Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface to the revised edition
- To the Reader
- 1 Society and Self-study: the Problem of Literary Authority
- 2 Literary Anxiety and the Romance of Books
- 3 Rival Readings
- 4 Writing and Embodiment
- 5 Reading and Temperament
- 6 The Paradox of Communication: Reading the Essays Otherwise
- 7 Portrait of the Essayist Without Qualities
- 8 On Public and Private Life
- 9 Civilisation, Literacy and Barbarism
- 10 On Living and Dying as We Do
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - On Public and Private Life
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface to the revised edition
- To the Reader
- 1 Society and Self-study: the Problem of Literary Authority
- 2 Literary Anxiety and the Romance of Books
- 3 Rival Readings
- 4 Writing and Embodiment
- 5 Reading and Temperament
- 6 The Paradox of Communication: Reading the Essays Otherwise
- 7 Portrait of the Essayist Without Qualities
- 8 On Public and Private Life
- 9 Civilisation, Literacy and Barbarism
- 10 On Living and Dying as We Do
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Essays oblige us continually to refer not only to the problem of their origin – but to the generative place of their common places (topoi). We must, then, essay the division between Montaigne's public and private life. Here, and elsewhere, we encounter readings of Montaigne's conscience as a writer and politician which go to the very heart of the Essays. For this reason, we need to be careful in their exercise.
The problem we shall now focus upon is Montaigne's treatment of the relation between the public and private conscience of a man of politics. Montaigne was a courtier in the time of the civil religious wars of sixteenth-century France, Mayor of Bordeaux and a profound essayist of man's inner estate. Thus, although it is conventional to remark upon Montaigne's retirement and to notice his own disparagement of the Essays, we are in fact dealing with a man whose active life was spent in politics at a time when the conflict between the state and religion, interwoven with deadly quarrels, the massacre of Saint Barthélemy, and individual assassinations, could cost a man his life and property for just a word or thought out of season. A first direction is to contrast Montaigne with Machiavelli, since political theorists can be counted upon to share an interest in Machiavelli and, presumably, in what might relate to him:
Whereas Machiavelli assessed political activity positively and rejoiced in the vigor and glory peculiar to the exercise of political virtù, Montaigne denied that a life lived according to these principles was ultimately satisfying or praiseworthy for a man of judgment.
Now, two remarks are in order here. In the first place, this sort of judgement is over influenced by a consideration of Montaigne's later years. It does not sufficiently weigh Montaigne's evaluation of what is an activity fitting to a young man – it is unquestionably war and politics – and what is fitting to an older man, whose body is as little suited to making war as it is to making love! Here, again, Montaigne's interests are in line with the Renaissance conviction that war must be the principal subject of historical analysis once history deals with res gestae.
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- Essaying MontaigneA Study of the Renaissance Institution of Writing and Reading, pp. 153 - 176Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2001