Literary analysis of Michel de Montaigne’s essays

In his essays, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) pursued a single goal. He just wanted to figure out how to live each day in the best possible manner. The question underlying his works is always the same: What should I do now? Montaigne’s literary output becomes easily comprehensible if we keep in mind its purpose. Otherwise, it seems chaotic and arbitrary, as though the author was waking up each morning in total ignorance of what he had done the day before. I regard literary analysis as a tool, not as a goal in itself. The whole point of studying an author’s style is to grasp his thought patterns. Montaigne wrote primarily to understand himself, and solve problems in the present and the near future. His literary style is the expression of his philosophical exploration, his hesitations, and his enlightenment. The elements of Montaigne’s literary style correspond to the steps in his thinking. He first asked the question and identified the most promising response; then he played with arguments or anecdotes until those would point in the right direction. I define Montaigne’s literary style as: ask, reply, argue, and justify.” Until that moment, philosophers refrained from taking sides until they had thoroughly analysed a problem. Montaigne breaks with the tradition of Augustine (354-430 AD) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD) because of his time pressure. In contrast to his predecessors, he wants to come to a workable answer quickly and with a minimum of research. Let’s examine the four key elements of Montaigne’s literary style, that is, ask, reply, argue, and justify. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/literary-analysis-of-michel-de-montaignes-essays/