5 ms·
Michel de Montaigne
- dang 3y agoHmm - I found only one small previous thread about Montaigne: Montaigne Fled the Plague, and Found Himself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25261727 - Dec 2020 (4 comments) maybe there were others?
- karaterobot 3y agoMontaigne is one of my favorites. Essays old enough that Shakespeare read them, but still totally approachable today (or, at least the translation I read was).
- adasdasdas 3y agoOne of the OG skeptics, love Montaigne
- ksenzee 3y agoInterestingly, there still is no complete scholarly edition of the Essays, because he published three different versions during his lifetime (to stay ahead of copyright expiration), and he made so many additions and changes between editions that it's practically impossible to represent them all on paper. What we need is an online digital edition, and nobody's done that yet AFAIK.
- wazoox 3y agoThere is a "last edition", the so-called Bordeaux exemplary, with annotations from Montaigne's hand; then there is a later, posthumous edition which is the basis for most modern ones, but has been modified by his family on some important points (in particular politically or religiously sensitive ones). Arguably this "last edition" is the best one: https://www.puf.com/content/Les_Essais_Livres_I-III https://www.puf.com/content/Les_Essais_Livres_I-III You can also go with "La Pléïade" version, however it's based upon the posthumous version, and in typical Pléïade's fashion, punctuation is altered/modernised from the ancient versions. I've read both and my advice is to go with the first, cheaper one :)
- briga 3y agoMy complete Penguin edition notes all the different changes between versions. It’s rather ungainly to read though. The changes between versions are rarely that extensive, usually just some different phrasing here and there
- ksenzee 3y agoI guarantee it does not include all the changes between versions. It would be impossible to read. I chose an essay pretty much at random for a prototype digital edition in 2002, and it was eyebrow-raising how many differences there are among the three primary versions.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago> to stay ahead of copyright expiration Could you elaborate on that? I thought copyright was a much more recent idea.
- ksenzee 3y agoIt dates to not long after the printing press was invented, but it was a much shorter period. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/montaigne-monopoly-revising-the-essais-under-the-french-privilege-system/AF9EF83AF9D5773D235DC1502F37FB2E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/mon...
- kwhitefoot 3y agoNot really the same. Those were privileges granted one book at a time. As far as I can tell the Act of Anne was the first law describing the modern concept of copyright as a right not a privilege.
- efficax 3y agoit's true that the Essays was published in three versions by Montaigne over his life but they did not have copyright regulations until much later (in the 18th century) and there are a number of critical and scholarly editions the Essays...
- xhevahir 3y agoThe Donald Frame translation I read a long time ago had numbers or letters marking the different editions within the text. I didn't study the essays carefully enough to say how useful these were but they were there.
- Aidevah 3y agoI think the French Pléiade edition is a scholarly/critical edition? Montaigne himself said that the main changes between editions are additions. From On Vanity (Penguin translation): >I make additions but not corrections: firstly, that is because when a man has mortgaged his book to the world I find it reasonable that he should no longer have any rights over it. Let him put it better elsewhere if he can, not corrupt the work he has already sold. From such folk you should buy nothing until they are dead. Let them do their thinking properly before they publish. Who is making them hurry? My book is ever one: except that, to avoid the purchaser’s going away quite empty-handed when a new edition is brought out, I allow myself, since it is merely a piece of badly joined marquetry, to tack on some additional ornaments. That is no more than a little extra thrown in, which does not damn the original version but does lend some particular value to each subsequent one through some ambitious bit of precision. From this there can easily arise however some transposition of the chronological order, my tales finding their place not always by age but by opportuneness. Although I agree that a digital edition that allows you to toggle between the different editions would be a wonderful idea. Charles Rosen talked at length about the inadequacies of the Pléiade edition in this regard in his review[1]. [1] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/02/14/the-genius-of-montaigne/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/02/14/the-genius-of-mo...
- ksenzee 3y agoRight. I did a prototype digital edition of one of the Essays for my master's thesis 20 years ago, and it was surprising how much interesting stuff was just plain missing from the standard editions. I would have expected some Montaigne scholar to have published at least a partial digital edition by now. If it's not been done by the time I retire, I'll be tempted to do it myself.
