Showing results for title "The Essays", by author "Michel Montaigne" in Literary History & Criticism

In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death.

Michel de Montaigne was a contemporary of Shakespeare who, after having played his part in France's terrible wars of religion, retired to his estates and decided to write about what he knew best--himself. And so in his likes and dislikes, his reflections on history, his loves and his travels, he brought to life, not just one man, but all human experience. "What do I know?" he asked. If not himself and his own soul, then nothing else.