View Extract - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

"Revelations of Character"
"Revelations of Character"
Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy in
Montaigne
Edited by
Corinne Noirot-Maguire with Valérie M. Dionne
CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING
"Revelations of Character": Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy in Montaigne, edited by
Corinne Noirot-Maguire with Valérie M. Dionne
This book first published 2007 by
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2007 by Corinne Noirot-Maguire with Valérie M. Dionne and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN 1-84718-167-8; ISBN 13: 9781847181671
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements........................................................................................... vii
Introduction
Mary B. McKinley ...............................................................................................1
Part I: Rhetorical and Relational Perspectives
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
Corinne Noirot-Maguire ....................................................................................11
Friendship and Free-Thinking in Montaigne
Richard Scholar..................................................................................................31
The Ethics of “De l’amitié”: The Essais as a Gift
Valérie M. Dionne..............................................................................................47
Part II: Political and Ethical Perspectives
The Warrior’s Ethos & The Writer’s: Book I as an Art of Phronesis
Eve-Alice Roustang-Stoller ...............................................................................71
Tragic Ethe in Montaigne’s Essais
Hervé Thomas Campangne ................................................................................85
Beyond Stoicism: Plutarch’s Parallel Lives and Montaigne’s
Search for a New Noble Ethos
Cara Welch.........................................................................................................99
Part III: Epistemological and Philosophical Perspectives
“Au rebours des autres”: The “Know Thyself” Motif in “De la vanité”
Agnieszka Steczowicz......................................................................................121
vi
Table of Contents
“I Am No Philosopher”: Montaigne’s Suspension of Philosophical Ethos
Emmanuel Naya...............................................................................................133
The Ethos of Truth in the Essais
Marc Foglia......................................................................................................153
Part IV: Cultural and Anthropological Perspectives
The Cannibal Virtue
Celso Martins Azar Filho .................................................................................171
The Writing on the Map: Anamorphosis in Montaigne’s
Journal de voyage en Italie
Martine Sauret..................................................................................................187
The Human Deviation from Natural Logic in the “Apologie de Raimond
Sebond”
Suzanne M. Verderber .....................................................................................201
Afterword: “A Pattern Within” ........................................................................219
Contributors .....................................................................................................221
Bibliography ....................................................................................................225
Index ................................................................................................................241
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As in any truly collaborative endeavour, many actors and enabling factors
should be credited. The Renaissance Society of America first welcome a double
panel on “Montaigne and Ethos” at its 2006 annual meeting (San Francisco,
March 24, 2006). Organised by Valérie Dionne and Corinne Noirot-Maguire,
those sessions had a similar focus to Cara Welch’s panel, “Montaigne’s
Exploration of a New Ethos,” held at the 2005 Sixteenth Century Studies
Conference (Atlanta, October 2005), and which partly contributed to the present
book. Finally, Goucher College (Baltimore, MD) made the publication possible
in part thanks to a 2006 Faculty Summer Research Grant.
Individuals we are most indebted to are Mary McKinley, for her unfailingly
enthusiastic support—first chairing our RSA sessions, then authoring our
Introduction—François Cornilliat and François Rigolot, for their inspiring
teaching of Montaigne, and Keith Kelly for his careful proofreading.
Corinne Noirot-Maguire and Valérie M. Dionne
January 2007
INTRODUCTION
MARY B. MCKINLEY
“Que sa conscience et sa vertu reluisent en son parler…”
(I, 26, 155 A)1
If even Quintilian acknowledged that he was incapable of capturing the
meaning of ethos, “a word for which in my opinion Latin has no equivalent,” we
should not be surprised that it is still difficult for us to do so today.2 Montaigne
may not have been any more successful than Quintilian in providing le mot
juste, but the standard he sets for the pupil in the above line from “De
l’institution des enfans” conveys the ideal implied in ethos. George Kennedy’s
“the personal character of the speaker as seen in the speech” recalls Montaigne’s
words and offers a good preliminary definition of ethos.3
Ancient writers differed about the role and importance of character in the
orator’s speeches. Aristotle was the first to use the word ethos as an element of
rhetoric, but the role of character in language preoccupied others before him, his
teacher Plato prominent among them. In his Gorgias, it was Gorgias’s
indifference to the orator’s character that made Socrates challenge him and his
1
Montaigne Michel de, Essais, ed. Villey-Saulnier (1924), 3rd rev. ed. (Paris: PUF,
1999). “Let his conscience and his virtue shine forth in his speech” (I, 26, 114 A).
Montaigne Michel de, The Complete “Essays” of Michel de Montaigne, trans. Donald
M. Frame (1957-58). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965. (Translation of
reference, hereafter cited as F followed by page numbers).
2
See Book VI, 2, 8: “ήθος, cuius nomine, ut ego quidem sentio caret sermo Romanus,”
The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, trans. H. E. Butler, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 2
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921; 1985), 420-21; and Quintilian,
Institution oratoire, ed. J. Cousin, vol. 4, bks. 6-7 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1977), 26.
3
George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from
Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980),
68. See also François Cornilliat and Richard Lockwood, eds., Ethos et pathos: le statut
du sujet rhétorique, “Avant propos” (Paris: Champion, 2000), 9-10. See also James
S. Baumlin, “Introduction: Positioning Ethos in Historical and Contemporary Theory,”
Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory, ed. J. S. Baumlin and T. French
Baumlin (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1994), xi-xxxi.
2
Introduction
method for teaching his pupil: “And if he is ignorant, will you, his teacher of
rhetoric teach your pupil none of these things—for that is not your concern—but
make him appear before the crowd to have such knowledge, when he has it not,
and appear to be a good man, when he is not?”(459e).4 In the Phaedrus,
Socrates’s conviction that a speaker must utter only the truth made him cover
his head in shame (237a) when he delivered his speech attacking love, a speech
in which his words belied his true belief. With that gesture he concealed his
identity and thereby conveyed the disjunction between his words and his
convictions. However, his daimonion intervened. Socrates explained to
Phaedrus: “There came to me my familiar divine sign—which always checks
me when on the point of doing something or other—and all at once I seemed to
hear a voice forbidding me to leave the spot until I had made atonement for
some offence to heaven.” The divine voice moved him to recant and to make his
second speech, his stirring palinode in praise of love: “I shall attempt to make
my due palinode to Love before any harm comes to me for my defamation of
him, and no longer veiling my head in shame, but uncovered.” We might say
that in that case the daimonion intervened to restore ethos in Socrates’s speech.
Later, when Phaedrus asked him to describe his ideal kind of speech, Socrates
answered: “The sort that goes together with knowledge, and is written in the
soul of the learner” (276a). Socrates insisted on the inseparability of the speaker
and the speech. In Phaedrus he questions the morality of Lysias’s profession as
a ghostwriter precisely because writing a speech for another denies that
seamless expression of the speaker’s soul.