- rramadass 3y agoYou should checkout Michel De Montaigne The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters published under Everyman's Library Classics (hardcover edition).
- billfruit 3y agoIs that the case? The M.A Screetch translation published by Penguin seems to be just that, with copious annotations, notes, scholarly apparatus and indications of the multiple versions of the text in parentheses.
- ksenzee 3y agoThe Screech translation is excellent but it's a translation, not an edition, and it's not based on a complete critical edition because there was none in 1991 when the translation was published.
- phronesis 3y agoDavid Runciman did a great podcast about Montaigne last week: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/history-of-ideas-montaigne/id1682047968?i=1000613477061 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/history-of-ideas-monta...
- dredmorbius 3y agoOoh! Subscribed, and just finished the Montaigne segment a few seconds ago. Runciman's "History of Ideas" series on political thought was excellent, and pairs well with a number of other philosophy podcasts I follow (Peter Adamson, Stephen West, Cecil Adams, Nigel Warburton, amongst others). Thanks for mentioning that.
- sherilm 3y ago“Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies.” "On the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses."
- 082349872349872 3y agocf https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34365663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34365663
- 082349872349872 3y ago> I have gathered a posy of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own. - MdM Montaigne knew how to play The Glass Bead Game. (and anticipated the Memex' associative trails with a low-tech implementation)
- cjohnson318 3y agoCan you expand on this?
- 082349872349872 3y agohttp://worrydream.com/refs/Bush%20-%20As%20We%20May%20Think%20(Life%20Magazine%209-10-1945).pdf http://worrydream.com/refs/Bush%20-%20As%20We%20May%20Think%... p.123 > The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him. Montaigne incorporates classical material (by reference) into the personal trails of his essays. Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millefiori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millefiori beads, Glass Bead Game (Hesse) players incorporate old material into new contexts of their own devising...
- bondarchuk 3y agoapparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game#Descriptio...
- 3y ago
- melvinmelih 3y agoHis essay on "To Philosophize Is to Learn to Die" is probably one of my most favorite pieces of philosophical work, I think about it every other day: https://hyperessays.net/essays/to-philosophize-is-to-learn-to-die https://hyperessays.net/essays/to-philosophize-is-to-learn-t... > A friend of mine the other day turning over my tablets, found therein a memorandum of something I would have done after my decease, whereupon I told him, as it was really true, that though I was no more than a league’s distance only from my own house, and merry and well, yet when that thing came into my head, I made haste to write it down there, because I was not certain to live till I came home. As a man that am eternally brooding over my own thoughts, and confine them to my own particular concerns, I am at all hours as well prepared as I am ever like to be, and death, whenever he shall come, can bring nothing along with him I did not expect long before. We should always, as near as we can, be booted and spurred, and ready to go, and, above all things, take care, at that time, to have no business with any one but one’s self.
- ealhad 3y agoBeing French, I studied Montaigne in middle school (or high school, can't remember) – I did not expect to bump into him here. Quelle bonne surprise !
- francoismassot 3y agoI'm very happy to see Montaigne on HN, there must be some affinities with the community here and I like that :) This is my favorite philosopher by far (I'm not saying that because I'm french!). Partly because his essays are not too "abstract" and this allows me to truly understand it, partly also because I found his essays still valid today. One little and unimportant anecdote I liked: his parents forced themselves and his tutor to speak only in latin when he was a child. Later, Montaigne thanked his parents a lot when he saw how others were struggling with this language.
- vmsp 3y agoI wrote a blog post about that! :) https://0x1.pt/2023/01/20/how-montaigne-learned-latin/ https://0x1.pt/2023/01/20/how-montaigne-learned-latin/
- francoismassot 3y agoexcellent!
- nescioquid 3y agoI like to think of him as the last known native speaker of latin! I made the pilgrimage to visit his study when I last visited your country. I had read about the quotations set into the rafters and was surprised to find so much greek!
- pinewurst 3y agoAs an intro to Montaigne and his world, try the excellent "How to Live" by Sarah Bakewell
- Quarrel 3y agoI came to recommend this, so glad to see your comment. I thought it was great, although I knew little more than that Montaigne was a philosopher before reading it. A really fascinating man.