Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was a French writer who invented the essay form. His Essais (1580, expanded 1588 and 1595) established the essay as a literary genre — short prose pieces in which the writer thinks on the page, following a subject wherever it leads.
Core ideas
- The essay as attempt: Montaigne named his pieces essais — attempts, trials — signaling that the form is exploratory, not conclusive. An essay does not begin with a thesis and defend it; it begins with a question and discovers what the writer thinks by the act of writing. This makes the essay fundamentally different from the treatise, the argument, or the report [@montaigne1580].
- The self as subject: Montaigne wrote about himself — his habits, fears, reading, digestion, friendships, the experience of kidney stones — not from narcissism but from the conviction that honest self-examination reveals truths about the human condition. “Each man bears the entire form of the human condition.”
- Digression as method: Montaigne’s essays move associatively rather than linearly. A piece that begins with cannibals may end with European cruelty; one that begins with education may end with the limits of reason. The digressive movement is the essay’s argument — it shows how one thing connects to another.
Notable works
- Essais (1580; expanded 1588, 1595) — three books of essays ranging from brief observations to extended explorations
Related
- essay — the form Montaigne invented
- essay writing — the discipline that descends from Montaigne’s practice
- freewriting — Montaigne’s exploratory method anticipates freewriting’s generative principle
- George Orwell — an essayist in Montaigne’s tradition, adapted to political concerns