In the Rhetoric, Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any
given case the available means of persuasion (pisteis),” and he identified three
such pisteis: ethos, pathos, and logos. He associated ethos with the selfrepresentation of the speaker: “the speaker’s power of evincing a personal
character which will make his speech credible” (Rhetoric I, 2). Pathos refers to
the speaker’s ability to arouse emotions in his audience, and logos refers to the
logical construction of the speech itself.5 For Aristotle, ethos is a tool, a quality
of the speech rather than of the speaker. It emerges from the skill of the speaker
rather than being “written in the soul.”
In De oratore Cicero had Antonius echo the Aristotelian pisteis: “Thus for
purposes of persuasion the art of speaking relies wholly upon three things: the
4
Gorgias, trans. W. D. Woodhead, in Plato, The Collected Dialogues, ed. E. Hamilton
and H. Cairns, (New York, Random House, 1963; repr. 1966), 242.
5
Aristotle, Rhetoric, I, 2, 1355-56, in Introduction to Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon, 2nd ed.
rev. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1947; 1973), 731-32. See also
Christopher Gill, “The Ethos/Pathos Distinction in Rhetorical and Literary Criticism,”
Classical Quarterly 78 (1984): 149-66; and Jakob Wisse, Ethos and Pathos from
Aristotle to Cicero (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1989), 4-8.
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
3
proof of our allegations, the winning of our hearer’s favour, and the rousing of
their feelings to whatever impulse our case may require” (II, 115, pp. 280-281)6
Lacking a satisfactory Latin word, Cicero here uses the verb conciliare to
convey ethos. Cicero’s writings on rhetoric generally refer to judicial oratory
and reflect the Roman notion that a person’s character is constant, neither
reversing nor evolving. A Roman’s previous reputation, even that of his
ancestors, determined his auctoritas and shaped the perception of his ethos even
before the speech began.
Quintilian stressed the importance of ethos and reviewed earlier theories
about it in order to distinguish it from pathos (VI, 2, 8-9). In the sixth book of
his Institutio oratoria he emphasizes the orator’s skill in stirring the emotions of
the judge; he insists that that skill is even more important than the orator’s
ability to construct a convincing argument. He evokes the traditional division of
the emotions into two categories: pathos, for which he gives the Latin adfectus,
and ethos, for which, he asserts, there is no satisfactory Latin equivalent. He
notes that others have settled for morals, mores, which has allowed the branch
of philosophy, ethics, to become known as moralis or moral philosophy.
However, Quintilian objects that mores is too general, and he considers
distinctions between pathos and ethos that, he says, other writers have made.
They therefore explain pathos as describing the more violent emotions and èthos
as designating those which are calm and gentle; in the one case the passions are
violent, in the other subdued, the former command and disturb, the latter
persuade and induce a feeling of good will. (VI, 2, 9, 420-423)
Finally Quintilian offers his own understanding of ethos:
The èthos which I have in my mind and which I desiderate in an orator is
commended to our approval by goodness more than aught else and is not merely
calm and mild, but in most cases ingratiating and courteous and such as to excite
pleasure and affection in our hearers, while the chief merit in its expression lies
in making it seem that all that we say derives directly from the nature of the facts
and persons concerned and in the revelation of the character of the orator in such
a way that all may recognise it. (Ibid., 423-425)
As the essays in this volume show, Montaigne’s readings of those Ancient
theories of ethos emerge repeatedly in the Essais. He weighs them as he judges
the writings of others and develops his own notion of ethos in his book. That
6
Cicero, De oratore, bks 1 and 2, trans. E. W. Sutton, Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942; 1967). See Wisse, Ethos and Pathos,
105-163; and James M. May, Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 3-6.
4
Introduction
notion is often conflicted. When he tells us that ethos is a primary criterion
motivating his own reading, his ideal is clearly Socratic:
Car j'ay une singulière curiosité, comme j'ay dit ailleurs, de connoistre l'ame et
les naïfs jugemens de mes autheurs. Il faut bien juger leur suffisance, mais non
pas leurs meurs ni eux, par cette montre de leurs escris qu'ils étalent au theatre du
monde. (II, 10, 414-415 A)7
However, his reservation reveals a cautious awareness that effective ethos
may well be Aristotelian, a quality of the writing rather than of the soul that may
not faithfully reveal the writer’s character. Nevertheless, he expresses
confidence in his ability to see behind the theatrical façade, to be a connoisseur
of ethos. In “De la colere,” for example, ethos becomes the standard by which
he compares the speeches of several Ancients:
Oyez Cicero parler de l’amour de la liberté, oyez en parler Brutus: les escrits
mesmes vous sonnent que cettuy-cy estoit homme pour l’acheter au pris de la vie.
Que Cicero, pere de l’eloquence, traite du mespris de la mort; que Seneque en
traite aussi: celuy là traine languissant, et vous sentez qu’il vous veut resoudre de
chose dequoy il n’est pas resolu; il ne vous donne point de cœur, car luy-mesmes
n’en a point; l’autre vous anime et enflamme. Je ne voy jamais autheur,
mesmement de ceux qui traictent de la vertu et des offices, que je ne recherche
curieusement quel il a esté. (II, 31, 716 A)8
Brutus and Seneca are more convincing because their ethos is more effective
than Cicero’s. Seneca’s ethos, moreover, enhances his pathos: he animates
and inflames the reader. Montaigne looks for the character of the authors he
reads. Brutus and Seneca do a better job of letting their conscience and their
virtue shine forth in their speech. It is not surprising that Cicero falls short in
this comparison. In “Des livres” Montaigne observes, “Quant à Cicero, je suis
7
“For I have a singular curiosity, as I have said elsewhere, to know the soul and the
natural judgements of my authors. We must indeed judge their capacity, but not their
character nor themselves, by that display of their writings that they expose on the stage of
the world” (F 302).
8
“Listen to Cicero speaking of the love of liberty, and listen to Brutus on the subject.
The writings themselves ring out to you that the latter was the man to buy it at the price
of life. Let Cicero, the father of eloquence, treat of the contempt of death, and let Seneca
treat of it too. The former drags it out languidly, and you feel that he wants to persuade
you of something of which he is not persuaded; he gives you no heart, for he has none
himself. The other animates and inflames you. I never read an author, especially of those
who treat of virtue and duties, that I do not inquire curiously what kind of man he was”
(F 541 A).
