Montaigne

September 19, 2016
Desan, an expert on French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592),
takes readers on a detailed yet sweeping journey through the world of one of the Renaissance’s most important literary
figures. Desan is motivated by what he perceives as an overwhelming scholarly focus on Montaigne’s literary innovations, at the expense of sociopolitical context. This is a bold statement that verges on exaggeration. Nonetheless, it makes clear that Desan is as interested in history as biography. In his telling, the Montaigne known to modern writers for popularizing the essay as a genre of expression becomes instead the shrewd politician and statesman familiar to his contemporaries. But Desan does not shy away from Montaigne’s development as a writer, delving into the early childhood and later humanist schooling that instilled in him the curiosity that eventually manifested itself in his greatest works. When Montaigne’s essays are mentioned in a chapter of their own, the emphasis is not on their contents but rather the tense political climate that surrounded their creation. If this book is read in its entirety—which, at nearly 800 pages, is no small task—then Montaigne will be seen less as an
isolated essayist than a product of a s
pecific, now newly vivid world.

October 1, 2016
Revisiting the public and private life of the extraordinary humanist in light of religious divisions of the 16th century.In this translated work of scholarly minutiae, French Renaissance historian and Montaigne expert Desan (Renaissance Literature and History of Culture/Univ. of Chicago; editor: The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne, 2016, etc.) asserts that readers should not ignore Michel de Montaignes life (1533-1592) as a public official, the details of which shed light on his lifelong literary achievement, the Essays. Indeed, Montaignes act of intimate literary introspection invites critics to delve into his biography, beginning with his assumption of the noble name of Montaigne for the first time in his familys history since his wealthy merchant forebears purchased the Montaigne seigniory in Bordeaux a century before. As the first surviving son, classically educated, a magistrate by profession and then mayor of Bordeaux, like his father, Montaigne had unique ambitions of social ascension during the era of smoldering Catholic-Protestant tensions. He served several kings as well as (Protestant) Henry of Navarre, who would become Henri IV, and he conceived of his writing as history and politics, but the essays would change over time to reflect his gradual withdrawal from public life (he never became an ambassador) and adoption of the life of a gentleman author. Desan shows how Montaigne assumed the mtier of a writer from 1588 onward, literally annotating his previous essays by writing in the margins and altogether inventing a new stylewhat Desan terms more of a memoir than essay. Would his life had been remarkable if he had not written the Essays? No. Would he have been so well-known had not a brilliant young admirer, Marie de Gournay, devoted her life to editing and publishing his evolved essays posthumously? Probably not. Desan delves into these questions and much more in a hefty biography that will appeal most to academics. A dense work to be read in conjunction with the humanists own eloquent writing.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.