The complete online text of The Essays of Montaigne — Volume 14 by Michel de Montaigne.

The French author Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) created a new literary genre, the essay, in which he used self-portrayal as a mirror of humanity in general. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born on Feb. 23, 1533, at the family estate called Montai...

The unconventional style of the Essais has been an essential part of virtually every major study of Montaigne. Its link to the essayist's discourse on the unnatural--scattered throughout the text--has also been noted, relatively rarely, however, in connection with "Des boyteux" (III, 11). (1)...

Montaigne's essay "Of Friendship" represents a particularly interesting textual space in which the author's quests for self-knowledge and knowledge of the Other intersect, where the preliminary project of self-exploration--"I am myself the matter of my book" ("To the Reader" 2)--is supplemented by an exploration...