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
5
du jugement commun que, hors la science, il n’y avoit pas beaucoup
d’excellence en son ame.” (II, 10, 415 A)9
More than Brutus and Seneca, however, the ideal examples of ethos in the
Essais are Plutarch and Socrates. In “De la colere,” Montaigne writes:
Les escrits de Plutarque, à les bien savourer, nous le descouvrent assez, et je
pense le connoistre jusques dans l’ame; si voudrois-je que nous eussions
quelques memoires de sa vie. (II, 31, 716 A)10
Even though, as Montaigne regrets, Plutarch did not write about his own life,
Montaigne tells us that he thought he knew him in his very soul. His praise of
Plutarch’s ethos often involves comparison with Seneca, as in this passage
from “De la phisionomie”:
La façon de Plutarque, d’autant qu’elle est plus desdaigneuse et plus destendue,
elle est, selon moy, d’autant plus virile et plus persuasive: je croyrois ayséement
que son ame avoit les mouvements plus asseurez et plus reiglés. L’un [Seneca],
plus vif, nous pique et eslance en sursaut, touche plus l’esprit. L’autre, plus
rassis, nous informe, establit et conforte constamment, touche plus
l’entendement. [C] Celuy là ravit nostre jugement, cestuy-cy le gaigne. (III, 12,
1040 B-C)11
Montaigne asserts that he is able to judge Plutarch’s character, the movements
of his soul, through his “façon,” his manner or his style. The essai is dominated
by Socrates, whom Montaigne introduces by making a similar connection
between character and style, this time the plain style, genus humile: “Socrates
faict mouvoir son ame d’un mouvement naturel et commun. Ainsi dict un
paysan, ainsi dict une femme. [C] Il n’a jamais en la bouche que cochers,
9
“As for Cicero, I am of the common opinion that except for learning there was not
much excellence in his soul” (F 302 A).
10
“Plutarch’s writings, if we savor them aright, reveal him to us well enough, and I think
I know him even into his soul; yet I wish we had some memoirs of his life” (F 541 A).
11
“Plutarch’s manner, inasmuch as it is more disdainful and less tense, is, to my mind, all
the more virile and persuasive; I would easily believe that the movements of his soul
were more assured and more regulated. The one, sharper, pricks us and startles us,
touches our mind more. The other, more sedate, forms us, settles and fortifies us
constantly. [C] The former ravishes our judgement; the latter wins it” (F 795 B). In this
passage, the distinction that Montaigne makes between Plutarch and Seneca recalls
Quintilian’s distinction between pathos and ethos, the one violent, the other calm, gentle
and subdued.
6
Introduction
menusiers, savetiers et maçons.” (III, 12, 1037 B-C)12 After the long passage
reproducing Socrates’s speech to the Athenian judges before his death,
Montaigne exclaims, “Voylà pas un plaidoyer [C] sec et sain, mais quand et
quand naïf et bas, [B] d’une hauteur inimaginable, [C] veritable, franc et juste
au-delà de tout exemple [B] et employé en quelle necessité?” (III, 12, 1054 BC)13 In praising Plutarch and Socrates, Montaigne emphasizes two essential
aspects of his notion of ethos: movement and style.
At times, especially in the early essais, Montaigne seems attracted to the
Roman notion that character is constant. For example, he declares in 1580,
“Pour juger d’un homme, il faut suivre longuement et curieusement sa trace; si
la constance ne s’y maintient de son seul fondement […], si la variété des
occurences luy faict changer de pas […], laissez le coure.” (II, 1, 336-37A)14
However, the essai in which he posits that ideal, “De l’inconstance de nos
actions,” belies that notion, as does Montaigne’s view of his own protean self as
he pursues its representation in his book. In the oft-quoted lines that open “Du
repentir”, Montaigne states that he cannot make the object of his self-portrait
stay still: “Je ne puis asseurer mon object.” (III, 2, 805 B) He argues that ethos
is passage rather than being, that it may be more appropriately narrated than
fixed. “Les autres forment l’homme; je le recite et en represente un particulier
bien mal formé […] Je ne peints pas l’estre. Je peints le passage.” And he offers
a new kind of writing as a result of that insight: “Si mon ame pouvoit prendre
pied, je ne m’essaierois pas, je me resoudrois.” (III, 2, 804-805 B)15 The essai
form is particularly well suited to convey the movement of ethos.
The contributors to this volume offer fresh new voices in “the art of
conversation” about the Essais as they explore the many ramifications of
Montaigne’s ethos and the manifold ethe he brings forth.
***
12
“Socrates makes his soul move with a natural and common motion. So says a peasant,
so says a woman. [C] His mouth is full of nothing but carters, joiners, cobblers, and
masons” (F 793 B-C).
13
“Is that not a [C] sober, sane [B] plea, [C] but at the same time natural and lowly, [B]
inconceivably lofty, [C] truthful, frank, and just beyond all example—and employed in
what a critical need!” (F 806-807 B-C).
14
“To judge a man, we must follow his traces long and carefully. If he does not maintain
consistency for its own sake, […] if changing circumstances make him change his pace
[…], let him go” (F 243 A).
15
“Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed […]. I do
not portray being: I portray passing” (F 610). “If my mind could gain a firm footing, I
would not make essays, I would make decisions” (F 611 B).
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
7
The book is divided into four sections:
In Part I, “Rhetorical and Relational Perspectives,” Corinne Noirot-Maguire
explores the role of nonchalance in and beyond the construction of an authorial
ethos fashioned by courtly aesthetics and sceptic practice, from the rhetorical to
the phenomenological. For Richard Scholar, Montaigne’s writing about
friendship suggests that his “ethos,” taken here to mean the author’s cast of
mind, is best understood in terms of his literary art of “free-thinking.” Valérie
Dionne then considers Montaigne’s conciliatory voice in the context of the civil
wars of his time. Such ethos echoes the need for a nation to promote
fraternization; it becomes the necessary rhetorical device which promotes
friendship as the essential grounds for ethics.
Part 2, “Political and Ethical Perspectives,” starts with Ève-Alice RoustangStoller rereading the first book of the Essais, often disregarded by scholars who
consider it as the least personal. Yet this book presents Montaigne’s conception
of a practical type of wisdom he subtly advocates. Hervé Campangne shows
how tragic figures which Montaigne's contemporaries usually presented as
victims of the vicissitudes of fortune and destiny (e. g., Mary Stuart, the count
of Egmont, Socrates) are systematically re-evaluated in the context of the broad
speculation on ethos and ethics characteristic of the Essais. Cara Welch
examines Montaigne's appropriation of Plutarchan synkrisis (comparatio) and
ethos, as demonstrating both a harsh criticism of French Neo-Stoicism and an
unwavering admiration for Seneca.
In Part 3, “Epistemological and Philosophical Perspectives,” Agniezka
Steczowicz addresses the “Know thyself” as a departure from ethos in the
restricted sense of habit and custom; her close reading of the final movement of
“De la vanité” is supported by considerations on the ethics of Paradoxa. Marc
Foglia discusses the possibility of an ethos of truth in a philosophical enterprise
shaped by ancient philosophies, especially Scepticism, but in a non-dogmatic,
dialogical manner. Emmanuel Naya’s chapter focuses on the Sceptic suspension
of judgement, as affecting the ethe of philosophers conjured up in the Essais,
especially Pyrrho.
