Montaigne

Emerson is probably Montaigne's best critic when he rightly says, "Cut these words, and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive." Montaigne's writing really is alive, because it is about life itself. Montaigne comes in that great tradition of secularized wisdom writing, a group including Freud, Nietzsche, Proust, Emerson, etc. His topic is life, and more specifically himself, even if his essays have titles like "Upon Some Verses of Virgil." He talks about Virgil, but Virgil is only important insofar as Montaigne is able to extract himself from Virgil (and other writing), for instance, "

The more respectful, more timorous, more coy, and secret love of the Spaniards and Italians pleases me. I know not who of old wished his throat as long as that of a crane, that he might the longer taste what he swallowed: it had been better wished as to this quick and precipitous pleasure, especially in such natures as mine that have the fault of being too prompt. To stay its flight and delay it with preambles; all things- a glance, a bow, a word, a sign, stand for favor and recompense between them. Were it not an excellent piece of thrift in him who could dine on the steam of the roast? `Tis a passion that mixes with very little solid essence, far more vanity and feverish raving; and we should serve and pay it accordingly. Let us teach the ladies to set a better value and esteem upon themselves, to amuse and fool us: we give the last charge at the first onset; the French impetuosity will still show itself; by spinning out their favors, and exposing them in small parcels, even miserable old age itself will find some little share of reward, according to its worth and merit. He who has no fruition but in fruition, who wins nothing unless he sweeps the stakes, who takes no pleasure in the chase but in the quarry, ought not to introduce himself in our school: the more steps and degrees there are, so much higher and more honorable is the uppermost seat; we should take a pleasure in being conducted to it, as in magnificent palaces, by various porticoes and passages, long and pleasant galleries, and many windings.

This seems to me to be perfect experiential criticism, the kind we'll later see in Ruskin and Pater. But who really cares what Virgil said (in context of Montaigne)? One could have no context for this quote and still find in it insights which are near-universal, and this is Montaigne's strength; he is able to isolate the most basic human qualities from nearly any source (Virgil in this case) and give us his splendid commentary. His prose is very much high-style, but is never political and never deceptive. Montaigne is not advancing some aim, he is simply finding, discovering, and exploring himself (and us too).

A classic Montaigne sentence is (from this passage), "He who has no fruition but in fruition, who wins nothing unless he sweeps the stakes, who takes no pleasure in the chase but in the quarry, ought not to introduce himself in our school: the more steps and degrees there are, so much higher and more honorable is the uppermost seat; we should take a pleasure in being conducted to it, as in magnificent palaces, by various porticoes and passages, long and pleasant galleries, and many windings. "

One could not be blamed for hearing a voice similar to Marx's, especially with the front-loaded, noun heavy style, and the impression that we are being spoken to from a pulpit, but Montaigne's pulpit is decidedly educational rather than political or religious, and the sight is the human and not the church. Montaigne teaches us ethics and style while marvelously leading us through "porticoes and passages, long and pleasant galleries, and many windings." These porticoes and passages and windings are just like Montaigne's writing itself. There is no over-determined structure, rather, he is writing as he feels it, and is able to translate his thought to prose beautifully. His writing is in this sense mimetic, the form is totally compatible with his content, free from boundaries and open to possibility (wherever Montaigne decides to take it).

My personal favorite aspect of Montaigne's writing is that by the end of the essay, we will have learned worlds more about Montaigne than whatever it was he was writing about, as exemplified from his great last passage:

I say that males and females are cast in the same mold, and that, education and usage excepted, the difference is not great. Plato indifferently invites both the one and the other to the society of all studies, exercises, and vocations, both military and civil, in his commonwealth; and the philosopher Antisthenes rejected all distinction between their virtue and ours. It is much more easy to accuse one sex than to excuse the other; `tis according to the saying "The Pot and the Kettle."

Was this not an essay about Virgil? But where is Virgil at the end? He is nowhere, and Montaigne is everywhere, and we are better off for it. This last passage could've been about Shakespeare, or really any writer, but Montaigne is able to use any material he finds useful and give us his wisdom, which for us becomes a kind of received wisdom, a secular revelation or epiphany of sorts, what Pater would call a "privileged moment."