E-Books →Montaigne's Politics Authority and Governance in the Essais

Free Download Montaigne's Politics: Authority and Governance in the Essais by Biancamaria Fontana
English | January 23, 2008 | ISBN: 0691131228 | True EPUB | 208 pages | 0.5 MB
Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) is principally known today as a literary figure-the inventor of the modern essay and the pioneer of autobiographical self-exploration who retired from politics in midlife to write his private, philosophical, and apolitical Essais. But, as Biancamaria Fontana argues in Montaigne's Politics, a novel, vivid account of the political meaning of the Essais in the context of Montaigne's life and times, his retirement from the Bordeaux parliament in 1570 "could be said to have marked the beginning, rather than the end, of his public career." He later served as mayor of Bordeaux and advisor to King Henry of Navarre, and, as Fontana argues, Montaigne's Essais very much reflect his ongoing involvement and preoccupation with contemporary politics-particularly the politics of France's civil wars between Catholics and Protestants.