8
Introduction
Part 4, “Cultural and Anthropological Perspectives,” opens with Celso
Azar’s discussion of the essayistic image of the cannibal’s virtue; it aims at a
new understanding of moral philosophy by questioning its epistemological
underpinnings. Martine Sauret examines whether the maps inserted in
Le journal de voyage simply illustrate the travel narrative, or represent another
kind of writing. Finally, Suzanne Verderber uses the psychoanalytic concept of
the death drive to demonstrate the impossibility of the admonition—articulated
in the “Apologie”—that humans rely on nature as the basis of ethics.
C. N. M.
PART I
RHETORICAL AND RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
CAREFUL CARELESSNESS
MONTAIGNE’S CURIOUS NONCHALANCE
CORINNE NOIROT-MAGUIRE
“And some days I have found myself hard pressed to conceal the slavery in
which I was bound, whereas my plan in speaking is to display extreme
carelessness.” (III, 9, F 735 B)1 As an experimental work where saying and
doing, subject and object, largely intermingle, the Essais define themselves in
relation to a central though unstable personal ethos, displaying a form of studied
casualness. Nonchalance as a self-identifying attitude connects textual and
behavioural manner around relational issues. It first signals courtly sprezzatura,
typically translated into “a certain recklessness,” “casualness” or “nonchalance”
in English, and désinvolture or nonchalance in French.2 And sprezzatura itself
recasts the neglegentia diligens which defines pseudo-conversational style in
Ciceronian rhetoric,3 i. e. plain style—an artfully natural stance. Montaigne’s
indirect and paradoxical eulogy of a certain nonchalance (among other
traditionally negative qualities) inscribes itself in a textual and ethical
revaluation of “mediocrity,” or the golden mean. Since the notion implies a lack
of care, effort, or efficiency, Robert Estienne’s dictionary likens nonchalance to
inertia, procrastination and neglect.4 Representing the sins of laziness and
1
“Et me suis veu quelque jour en peine de celer la servitude en laquelle j’estois entravé,
là où mon dessein est de representer en parlant une profonde nonchalance” (III, 9,
963 B).
2
The translations of Baldesar Castiglione’s Il Libro del Cortegiano which we will refer
to are: Alain Pons (after Gabriel Chappuis’s 1581 translation), Le Livre du courtisan,
1991 (in which sprezzatura is translated as “une certaine désinvolture,” 54; “mépris et
nonchalance” in Chappuis); and sir Thomas Hoby’s English translation (1561), online at
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/courtier/courtier.html.
3
Cicero, Orator, §77-78. Cicero’s plain style, Erasmus’s natural style or Castiglione’s
sprezzatura all aim at projecting out a spontaneous and authentic ethos, a mirror of the
genius; see Jean Lecointe, L’Idéal et la différence, Chap. 5, “L’idéal d’un style
personnel” (Geneva: Droz, 1993).
4
Robert Estienne’s Dictionarium latinogallicum primarily associates nonchalance with
acedia, oscitatio, inertiam, negligentia, languor.
12
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
acedia, nonchalance first appears derogatory, a form of negative energy in
intellectual, moral, and practical terms.
This virtually unredeemable sense of the word, however, is attached to
nonchaloir rather than nonchalance,5 when a contempt for religion and morals
is to be condemned. As always, in the polarized lexicon6 and the cobweb of the
Essais, the notion bridges several realms of human experience.7 Our opening
quote unmasks a deliberate ethos, a “plan in speaking,” a textual self-image
seemingly distinct from experiential affects. With the idea of freedom suggested
in the same sentence (“carelessness” vs. “slavery”), a pragmatic quality
preserving the subject emerges, a potentiality lying beneath the moral negativity
and the mere rhetorical strategy. The difficulty of positive nonchalance reveals
an awareness of the indissoluble mind-body connection, beyond the problematic
equation of attitude and intent. Since the author can easily be accused of pride
and ambition, it is no wonder that nonchalance is at the forefront of discussion
in self-apologetic essais such as “De la presumption” (II, 17), “De l’utile et de
l’honneste” (III, 1), or “De la vanité” (III, 9).
Yet in the Essais, nonchalance goes beyond considerations of mimesis or
mere character-ethos. Montaigne’s careful carelessness8 helps us fathom the
ethical paradox of cooperation under limitations, and the idea of composition; it
reveals a more interactive ethos. As a differential and relational notion,
nonchalance goes from composure and counterpoint9 to composition, through
various roles or experiential ethe. Close to sprezzatura, nonchalance first
5
See for example I, 9, 34 B (F 22); I, 27, 82 A (F 134); II, 3, 353 A (F 254); “Certes je
puis aysément oublier: mais de mettre à nonchalloir la charge que mon amy m'a donnee,
je ne le fay pas” ‘Certainly I may easily forget; but careless about the charge with which
my friend has entrusted me, that I am not’ (I, 9, 34 B; F 22). In I, 27, 82, Montaigne says
he was once tempted to “reg[ard] with negligence certain points in the observance of our
Church” (F 134), before he found that these “have a solid foundation” (F 135) and call
for reverence (against people who stirred religious turmoil). “C'est contre nature, que
nous nous mesprisons et mettons nous mesmes à nonchaloir” ‘It is against nature that we
despise ourselves and care nothing about ourselves’ (II, 3, 353 A; F 254) Montaigne calls
this a “maladie” (‘a malady’), close to acedia.
6
André Tournon, “Un langage coupé…,” in Writing the Renaissance (Lexington, KY:
French Forum, 1992), 219. The rhetorical substratum mostly enables what Tournon calls
“repérage différentiel” (‘diferential marking,’ibid., 220).
7
Nathalie Dauvois insists on all the “exchanges” and the “analogical ties,” especially
between prose and poetry, in the Essais (Prose et poésie dans les “Essais” de
Montaigne, Paris: Champion, 1997).
8
Careless is the closest semantic equivalent of nonchalant in the English language (“I do
not care” = “ne me chaut.” See Cotgrave).
9
Stylistic counterpoint and mannerist contrapposto are related; for Géralde Nakam,
Montaigne: la matière et la manière (Paris: Klincksieck, 1991), a deliberate analogy is
even refined after 1588.
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
13
appears as a social feature in the aristocrat. It is also an intellectual feature of the
sceptic, or at least, of the thinker exercising his judgement. Finally, nonchalance
may even have eudemonic and ontological value for the naturaliste seeking to
understand the phenomenology of Being, and to enjoy living.
Noble Nonchalance: Sprezzatura and Careless Composure
Nonchalance first conjures up social representations of an aristocratic ideal,
especially in the realms of courtly and intellectual activity. A nobleman’s
nonchalance is suggestive of civility and generosity—part and parcel of court
behaviour—and it shares features with sprezzatura as defined by Castiglione.
