"’Tis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. ’Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and, when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech." — Michel de Montaigne, Essays, "Of Experience"
I like the contemporary translations floating around the web
"even on the highest throne in the world, we still sit on our ass"
The most striking things to me when I started reading the Essays, is how much it reads like... A blog.
Variety of topics, general consistency of theme, a tone that is surprisingly conversationnal... And the bombardment of references, in jokes, quotes, etc... that you use to create connivence with your reader.
Also, in the end, if you were asked what Montaigne was famous for, what he actually did, _beyond writing his blog_, you would be... hard pressed to answer.
Still, I would probably lurk his substack, and watch his stand up on Instagram.
> The most striking things to me when I started reading the Essays, is how much it reads like... A blog.
This is somewhat deceptive. The Essais were very personal, but not spontaneous at all. He spent a lot of time polishing them and rewriting them right until he died. Just like Rabelais, the apparent casual tone of the language is actually quite a lot of work.
In comparison, blog posts are quick to post and then just left as they are. They are closer to letters in that respect.
One of the most life altering essays I’ve ever read is Montaigne’s To Philosophize Is To Die (https://hyperessays.net/essays/to-philosophize-is-to-learn-t...) where he lays out the principle of memento mori (“remember to die”). Fear of death is often very debilitating, and a topic we all like to avoid but we all have to deal with it, sooner or later. The sooner you accept it, the freer (and happier) you’ll feel.
Agreed - how it contextualizes the time and place for Montaigne when writing the essays is invaluable to understanding the essays and how he changes over time.
This is very much modern French. Anything written after 1650 is easy to understand by the average French person and anything written after 1800 is indistinguishable from how French is written nowadays.
A good edition to own is the beautiful hardcover edition published by Everyman's Library titled Michel de Montaigne The Complete Works Essays Travel journal Letters and translated by Donald Frame - http://www.everymanslibrary.co.uk/classics-author.aspx?lette...
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One of my favorite quotes of all time:
"’Tis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. ’Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and, when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech." — Michel de Montaigne, Essays, "Of Experience"
I like the contemporary translations floating around the web "even on the highest throne in the world, we still sit on our ass"
If you wish to thank/support this project and it's creator you should check out the support page: https://hyperessays.net/support/
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The most striking things to me when I started reading the Essays, is how much it reads like... A blog.
Variety of topics, general consistency of theme, a tone that is surprisingly conversationnal... And the bombardment of references, in jokes, quotes, etc... that you use to create connivence with your reader.
Also, in the end, if you were asked what Montaigne was famous for, what he actually did, _beyond writing his blog_, you would be... hard pressed to answer.
Still, I would probably lurk his substack, and watch his stand up on Instagram.
This is somewhat deceptive. The Essais were very personal, but not spontaneous at all. He spent a lot of time polishing them and rewriting them right until he died. Just like Rabelais, the apparent casual tone of the language is actually quite a lot of work.
In comparison, blog posts are quick to post and then just left as they are. They are closer to letters in that respect.
When I started reading blogs, the format reminded me of his essays.
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty, by Sarah Bakewell (2011)
is an incredible introduction to Montaigne. I greatly enjoyed it and recommend it fondly to anyone's interested in the man or what he had to say.
EDIT: my bad, this is not modern French
https://archive.org/details/MontaigneCompleteFrame/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/MontaigneCompleteFrame/Montaigne%...
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3600