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Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays

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Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays

By: Michel de Montaigne
Narrated by: Peter Wickham
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Summary

In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death. His voice, by turns lively, curious, digressive, ironic, and moving, is utterly captivating. The Essays feel less like a work of literature and more like an ongoing conversation with a very well-informed friend.

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Public Domain (P)2021 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd. Essays History Literary History & Criticism Philosophy Politics & Government Social Sciences Nonfiction Witty Middle Ages
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Peter Wickham is always great in anything he reads. Montaigne’s magnum opus is a core work in the history of European literature…and covers an amazing array of topics.

Superb narration of an important work

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Much of this seems modern, so Putin, Trump or Xi can be fitted in to accounts of the manipulation of public opinion, and he's prepared to consider when his own lies were justified or self-serving. 'Public' means men; that seems to be the only area in which he's almost entirely of his time. He's delightful on the difficulties of writing despite having invented 'long form' journalism.

extraordinarily modern

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