An aesthetical and behavioural golden mean10—neither philosophical disdain
nor hedonistic languor—courtly nonchalance manifests aristocratic distinction
with seemingly effortless grace, affectation being loathed. Studied casualness,
as formulated in the Book of the Courtier (1528), which Montaigne often alludes
to (and explicitly names in II, 17, 640; F 485) had long become a handbook of
refined civility at the time the Essais were devised,11 with notions like
sprezzatura spreading to mannerist art. Sprezzatura (Courtier I, 24-27), the
“general rule” designed to supplement a lack of natural grace, pleases via
suggestive, effortless ease, “a certain Recklessness” of behaviour, eschewing
above all “affectation and curiosity,” in Hoby’s translation:
[…] to eschew as much as a man may, and as a sharp and dangerous rock,
Affectation or Curiousity and (to speak a new word) to use in every thyng a
certain Reckelessness, to cover art withall, and seeme whatsoever he doth and
sayeth to do it wythout pain, and (as it were) not myndyng it.
And of thys do I beleve grace is muche deryved, for in rare matters and wel
brought to passe every man knoweth the hardnes of them, so that a redines therin
maketh great wonder. And contrarywise to use force, and (as they say) to hale by
the hear, geveth a great disgrace, and maketh every thing how great so ever it be,
to be litle estemed. Therfore that may be said to be a very art that appeereth not
to be art […].12
Since Sprezzatura or an air of nonchalance is to produce an effect of ease,
any excess hinders it. Over-ostentatious demeanour (affecting to avoid
10
Castiglione, Courtier I, 27.
The Courtier was widely imitated, which is ironic, since it shows the frequent disgrace
resulting from imitation; also popular, La Civil Conversazione del S. Stephano Guazzo
was part of Montaigne’s library (as noted in Essais, ed. Villey-Saulnier, L).
12
Emphasis added. The Book of the Courtier, trans. T. Hoby,
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/courtier/courtier.html.
11
14
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
affectation) therefore equally fails, as wittily shown in “De l’institution des
enfants” (I, 26), where Montaigne describes the laughable—because physically
unbecoming, unnatural, literally taken—sartorial sprezzatura which, in his
dandy-like youth, he embraced in an effort to portray Gallic nobility:
[B] J'ay volontiers imité cette desbauche qui se voit en nostre jeunesse, au port de
leurs vestemens. Un manteau en escharpe, la cape sur une espaule, un bas mal
tendu, qui represente une fierté desdaigneuse de ces paremens estrangers, et
nonchallante de l'art: mais je la trouve encore mieux employée en la forme du
parler. [C] Toute affectation, nommément en la gayeté et liberté Françoise, est
mesadvenante au courtisan. Et en une Monarchie, tout gentil'homme doit estre
dressé au port d'un courtisan. Parquoy nous faisons bien de gauchir un peu sur le
naïf et mesprisant. (I, 26, 172) 13
Such wording is bound to recall Castiglione’s remarks on the distinctive
nonchalant manner called sprezzatura. Graceful sprezzatura or disgraceful
affectation are physical expressions of hidden mastery (namely, the golden
mean, or excellence avoiding all excess). Montaigne’s young self is shown as
affected,14 too haughtily reckless (“fierté desdaigneuse”). This is made clear in a
transparent allusion to a passage in The Courtier where affectation is ridiculed,
based on the example of messer Roberto’s excessive tendency to let his clothes
slip or hang when dancing:
[Bibbiena:] For if this excellency doeth consist in Recklesness […] M. Robert
hath no peere in the worlde. For that men should wel perceive that he litle
mindeth it, manye tymes his garmentes fall from hys backe, and his slippers from
his feete, and daunseth on still without taking uppe againe anye of both.
[Canossa: …] And bicause he passeth certain limites of a meane, that
Reckelesness of his is curious, and not comly.15
The whole passage we quoted playfully pastiches Castiglione, well-known
to the reader, to the point that sprezzatura (“une fierté desdaigneuse et
nonchallante de l’art”), defined in Courtier I (chapters 26-28), appears
precisely—a mere coincidence?—in chapter I, 26, “De l’institution des enfants.”
13
Our emphasis. “[B] I have been prone to imitate that disorder in dress which we see in
our young men […] which shows a pride disdainful of these foreign adornments and
careless of art. But I think it is even better employed in our form of speech. [C] And in a
monarchy every man should be trained in the manner of a courtier. Wherefore we do well
to lean a little in the direction of naturalness and negligence” (F 127).
14
Aesthetic theory follows in the footsteps of Castiglione, especially in Mannerist
Tuscany (see Vasari’s Lives, on Raphael’s unaffected grace).
15
Courtier I, 27, trans. Hoby.
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
15
The conspicuous allusion serves the purpose of ironic emulation and authorial
apology, in other words, strengthens the ethos. Montaigne facetiously sketches
out an affected mannerist portrait, failing to appear natural by trying too hard.
Poor young Michel was not a gifted follower of Canossa’s universal rule. But
we are implicitly invited to assess his progress. By the late 16th century, a
gentleman’s identity has become more and more problematic, the praised
“mediocrity” of Aristotelian ethics and courtly aesthetics conflicting with the
long-standing heroic model. Born a French soldier,16 moreover—or so he likes
to claim—the young gentleman forced his nature in order to please the eye à la
“Courtier.” On the other hand, being rather short, and never on the battlefield,
Montaigne was not really made for military grandeur (II, 17, 640, F 485); this is
another allusion to Courtier I, 20: if not of perfect body frame, it is preferable to
be on the smaller side. The textual ethos plays with this double—and doubly
distanced—social role as an aristocrat, dialectically crafting a new figure of the
“magnanimous” or the “generous” which will later become the honnête homme.
Self-representation as a gentleman also conjures up a warrior-like image,17
which justifies verbal, rather than physical, nonchalance (“je la trouve encore
mieux employée en la forme du parler,” says the above-quoted passage18).
Castiglione advocated the elegant use of vernacular language beyond Petrarch
or Bocaccio (Courtier I, 30-33), and Montaigne extends this promotion of plain
style19 to a noble hence “frank” Gallico-Gascon way of speaking. For the sake
of frankness, Michel would not only off-handedly, but even crudely address
someone, rather than smooth talk them.20 He despises sugar-coated speech and
flattery,21 and says, as a kind of virile neo-Atticist, “je me jette naturellement à
un parler sec, rond et cru, qui tire à qui ne me cognoit d'ailleurs, un peu vers le
16
Montaigne’s family was not deeply rooted in the nobility, see George Hoffmann,
Montaigne’s Career (Oxford: OUP, 1998). The author himself was a jurist and a
landlord, who criticised duels and did not take part in major military campaigns.
17
See James Supple, Arms versus Letters (Oxford: OUP, 1984).
18
“But I think it [i. e. ‘a pride careless of art,’ i. e. sprezzatura] is even better employed
in our form of speech” (I, 26; F 127).
