Trouble with montaigne

lib philosopher?

lib as in liberal? are you saying this cause he believed humans cannot attain absolute certainty.

the essay references an unknown "it" in the first sentence? theres no way thats all the context available to you....

im sure there are greek writers that fit in whatever category Montaigne fits in no matter what you mean by lib phil

montaigne is a humanist, which means to him that every human as all of humanity in him, meaning a lot of shit in him but also the will to be good, while failing to find a method to be indeed good.

jesus h the old translation might as well be in chinese :(

Definitely this. Literally just finished reading a Montaigne essay before opening this thread, and was confused as to why Montaigne could be difficult, but everything was obvious once I saw the old translation OP was using.

If you're not going to read the original language (no judgment; I'm not, either), there's no need to get an outdated translation.

Well the title is "Of the disadvantage of greatness," so the subject "it" is pretty clear if you don't just ignore the title.

Well, his adoptive daughter was one of the first feminists.

But no; he was to patrician to be easily political. He was what we would call conservative in some ways, and liberal in others; in basic thinking, liberal, but cautious enough to be conservative.
Old French is, ironically, easier for Anglos to read. Lots more Ys.
How's Screech compare? He's Penguin, which is all there is online.

I love how Montaigne writes in one his essays how he has no idea how to run his estate (or whatever you call it). He just delegates to his cheating servants. He doesn't seem to give a fuck either. No idea what essay, but it made me like him even more.

Dude he doesn't seem to have ever given a fuck. I just read an essay where he admits he always gets bad deals in business but it's okay because it's worth not having to barter with people and risk arguing and revealing "his particular humor," i.e., talking shit.

Interesting that Nietzsche fangirled about him.

Screech is the best translation I found. I ended up buy the penguin complete essays. He keeps the original greek/latin/itallian with a translation in brackets for the many quotes montainge uses. All the others either have just a translation or just the original.
It's also very readable, closer to the second quote in the thread than the first.

You can't understand it because you're reading Florio. Find a translation that isn't horribly overwrought as 16th century English prose tends to be (I recommend MA Screech).

Hobestly Screech's Montaigne has one of my favourite prose styles in English. Such a wonderful voice. Montaigne is so cool.

I can read French with a bit of effort (which is why I use translations) and his voice is pretty close to Screech's. From what I can tell, Montaigne is very slightly...dryer? I'm not sure that's the right word.

I love reading montaigne.
I read an essay or two before bed every night. Have been through the complete essays 2 and a half times.
The first time I got to "an apology for Raymond Sebond" it was a long late night..

What I love about Montaigne's style is that he somehow manages to be both eloquent and conversational at the same time. He can follow the wanderings of his random thoughts all about the place in a single essay but you never lose the thread of where he is, where he is going always makes complete sense. And the anecdotes are wonderful.

What's everyone's favourite essay(s)? Mine is On Democritus and Heraclitus. Such a beautiful corrective to despair from taking things too seriously. Laughing at life is always our best defence.

The one about the placebo effect and false enemas.

On friendship.

"We are not here to bring the love we bear to women, though it be an
act of our own choice, into comparison, nor rank it with the others. The fire of this, I confess, is more active, more eager, and more sharp: but withal, 'tis more
precipitant, fickle, moving, and inconstant; a fever subject to intermissions and paroxysms, that has seized but on one part of us.
Whereas in friendship, 'tis a general and universal fire, but temperate
and equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, without
poignancy or roughness."
(on friendship)

His conversational style is no mistake. I've read that a large reason behind why Montaigne began writing the essays was owing to the death of his friend, the poet(?) La Boetie. He cherished the deep conversations that the two would have and missed them so dearly that he felt compelled to carry them out in any way he could.

it's the other way around. the term humanist is defined by abstracting recurring or essential themes of works of a group of people that this recurrence bonds in time. it's invalid to say "montaigne is a humanists, so nothing that is human is foreign to him". correct correlation between a part and a whole in this case is, f.e., montaign made himself main topic of his work, so he's a humanist.

He said "Montaigne is a humanist, so he thinks every individual is has the same completeness of humanity".

Another bump for Montaigne -- I spent the better part of year reading and rereading his work. Suffice to say no writer has had a greater impact on my life. Infinitely readable, coversationlist senza rival, greatly influenced my personal writing, and above all somehow manages to come across as the closest friend that I never met.

Etienne La Boetie -- check out his excellent political work on totalitarianism and its need for willingly obedient public

You're a liar. If you're too dense to understand Montaigne there is no way you understood Pascal or Erasmus.

>commenting before he reads the thread

Agreed wholeheartedly, especially for "and above all somehow manages to come across as the closest friend that I never met." You always feel like you're 'returning' to Montaigne, that you're 'hanging out' with him. As equally charming, casual, always slipping into little obsessions or returning endlessly to some pet topic that you've only gotten to recognize after spending so much time with him. Reading him feels like the sort of conversation that sometimes you feel you could always reach with others

Yeah, back when I had no friends reading Montaigne was one of my coping methods. It's one of the things that got me really into literature.