Maybe the most interesting chapter of
Montaigne’s Essays is not, for
instance his essay on friendship, in which he expresses the essence of
friendship in the simple sentence “Because it was him, because it was me”
(referring to his late friend Étienne de La Boétie). It is also not the last
essay in the book (“Of Experience”), seen as such by many (the essay that ends
with the phrase “When seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are
but seated upon our breech.” No, I think that it is the preface of the book, entitled
“To the reader”.
When you start to read the preface, you
tend to think that it is what it is. Usually a preface explains to the reader
what the author’s intention is and what his or her reasons are to write the
book that follows. And it is true that you can read the “To the reader” this
way. Montaigne tells us here that he has written the essays for his family and
friends, as a kind of memory to him after his death. The essays will help them to
remember what kind of person he was. Therefore Montaigne wants to give a
realistic self-description and he doesn’t want to hide his bad sides. For “Had
my intention been to seek the world’s favour, I should surely have adorned
myself with borrowed beauties”. So, “it is myself I paint.” Therefore, he’ll be
completely honest in the essays that follow. Now it is so that many Montaigne
interpreters believe he is and they see the essays as a kind of self-expression
by Montaigne; as a true and straightforward reflection of his thoughts and
self-image. I, too, think that there are good reasons to believe that Montaigne
was a very honest person, certainly considering the age he lived in and the
persons in his environment. Nevertheless, I have my doubts whether the essays
fully reflect the person he was. Each
person, how honest she or he may be, always gives a subjective description of
her or himself. Everybody leaves things out that s/he considers not really
important; that s/he feels ashamed of; etc. Every self-description – even a
honest one – is always a distorted description; consciously or unconsciously.
Moreover, when Montaigne wrote only for his family and friends, why then had he
published his book by a publisher? Why not simply having printed, say, 20, 30
or 50 copies for himself and give them away? However, he didn’t do so, and the
book could be bought by everybody. So, probably Montaigne had a hidden
intention with the Essays, anyway
with the first editions (that comprised only the Books I and II; Book III has
been added much later). I’ll not speculate what this intention was, but one
possibility is, as Philippe Desan assumes, that the Essays were a kind of application for an official function, like an
ambassadorship in Rome.
Montaigne gives a description of himself in
the essays that follow the “To the reader”. The description is often not direct
but for a part the kind of person he is must be inferred from and gathered from
his discussions of all kinds of themes, varying from military affairs, the
education of children, friendship, means of transport, etc., etc. However,
already in the preface Montaigne starts with his self-presentation. Here
already we see that he is a person who likes to talk about himself, who
addresses himself in a familiar way directly to the reader; not with indirect
polite language forms. He doesn’t like frills and artificiality. He would
rather be seen naked than with clothes, figuratively speaking. Not to be looked
upon without awe. Therefore, the preface can also be read in a second way. Then
it is not a “To the reader” that invites others to read the book, but then it
is actually the first essay of the series of essays that follow. Essay 0, so to
speak.
All these aspects and the double status of
the “To the reader” make that this preface is a special kind of document, which
makes it by far more important than the essays themselves. Till the time of
Montaigne people didn’t write about ordinary people, let alone that they wrote
about themselves. Stories and writings went about God, the saints, knights and
kings and people who had performed extraordinary deeds with a holy meaning. But
this changed with the Renaissance and the rise of humanism. The holy and
religious remained important, but it was no longer the centre of the mental
world. In the new age man, and no longer the spiritual, became the main focus
of attention. And that’s what we see also in this “To the reader”. Although
Montaigne was religious, he doesn’t talk about God and the holy in this
preface, and in the Essays he hardly
does, if he does at all. No, in the preface Montaigne talks about himself and
about nothing else. And that’s why it is the most important and most
interesting text in the Essays. For
this “To the reader” opens a new era. It is a declaration that opens the Age of
Man. And the essays that follow? They are simply a footnote to it.
Note
You can find the text of Montaigne’s “To
the reader” here:
(In the original French text it’s simply called “Au
lecteur”, so “To the reader”.)
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