The Complete Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne essentially invented the essay form with these personal reflections on everything from friendship to death, influencing centuries of writers with his honest, conversational style.

Michel de Montaigne's Essays pioneered a new form of writing that combined personal reflection with philosophical inquiry. Written during the late 16th century, these pieces explore universal human experiences through the lens of one man's honest self-examination.

Montaigne's revolutionary approach was to use his own experience as a starting point for exploring larger questions about human nature, knowledge, and morality. His famous motto "Que sais-je?" (What do I know?) reflects his skeptical approach to absolute truth and his preference for provisional, personal understanding.

The essays cover an extraordinary range of topics: friendship and love, education and reading, travel and cultural difference, aging and death. Montaigne's willingness to contradict himself and change his mind within and between essays reflects his belief that human nature is inconsistent and evolving.

Montaigne's style is conversational and digressive, mimicking the patterns of thought rather than formal argument. His sentences meander through associations and memories, creating an intimate relationship with readers who feel they're listening to a friend's confidences.

The essay "Of Friendship" explores Montaigne's relationship with Étienne de La Boétie, providing one of literature's most moving accounts of male friendship. His description of their bond as a complete unity of souls established a template for thinking about intimate friendship that continues to influence how we understand close relationships.

Montaigne's discussions of cultural relativism, based partly on accounts of New World peoples, challenged European assumptions about civilization and barbarism. His recognition that customs vary widely while human nature remains constant provides early insights into anthropological thinking.

The Essays have influenced virtually every subsequent essayist, from Bacon and Emerson to contemporary writers. Montaigne's demonstration that personal experience can illuminate universal truths established the essay as a legitimate literary form and showed how individual perspective can contribute to philosophical understanding.