human condition, and imparts to us a sense of relief and liberation; that our life's journey, beneath all the trappings of the times, share their essential qualities: the challenges, triumphs, tragedies, passions, ironies and humor. With remarkable wit, Montaigne draws characters out of the history books, particularly the classics, and demonstrates to us that our human foibles date not just to HIS own times, but to the dawn of humanity and civilization itself. I read the Penguin Classics edition of the essays, translated by Dr. M. A. Screech, and must say that it is among the best translations of any book I have ever read. Dr. Screech employs an entertaining, colorful and evocative vocabulary which succeeds both in clarity of communication as well as painting vivid and rich pictures for our mind's eye to feast upon. Perhaps Montaigne's most charming quality is his self-effacing and modest demeanor. Never tooting his own horn, except perhaps to lay bare his bad memory or some other perceived fault, the following is one example of thousands which reflects his humor and humility. Wishing to deliver a critique of great intellectual and rhetorical importance, Montaigne instead settles for: "I would say of them the same as Cicero (if I could talk as well as he could.)"

Other reviewers here have commented about the contents of the essays and left me little to say. Instead, I have to pay a large compliment to the translator, M.A. Screech.

Aside from the clarity of his prose and his engaging tone, Screech managed to synthesize the multiple editions of the essays into a single work, giving the readers an insight into Montaigne's development.

The essays were originally published in three editions. With each revision, essays were amended, expanded, and edited as Montaigne's thoughts developed. Screech uses a subtle system to note these later additions and revisions, pointing out where the essays grew over time.

Screech's translations of the hundreds of classical quotations are also well handled, giving both the original language and a clear English rendering of the passage without interrupting the flow of the text.

This is an amazing book. Moving, insightful, humane, and thick enough to kill any bugs you choose to smack with it. I've had to order a second copy of this volume, since I've reduced my first copy to tatters, reading and rereading it. Okay, and smacking bugs.

Montaigne is that rarest of writers, entertaining but also enlightening. To read him alone is an education, and a companion to cheer you on even the darkest of days.

A classic of literature. There are standards in art and literature and this is one of them. Reading Montaigne is having a mirror held to your mind.
Buy this work even if it means dumping the rest of your cart!

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE - THE COMPLETE ESSAYS. Translated and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech. lviv + 1284 pp. (Penguin Classics). London : Penguin Books, 1993 and Reissued. ISBN 0-14-044604-4 (pbk.)

Those who discover Montaigne should count themselves very lucky. There are so many authors competing for our attention today, so many brilliant and less than brillliant men and women both contemporary and of the past, so many poets, novelists, philosophers, thinkers of every stripe, that Montaigne's voice can easily get lost in the general racket, like the voice of a single cricket on a noisy summer's night.

But Montaigne's voice is well worth singling out for special attention, like that one cricket whose song is especially musical, because there has never been anyone quite like him, nor anyone who has produced such a wealth of sensible observations on life and everything that goes to make it up.

We love Montaigne for his humanity, his wisdom, his clear insight into human nature, his tolerance of our weaknesses and failings, his love and compassion for all creatures whether man, animal, or plant, his calm, gentle and amiable voice, his stately and dignified progress as he conducts us through the vast repository of his mind. But above all we love him for his plain good sense.

Despite his distance in time, we can open these essays almost anywhere and immediately become engrossed. Some of what he says, particularly about our weaknesses and failings, may not be particularly welcome to some, though the open-minded will acknowledge its self-evident truth. Montaigne was not afraid to speak his mind, and as a man who was interested in almost everything, his observations range from the curious through to the truly profound.

At one time we find him, for example, discussing the best sexual position for conception, at others such deep notions as that "in truth we are but nothing" (p.555); "there is a plague on man, the opinion that he knows something" (p.543); thought as the chief source of our woes (p.514); "in man curiosity is an innate evil" (p.555); "only a fool is bound to his body by fear of death" (p.553); nature needs little to be satisfied" (p.526); there is only change (p.xvii); our absolute need for converse with others (p.421); how "if a ray of God's light touched us even slightly, it would be everywhere apparent : not only our words but our deeds would bear its lustre and its brightness. Everything emanating from us would be seen shining with that noble light" (p.493); how man should "lay aside that imaginary kingship over other creatures which is attributed to us" (p.487); how reason is not a special unique gift of human beings, marking us off from the rest of Nature" (p489); of how "we owe justice to men," and "gentleness and kindness" to "beasts, which have life and feelings [and] even to trees and plants" (p.488).

