[PDF] Montaigne And The Quality Of Mercy eBook

Author : David Quint
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 33,86 MB
Release : 2014-07-14
Category : History
ISBN : 1400864801

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In a fresh reading of Montaigne's Essais, David Quint portrays the great Renaissance writer as both a literary man and a deeply engaged political thinker concerned with the ethical basis of society and civil discourse. From the first essay, Montaigne places the reader in a world of violent political conflict reminiscent of the French Wars of Religion through which he lived and wrote. Quint shows how a group of interrelated essays, including the famous one on the cannibals of Brazil, explores the confrontation between warring adversaries: a clement or vindictive victor and his suppliant or defiant captive. How can the two be reconciled? In a climate of hatred and obstinacy, Montaigne argues not only for the political necessity but also for the moral imperative of trusting and submitting to others and of extending mercy to them. For Quint, this ethical message informs other topics of the Essais: Montaigne's criticism of stoic models of virtue, his project to reform the cruel behavior of his noble class, his self-portrait that depicts his relaxed and unstudied nature, and his measuring of his own behavior against the classical virtue of Socrates. Quint's reading, attentive to Montaigne's verbal artistry and to his historical and cultural context, shows the essayist always aware of the other side of the issue. The moral thought of the Essais emerges as startlingly modern, both in the perennial urgency of Montaigne's concerns and in the self-questioning open-endedness of his doctrine. Originally published in 1998. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Author : David Carroll Simon
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 22,70 MB
Release : 2018-06-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1501723421

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"Argues for the importance of states of careless inattention and easygoing dispassion to literary and scientific works inspired by Francis Bacon's philosophy of nature, retrieving a counternarrative to the rise of scientific method and its attendant ethos of rigor in the intellectual culture of seventeenth-century England"--

Author : Peter G. Platt
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 42,63 MB
Release : 2020-07-31
Category : Drama
ISBN : 1474463428

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Through sustained close-readings of Montaigne's essays and Shakespeare's plays, Platt explores both authors' approaches to self, knowledge and form that stress fractures, interruptions and alternatives.

Author : Hugh Grady
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 19,77 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9780199257607

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The four plays of Shakespeare's Henriad and the slightly later Hamlet brilliantly explore interconnections between political power and interior subjectivity as productions of the newly emerging constellation we call modernity. Hugh Grady argues that for Shakespeare subjectivity was a critical, negative mode of resistance to power--not, as many recent critics have asserted, its abettor.

Author : Ann Hartle
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 12,32 MB
Release : 2003-03-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 113944204X

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Michel de Montaigne, the inventor of the essay, has always been acknowledged as a great literary figure but has never been thought of as a philosophical original. This book treats Montaigne as a serious thinker in his own right, taking as its point of departure Montaigne's description of himself as 'an unpremeditated and accidental philosopher'. Whereas previous commentators have treated Montaigne's Essays as embodying a scepticism harking back to classical sources, Ann Hartle offers an account that reveals Montaigne's thought to be dialectical, transforming sceptical doubt into wonder at the most familiar aspects of life. This major reassessment of a much admired but also much underestimated thinker will interest a wide range of historians of philosophy as well as scholars in comparative literature, French studies and the history of ideas.

Author : William M. Hamlin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 44,82 MB
Release : 2020-10-01
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 0190848782

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The French author Michel de Montaigne is widely regarded as the founder and greatest practitioner of the personal essay. A member of the minor aristocracy, he worked as a judicial investigator, served as mayor of Bordeaux, and sought to bring stability to his war-torn country during the latter half of the sixteenth century. He is best known today, however, as the author of the Essays, a vast collection of meditations on topics ranging from love and sexuality to freedom, learning, doubt, self-scrutiny, and peace of mind. One of the most original books ever to emerge from Europe, Montaigne's masterpiece has been continuously and powerfully influential among writers and philosophers from its first appearance down to the present day. His extraordinary curiosity and discernment, combined with his ability to mix thoughtful judgment with revealing anecdote, make him one of the most readable of all writers. In Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction, William M. Hamlin provides an overview of Montaigne's life, thought, and writing, situating the Essays within the arc of Montaigne's lived experience and focusing on themes of particular interest for contemporary readers. Designed for a broad audience, this introduction will appeal to first-time students of Montaigne as well as to seasoned experts and admirers. Well-informed and lucidly written, Hamlin's book offers an ideal point of entry into the life and work of the world's first and most extraordinary essayist.

