Penguin Classics' The Complete Essays gathers presumably all essays by Renaissance-era writer Michel de Montaigne. Born in France in 1533 and writing mostly after 1570, Montaigne is credited with having made the essay into a literary form. An army of classic famous essay writers have emerged in the years since: Bacon, Rousseau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to name a few. The essay, as fashioned by Montaigne, can stretch from the personal to the universal, and relate history, autobiography, and theory. Montaigne was equal parts lawyer, counselor, philosopher, and statesman; but in these essays, its Montaigne the scholar that impresses me most. He appears to have had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of historical facts and trivia at the ready. However, Montaigne's occasional flair for the seemingly mundane* was slightly more entertaining. My favorite example of this is his essay "On smells":... I am myself very fond of living amongst good smells and I immeasurably loathe bad ones, which I sense at a greater distance than anyone else... A concern for smells is chiefly a matter for the ladies.
These volumes--the essays are organized into three parts within this one paperback--are dutifully translated by M.A. Screech.
*I have to remind myself that what seems mundane now was possibly part of a larger discussion or issue of the time.
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