Michel de Montaigne, "Les Essaies"
- Artist/Author/Producer: Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
- Confronting Bodies: Church
- Dates of action: 1595
- Location: France
- Description of the Art Work
- "Les Essaies," (1580-1588): Written more perhaps to express his views the
first two books of "Essays" include 94 chapters; the earliest are short,
relatively impersonal strings of anecdotes with brief conclusions. The
most interesting among them reveal the problems of inconsistency,
ambition, pain and death. From 1574-75 he shows a growing wariness of
stoical solutions to life's problems. He attacks Stoicism, and all
dogmatism. He admits fallibility of the human mind to know anything with
certainty and takes as his motto "What do I know." The years 1578-80 are
more optimistic as Montaigne turns his attention from human limitation to
human resources. In Book III, Montaigne proclaims his new sense of unity
in the race and in the individual, his heightened confidence leads to
greater concern with public behavior.
- Description of incident
- 1595 France-Lyons: Certain sections of the unexpurgated edition were
banned by the Church for being tolerant of an easy morality.
- Results of incident
- 1676 Italy-Rome: Listed in the Index
Source: "Banned Books 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D.", by Anne Lyon Haight, and Chandler
B. Grannis, R.R. Bowker Co, 1978.