Author : Douglas I. Thompson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 17,85 MB
Release : 2018
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 019067993X

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"Toleration is one of the most studied concepts in contemporary political theory and philosophy, yet the range of contemporary normative prescriptions concerning how to do toleration or how to be tolerant is remarkably narrow and limited. Contemporary thinking about toleration evinces, paradoxically, an intolerance of politics. This book argues for toleration as a practice of negotiation, looking to a philosopher not usually considered political: Michel de Montaigne. For Montaigne, toleration is an expansive, active practice of political endurance in negotiating public goods across lines of value difference. In other words, to be tolerant means to possess a particular set of political capacities for negotiation. Douglas Thompson draws on Montaigne's Essais to recover the idea that political negotiation grows out of genuine care for public goods and the establishment of political trust. Thompson argues that we need a Montaignian conception of toleration today if we are to negotiate effectively the circumstances of increasing political polarization and ongoing value conflict, and he applies this notion to current debates in political theory, as well to contemporary issues, including the problem of migration and refugee asylum. Additionally, for Montaigne scholars, he reads the Essais principally as a work of public political education, and resituates the work as an extension of Montaigne's political activity as a high-level negotiator between Catholic and Huguenot parties during the French Wars of Religion"--

Author : Philippe Desan
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 832 pages
File Size : 27,8 MB
Release : 2019-01-29
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0691183007

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A definitive biography of the great French essayist and thinker One of the most important writers and thinkers of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) helped invent a literary genre that seemed more modern than anything that had come before. But did he do it, as he suggests in his Essays, by retreating to his chateau and stoically detaching himself from his violent times? Philippe Desan overturns this long standing myth by showing that Montaigne was constantly connected to and concerned with realizing his political ambitions—and that the literary and philosophical character of the Essays largely depends on them. Desan shows how Montaigne conceived of each edition of the Essays as an indispensable prerequisite to the next stage of his public career. It was only after his political failure that Montaigne took refuge in literature, and even then it was his political experience that enabled him to find the right tone for his genre. The most comprehensive and authoritative biography of Montaigne yet written, this sweeping narrative offers a fascinating new picture of his life and work.

Author : John O'Neill
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 40,95 MB
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780853239963

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John O'Neill reads Montaigne's 'Essays' from the principle of friendship as a communicative and pedagogical practice in society, literature and politics. He shows how subjectivity is shaken by its internal weakness once we move inside the structure of domination in politics, gender and race.

Author : Suzanne Ellrodt
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 30,20 MB
Release : 2024-06-04
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1526183722

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This book is not merely a study of Shakespeare’s debt to Montaigne. It traces the evolution of self-consciousness in literary, philosophical and religious writings from antiquity to the Renaissance and demonstrates that its early modern forms first appeared in the Essays and in Shakespearean drama. It shows, however, that, contrary to some postmodern assumptions, the early calling in question of the self did not lead to a negation of identity. Montaigne acknowledged the fairly stable nature of his personality and Shakespeare, as Dryden noted, maintained 'the constant conformity of each character to itself from its very first setting out in the Play quite to the End'. A similar evolution is traced in the progress from an objective to a subjective apprehension of time from Greek philosophy to early modern authors. A final chapter shows that the influence of scepticism on Montaigne and Shakespeare was counterbalanced by their reliance on permanent humanistic values.