Ensayos de Michel de Montaigne

Description

Michel de Montaigne's essays are contained in three books and 107 chapters of varying length. They were originally written in Middle French and were originally published in the Kingdom of France. Montaigne's stated design in writing, publishing, and revising the Essays during the period from about 1570 to 1592 was to record "some traits of my character and moods." The essays were first published in 1580 and cover a wide range of topics. Montaigne wrote in a rather elaborate rhetoric designed to intrigue and engage the reader, sometimes seeming to move in a stream of thought from one topic to another and at other times employing a structured style that places more emphasis on the didactic nature of his work. His arguments are often supported by quotations from ancient Greek, Latin, and Italian texts, such as Lucretius's De rerum natura and the works of Plutarch. Furthermore, his essays were seen as an important contribution to both the form of writing and skepticism. The name itself comes from the French word essais, meaning "attempts" or "tests," showing how this new way of writing was not intended to educate or test. Rather, his essays were exploratory journeys where he works through logical steps to bring skepticism to what is being discussed.