19
Cicero, Orator, §76-91; Erasmus, Ciceronianus. On plain style’s French revival and its
implications for national and literary identity, see Christian Mouchel, Cicéron et Sénèque
dans la littérature de la Renaissance. Le débat sur le “meilleur style,” 1990; and
Corinne Noirot, “Rien de trop élevé, ni rien de fastueux”: le style simple en poésie de
Marot à Du Bellay (1515-1560). Ph.D./Doctorat diss., Rutgers U./U. Grenoble 3, 2005.
Forthcoming as a book.
20
I, 40, 252-253; F 186; II, 17, 649; F 492.
21
Dorothy Coleman, in Montaigne, quelques Anciens et l’écriture des “Essais” (Paris:
Champion, 1995), insists on the disorderly effect which recalls Erasmus’s statements on
style and humour, pointing out the deceiving nature of neglegentia diligens (128).
16
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
desdaigneux” (I, 40, 253).22 Conversational and epistolary nonchalance nurture
a provincial and rough ethos (the Gascon and the warrior), an affirmative
rhetorical strategy for an autonomously faithful nobility. The mayor of
Bordeaux’s purportedly unfiltered speech conflates courtier-inspired and anticourtier trends, integrated in order to create a noble ethos construed as free,
individualized and moderately composed.
The absence of “art,” effort, or premeditation emphasizes rhetorical
improvisation and apparent casualness, where aristocratic air and plain style
conflate again. Montaigne’s insistence on the blunt and the improvised prevents
mountain-and-mice effects, in keeping with the detached noble ethos leisurely
involved in writing. There is apparently no crafted plan or contrived intention
behind the “silly things” (fadaises) that “escape [him] as nonchalantly as they
deserve” (III, 1, F 599).23 Harmful preparation recalls the bête-noire of
affectation and the ideal of unpremeditated allure informing The Courtier—ex
tempore speech, the pectus speaking. No simulation, no dissimulation; I will
disrobe my every artful trick, the author seems to state. Montaigne thus
constructs his ethos by pulling sprezzatura closer to its intertextual root, namely,
the neglegentia diligens of Ciceronian plain style,24 which appears spontaneous,
not artificially composed, ensuring sympathy and credibility.
But hidden art also becomes intentionally exposed (and/or denied) in the
inquisitive and expressive process, as in “De la praesumption,” where the writer
says he did not attract the Graces (“Tout est grossier chez moy,” II, 17, 637).25
His speech is naturally harsh and unruly—a “disdainful” manner (II, 17,
F 483 A) which he cultivates, but also has to moderate: “Mais je sens bien que
par fois je m'y laisse trop aller, et qu'à force de vouloir eviter l'art et l'affection,
j'y retombe d'une autre part” (II, 17, 638).26 Such exhibition of the difficulty to
reach good measure and to compose oneself in a relational, ethical sense,27 and
22
“I naturally drop into a dry, plain, blunt way of speaking, which, to anyone who does
not know me otherwise, verges a little on the disdainful” (F 186). See “aspres [C] et
desdaigneux” (II, 17, 642).
23
“Échappent aussi nonchalamment qu’elles le valent” (III, 1, 790).
24
On Cicero’s De oratore as the main model for the Courtier, see Pons’s introduction to
Le Livre du courtisan.
25
“De la Praesomption” debases the author’s writing; it is shapeless, rough, and
lacklustre, which prevents any accusation of presumptuousness: “Elles [les Grâces]
m'abandonnent par tout: Tout est grossier chez moy, il y a faute de polissure et de
beauté […] Ma façon n'ayde rien à la matiere” (II, 17, 637).
26
“[A] But i am quite conscious that sometimes I let myself go too far [je m'y laisse trop
aller], and in the effort to avoid art and affectation, I fall back into them in another
direction” (F 484).
27
“De la vanité,” for example, mixes a desire for unchecked self-representation with the
intrinsic constraints that hinder it; this echoes the authorial voice in the Prologue, which
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
17
not in the hypocritical, Machiavellian sense, is a clear point of differentiation
from The Courtier and the precept of hidden art. The reflexive strand of the
book thus generally contradicts the desired, subtly masterful ethos of casualness
and spontaneity formulated in Cicero and Castiglione. Montaigne opts for overt
reflexiveness, in a daring challenge to covert skilfulness. A declared disdain for
tedious labour, nonchalance as unmarred expression or confession effectively
displaces shame and disarms the reader, who cannot accuse the author of courtly
manipulation or simulation, which are the pitfalls of sprezzatura. This new
nonchalance strips sprezzatura of its protective shield, the dissimulation that
guaranteed the courtier’s seduction.
The exposed process mixes vulnerability and shielding, since Montaigne
appears and performs (“se produit”) through publication, triggering external
judgements. Essai writing as the shaping of an ethos ponders the stakes of
publication, the production of a public image, and authorial performance (to
publish is also “se produire”28), which entails some necessary grooming:
Il n'est description pareille en difficulté, à la description de soy-mesmes, ny
certes en utilité. Encore se faut il testonner, encore se faut il ordonner et renger
pour sortir en place. Or je me pare sans cesse: car je me descris sans cesse. (II, 6,
29
378)
In this light, the writer is everything but indifferent or reckless when it comes to
his stated task and its result. The goal is a “description” or self-image bound to
join the inescapable theatrum mundi; this requires a composure beyond
cosmetic concerns, despite the facetious metaphor of the combing of the baldhead (“se testonner”). His bouts and blunders will be let out, nonchalantly, but
will still need to be arranged and ordered if they are to please, and portray him
faithfully, that is, as a good-faith man—exemplary ethos. Exemplary does not
mean effortless nor heroic here. How difficult it is to depict ease! And
portraying inner flux is a “thorny undertaking” (II, 6, 378, F 273). The famous
meta-image of the “skeletos” (II, 6, 379, F 274) partly shows Montaigne as a
kind of écorché of sprezzatura. “Exposed […] entire” (ibid.). Inside out.
The subject disrobes the very process and sets opposite qualities on the
scale,30 such as ease and difficulty. The genius that produces great poetry in the
stated that his birthday suit would be his preferred way to present himself, were it not for
the demands of social decency and moderate composure.
28
See I, 25, among other occurrences.
29
“There is no description equal in difficulty, or certainly in usefulness, to the
description of oneself. Even so one must spruce up, even so one must present oneself in
an orderly arrangement, if one would go out in public. Now, I am constantly adorning
myself, for I am constantly describing myself” (F 273).
30
See Floyd Gray, La Balance de Montaigne: exagium/essai (Paris: Nizet, 1982).