And so on through manifold topics, both weighty and light, his observations illustrated by stories contemporary and ancient, drawn not only from his incredibly wide learning, but also from his experience as man of the world.

The examples I've cited seem to me pitifully inadequate as describing or even suggesting the breadth of his thought - just a few examples selected at random that happen to appeal to me. Montaigne is too big to capture in a few words. His mind was as capacious as his enormous book, and he had something to say about almost everything. His is not so much a book as a companion for life.

Montaigne as that single special cricket singing away in the forest of learning along with thousands of others, is not only worth singling out because of his vast repertoire of songs, but even more because of the special way he sang them. What makes him so important and so valuable, especially to us today, is that he was characterized above all, not merely by reason, which is common enough, but by a REASONABLE, AND NOT EXCESSIVE, USE OF REASON. In other words, he knew that reason had its limits, that it was a tool limited in its applicability and useful only for certain purposes, and he had the good sense to know when we should stop.

There is in Montaigne a sanity, a balance, an affability, and a modesty and tolerance that is found in no other European thinker, and that reminds one more of the Chinese sage. But instead of fastening on the truly civilized pattern established by Montaigne, Europe instead chose Descartes, Apostle of the Excessive Use of Reason, and with what results we know.

The Cartesian ideology of Reason fueled and continues to fuel the relentless Juggernaut of Reason now underway that threatens to end up crushing everything beneath its wheels. Montaigne would have been appalled. He stood for something more human.

The essays of Michel de Montaigne are obligatory reading for everyone. He has something to say to all of us, no matter what our background might be. His thought ranges over the entire spectrum of human experience with elegance and depth. His thinking is based in a renaissance liberalism founded on the great classical literature of Rome and Greece. He was one of the first humanists, and remains one of the most important. This book is the kind of book that you will read for days, put down, pick up again read for a while, put down, and so on as long as you live. It is the perfect book to have beside your bed or your favorite reading chair. The Screetch translation is exceptionally good, with careful notes, explanatory introduction. It is an excellent edition of this masterwork. It is a book everyone must have in their personal library.

Montaigne wrote what he called "essays", in the sense of "attempts" - he was trying to find out what he thought about stuff. It helped that he'd read a great deal, led a pretty full life and had known some interesting people, although one of his great virtues is that he seems to have found them more interesting than they themselves probably thought they were.

Pascal struggled all his life with the example of Montaigne. The problem for Pascal was that he was only really concerned with one thing - God's grace - and he was scandalised that Montaigne didn't seem to find it that big a deal. MM will write as readily about theological disputes and poetry as he will about sex, forgetfulness and his own stupidity. Apart from anything else, he was perhaps the first person to observe that nobody can pretend that his s*** doesn't stink (I can't remember the exact page, but then there _are_ over a thousand.)

There's a lifetime's reading in here. For such a big fat classic of a book it reads like it was written yesterday, although if it _had_ been written yesterday, he'd've been all over Hello! magazine by now.

Wisdom is maybe underrated these days, but Montaigne isn't just spouting off. This is not a 16th century evening with Morrie. You can see him thinking. He _encourages_ you. (What a great word "encourage" is.) It's not that bad for about fourteen quid.

I completely agree with "Beranger" What a load ideas Montaigne has stolen from me...or did I used to be Montaigne in my past life? I can't believe how true every word of it

At critical junctures of my life I have found Montaigne to be the best source of understanding of what it is to be a civilized human being. The essays illuminate the self and our relationship to society. This book more than any other I know enables the reader to trace our relationship to issues that concern us today: freedom, appropriate behavior, individuals vs institutions, health, nature. You name it, MM deals with it. Buy this book.