Work · Renaissance & Humanism
Essays
I am myself the matter of my book.
Introduction
Montaigne published the first two books of his Essays in Bordeaux in 1580; the 1588 edition added a third book and many insertions. He continued to annotate a copy of this edition, the “Bordeaux copy”, and Marie de Gournay prepared the posthumous edition of 1595. The 107 chapters vary from a page to a small book; the French word essai means “attempt” or “trial”. The longest, the “Apology for Raymond Sebond”, is the main statement of his scepticism; “Of Cannibals” compares Brazilian Tupinambá with the wars of religion in France. John Florio’s English translation (1603) was read by Shakespeare.
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Connections
Builds on
- De rerum naturac. 55 BCE · Lucretius
- Letters to Luciliusc. 65 · Seneca
- Outlines of Pyrrhonismc. 200 · Sextus Empiricus
Taken up in
- Pensées1670 · Blaise Pascal
- Historical and Critical Dictionary1697 · Pierre Bayle
Answered in
- Discourse on the Method1637 · René Descartes
- Meditations on First Philosophy1641 · René Descartes
Criticized in
- Confessions1782 · Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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