18
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
eyes of Michel (beautiful when seemingly improvised, i. e., “nonchalant et
fortuit,” III, 9, 994) is an ideal more or less unattainable, as is true grace in The
Courtier31. Many ties weigh us down. Without duplicitously hiding them or
delusively negating them, reformed nonchalance, in a compensatory way, is
intended to act as a freeing counterpoint to the “slavery” experienced in selfand ethos-fashioning. In this respect, let’s examine the passage which first
intrigued us:
Et me suis veu quelque jour en peine de celer la servitude en laquelle j’estois
entravé, là où mon dessein est de representer en parlant une profonde
nonchalance et des mouvements fortuites et impremeditez, comme naissant des
occasions présentes; […] l’apprest donne plus à esperer qu’il en porte. On se met
souvent en pourpoinct pour ne sauter pas mieux qu’en saye. Nihil est his qui
placere volunt tam adversarium quam expectatio [Cicéron]. (III, 9, 963)32
While incidentally revealing an understanding of Castiglione’s rhetorical
references on plain style, another allusion to The Courtier (I, 13) is noticeable,
albeit in a sideways glance. Not only is “nonchalance” one of the English
equivalents for sprezzatura, but Montaigne there inserts a saying which
Castiglione puts in the mouth of Canossa himself, right before the count starts
portraying the perfect courtier (Courtier I, 13): “Io non voglio far come colui,
che spogliatosi in giuppone [en pourpoinct] saltò meno che non avea fatto col
saio [en saye].”33 This gives Canossa reasons to speak briefly, off-handedly, and
to be aware that perfection is hardly attainable, due to “the diversity of our
judgements” (a very Montaignean statement indeed). Neither totally
uncontrolled nor contrived, the author’s verbal casualness can never fully be
construed as a moral habitus, an inner disposition that mindfully and adequately
manifests itself,34 se représente,35 as full-blown virtue would. A sartorial image
31
On this subject, see Harry Berger, The Absence of Grace: Sprezzatura and Suspicion
in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books (Berkeley, CA: Stanford UP, 2000).
32
Our emphasis. “And some days I have found myself hard pressed to conceal the
slavery in which I was bound, whereas my plan in speaking is to display extreme
carelessness, and unstudied and unpremeditated gestures, as if they arose from the
immediate occasion. […] the preparation gives more hope than it fulfils. Often a man
stupidly strips to his doublet only to jump no better than he would in a cloak. There is
nothing so unavorable to those who wish to please as the expectation they arouse
[Cicero]” (F 735).
33
“I wyll not dooe as he dyd, that strypped himself into his dublette, and leaped lesse
grounde then he didde before in his Coate,” trans. Hoby.
34
Habitus is the Latin word which describes the disposition toward virtue in Aristotle’s
Nichomachean Ethics (Greek hexis). Since prudence or phronesis aptly manages time in
the practical realm, the nonchalant man first appears imprudent; but Montaigne explores
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
19
is chosen once again to wittily illustrate unbecoming and inefficient vanity. The
chief difference between his self-portrait as an affected young dandy (see above)
and the mature negligence he now seeks in his textual (i.e. “consubstantial”)
self-image, is then acute awareness, granting the writer a sane distance.
While literal courtly nonchalance should conceal skilfulness and effort,
Montaigne—much like Canossa in The Courtier—claims his ignorance,
incapacity or roughness, or, on the other hand, underscores the difficulty of his
unique enterprise. After laying out the rhetorical (and social) grounds of the
paradoxical nonchalant ethos of the gentleman, it is time to briefly review some
of the epistemological underpinnings behind the will to appear careless and
casual.
Intellectual Nonchalance: Philosophical Counterpoint
“Un philosophe impremedité et fortuite” (I, 12, 546 C); such a statement
pays tribute to experience,36 but also follows social expectations. For when it
comes to knowledge and authorship, a gentleman can only be a dilettante.
Montaigne likes to say that his retirement away from urban savants preserves
him from ape-like imitation. Learned aristocrats resent slavish imitation, as do
most humanists in Latin oratory.37 Montaigne himself claims that he digested,
not memorized or copied, the great authors;38 he will not clutter his mind with
the words of others, hence his disorderly composition and jumbled sources. His
book, like his speeches, can suffer no premeditation, bearing a striking
a parallel dimension of time, relative and subjective, intersubjective and
phenomenological.
35
See Nakam, La Manière et la matière, on the two faces of mannerist portraiture: grace
vs. movement, beauty vs. force, which, along with grotesques, help contextualize a
rougher aesthetics (246), true to nature and art without excessive artifice.
36
See Ann Hartle, Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambrige
UP, 2003).
37
The “Quarell of the Ciceronianus” and its implications for the Essais are detailed by
Hugo Friedrich in his Montaigne (1949), trans. D. Eng, 1991; Michel Magnien, “Un écho
de la querelle cicéronienne à la fin du XVIe siècle: éloquence et imitation dans les
Essais,” in Rhétorique de Montaigne, ed. F. Lestringant, 85-99; and Mary McKinley, “La
présence du Ciceronianus dans ‘De la Vanité,’” in Montaigne et la rhétorique (Paris:
Champion, 1995), 51-65.
38
Montaigne’s educational ideas are infused with the Erasmian assimilation of “art,”
turned second nature through digestion. The Erasmian emphasis on style as difference,
especially in displaying ease and simplicity, is echoed in the books’ hidden or
cannibalised sources. The Ciceronianus, among major references, is obliquely but
undeniably present.
20
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
similarity to conversation,39 or familiar correspondence.40 His words are
improvised and unedited, purportedly scattered ex tempore.41 His manner is
casual, which is a direct synonym of nonchalant in Cotgrave’s dictionary.
Immersion in the works of great authors helps Montaigne unwind in his
downtime, and in passing nurtures his own writing in a leisurely, even vain,
manner.
Besides its direct association with noble leisure,42 nonchalance towards
human discourse keeps the subject away from libido sciendi, in other words,
curiosity and etiological obsession, the abuse of reason.43 Humans want to
believe and assign, create causal and conjectural lines. Ample scholarship has
dwelt upon the relationship of Montaigne’s thought and method with neoScepticism, especially Pyrrhonism.44 When supporting the “essaying” of
judgement, intellectual nonchalance by no means betrays rational inertia or
dullness, but translates a defiance toward over-inquisitive reason. Nonchalance
can then be seen as the antonym of curiosity, that is, excessive care, the
courtier’s enemy (see Hoby’s translation), but also Adam’s sin. As regards the
intellectual attitude implied by nonchalance—and leaving aside nonchaloir as
linked to acedia, as was posited in the introduction—the absence of curiosity or
concern can be likened to the sceptic outlook, wary of the speculations of
reason. The idea of inertia or detachment contained in nonchalance may then
foreshadow ataraxia, or echo the method of the epokè, the suspension of
39
Such semi-conversational style has long attracted critical praise; see
Ferdinand Brunetière swooning at the “grâce” of Montaigne’s “style réel” and “style
personnel,” Études sur Montaigne (Paris: Champion, 1999), 65. Or “ce décousu même
est le charme du livre. Lire les Essais, en effet, ce n’est pas proprement une lecture, c’est
une conversation” ‘Such discontinuity makes the very charm of the book. For to read the
Essais is, more than an act of reading, a conversation’ (Ibid. 59). Such consummate ethos
is but genius sprezzatura.
