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Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French pronounced [miʃɛl ekɛm də mɔ̃tɛɲ]) (February 28, 1533–September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography — and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, including René Descartes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stefan Zweig, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Isaac Asimov, and perhaps William Shakespeare (see section "Related Writers and Influence" below). In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sais-je?' ('What do I know?'). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly — his own judgment — makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne, and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling. From Wikipedia under the
GNU Free Documentation License Michel de Montaigne
yashitaka ue, 07 Apr 2009 05:06:00 GM montaigne. .jpg Quand je danse, je danse; quand je dors, je dors; voire et quand je me promene solitairement en un beau verger, si mes pensees se sont entretenues des occurrences etrangeres quelque partie du temps, quelque autre partie ... Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Aalambi Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:29:00 GM Book information: Essays of . Michel de Montaigne. by . Michel de Montaigne. . Kindle Edition, 416 pages. Format: Kindle Book Publisher: EbooksLib ISBN: ISBN-13: The present publication is intended to supply a recognised deficiency in our ... Join FriendFeed; Kaza Has Spoken Again (Twitter); My Sister Site ...
Shawn Michel de Montaigne ue, 07 Apr 2009 00:26:00 GM I've found FriendFeed to be a pretty decent place to find articles, etc. What I find I post there. If you'd like to follow or comment, sign up! Become a member at my sister site--thepiertoforever.webs.com--and receive Part III of the ... From Google Blog Search: "Michel de Montaigne" 'Dead Philosophers' tell no tales, but their deaths do
Mail Tribune Cicero observed that "to philosophize is to learn how to die," and Michel de Montaigne had it that "He who should teach men to die would at the same time ... and more » At Random for June 12, 2009
2TheAdvocate The words of Mark Twain and Eudora Welty, Michel de Montaigne and Marcus Aurelius, John Steinbeck and even Laurie still offer keen insights on the moment, ... and more » The Bath Fugues
Brisbane Times Besides Bach, there are the 16th-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne and the 20th-century theorist Walter Benjamin. ... and more » From Google News Search: "Michel de Montaigne" Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (28 February 1533 - 13 September 1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay. EssaisWritten between 1571 and 1592, these were published in various editions between 1580 and 1595
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