40
See Magnien, art. cit. On the use of plain style in the Essais, see Marie-Luce Demonet,
“‘Car je ne vois le tout de rien’: le style simple des Essais, L. I,” Op. cit., RLFC 1 (1992):
33-44.
41
See Orator §89 about the jokes befitting plain-style orators, and Quintilian (VII, 111)
on the ease befitting humorous actio.
42
See Virginia Krause, Idle Pursuits: Literature and Oisiveté in the French Renaissance
(Newark: U. of Delaware Press, 2003); and Bruno Roger-Vasselin, Montaigne et l’art de
sourire à la Renaissance (Paris: Nizet, 2003).
43
Defiance towards the curiosity of post-lapsarian humanity is exemplified in I, 27,
where both Catholic “creance” and suspension of judgement are opposed to curiosity,
identified as the source of religious strife. See Verderber and Naya’s chapters in the
present volume.
44
For recent research on Montaigne and Scepticism and/or Pyrrhonism, see Hartle, Naya
and Zalloua (see bibliography).
“Revelations of Character”: Ethos, Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy
in Montaigne
21
judgement in view of the equivalence or “isostheny”45 of all opinions and
rational constructs—at least if we consider a superior and deliberate
philosophical nonchalance, aiming at some telos.46
In the realm of practical experience, however, the ambivalence of
nonchalance predominates, for mere mortals. It can free one from vain and
endless distractions, but can also prove “philautic” or hazardous. This is shown
for instance in “À demain les affaires” (II, 4). In this essai, lack of concern is
presented as a personal flaw of the author’s—although not carried to the
extreme, says an important interpolation. “Le vice contraire à la curiosité, c’est
la nonchalance, [B] vers laquelle je penche evidemment de ma complexion” (II,
4, 364);47 “peu de choses me touchent, ou, pour mieux dire, me tiennent” (III,
10, 1003). Montaigne uses the example of news carried by letters, and delivered
in a public or official situation. The relationship between indifference, eagerness
and praxis, even political action, is here at stake. This conjures up prudence
(phronesis) as the intellectual faculty or virtue which makes fitted and moral
conduct possible.48 News, even more so official dispatches, reflect Fortune’s
tricks and might trigger more of those, so why force oneself to care? But more
than sheer contempt in the face of flux, Montaigne’s lack of interest is
commensurate with the lack of value attributed to pointless babble—not to
mention that curiosity is a sin,49 and is of course far from the golden mean. So
the careless stance is not so ethically problematic for the private individual, “en
son particulier,” as the essayist writes. But in the case of public figures with
political responsibilities (as in II, 4), consideration of the common good is the
measure of their virtue (their “prudence”), the key to judging their
nonchalance—good if it prevents from disrupting important meetings or justly
spares someone, bad if it endangers others for one’s own pleasure50 (see the end
of II, 4). The main discriminant by which priorities are determined is the general
interest. In the political context of this essai, Montaigne obliquely describes
45
See Emmanuel Naya, “De la médiocrité à la ‘mollesse’: prudence montaignienne,” in
Éloge de la médiocrité (Paris: Éditions rue d’Ulm, 2005), 195-216.
46
See Sylvia Giocanti, “L'action sceptique: un art de ‘se laisser rouler au vent,’”
BSAM 8, no. 17-18 (2000): 69-77.
47
“The vice contrary to curiosity is nonchalance, [B] toward which I clearly lean by
temperament” (F 263).
48
See Francis Goyet, “Montaigne and the Notion of Prudence,” in The Cambridge
companion to Montaigne (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005), 118-41; and RoustangStoller in the present volume.
49
The “Apologie de Raymond Sebond” thus chooses the suspension of judgement in lieu
of inept or abusive conjectures; “une opinion moyenne et douce” is the ethical option.
50
See Zahi Zalloua’s reading of Rusticus’s nonchalance (II, 4) in, “Montaigne, Seneca,
and ‘Le Soing de la Culture de l’Ame,’” forthcoming in Montaigne Studies 21 (2009).
22
Careful Carelessness: Montaigne’s Curious Nonchalance
himself as an ideal aide or state official,51 since he is never tempted to peek into
the papers of “un grand.” He thus presents the most trustworthy professional
ethos—albeit supported by what is commonly regarded as a natural flaw;
because he does not care, his eyes and hands will not deflower letters left in his
custody.
Here we have a new version of sprezzatura, not based on aesthetical
elegance but political discretion. What if the gentilhomme could be the new
sage? In the ongoing search for practicable wisdom, nonchalance is then to be
assessed pragmatically and dialectically, as a relational quality supporting
prudence, for sound choices. Doubting, halting and delaying to act can prove
pious and prudent.52 Against the backdrop of political conspiracies and secret
alliances conveyed through letters in particular, Montaigne’s nonchalance then
leans toward a moderate habitus, that is, toward virtue,53 if set between curiosity
and nonchaloir (unredeemable indifference). This illustrates the oblique way in
which a seemingly egotistic enterprise such as that of the Essais takes part in
contemporary political and philosophical debates (e. g., temporizing vs. action
in wartime; or the questions of prudence/phronesis or ethical rules). What if a
freer mind conditioned fair allegiance to the Crown, neither alienation nor
isolation? (The question also informs “De l’institution des enfants”). By offering
his book presented as private to the powers that be,54 the provincial courtiercouncillor betrays caring ethics under a careless ethos.
In line with his indifference to others’ business or correspondence, the
author’s lack of memory is echoed throughout. As Emmanuel Naya contends,
this seems to separate him from prudence/phronesis, where memory plays a key
role in deliberating. Nonchalance as intellectual detachment and recognition of
Fortune’s power, however, does not equal political or moral disengagement.
Montaigne involves the faculty of judging into praxis, and distances both the
sage and the saint in their absolutist perfection—along with his contemporaries
donning those ethe in wartime. He eschews any kind of submission or tyranny,
any abusive “licence” (III, 12, 1042 B): “Combien c’est d’impieté de n’attendre
de Dieu nul secours simplement sien et sans nostre cooperation” (III, 12,
51
See Goyet, art. cit (2005).
Jean Starobinski talks about “l’action calme” in Montaigne en mouvement (Paris:
Gallimard, 1982).
53
Montaigne justifies historically his relative promotion of a soft character (“la facilité
de mes mœurs,” sheer ethos), foreign to lofty Stoic ethics in particular, by saying that in
the corrupted times he lives in, minor vices become virtues, when crimes usurp the name
of virtue (“vertueux à bon marché,” II, 17, 646 A).
54
The author had an acute sense of his career, and did offer his book to the king and the
pope in person; this desire to have his insights recognized by rulers is striking to
Philippe Sollers (La Guerre du goût, Paris: Gallimard, 1994, 346).
52