Related Writers and Influence
Thinkers exploring similar ideas include Erasmus, Thomas More, and Guillaume Budé, who all worked about fifty years before Montaigne. Most of Montaigne's Latin quotations are from Erasmus' Adagia, and most critically, all of his quotations from Socrates.
Since Edward Capell first made the suggestion in 1780, some scholars believe that Shakespeare was familiar with Montaigne's essays. John Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essais became available to Shakespeare in English in 1603. It is suggested that Montaigne's influence is especially noticeable in Hamlet and King Lear, both in language and in the skepticism present in both plays.
| Of The Caniballes translated by John Florio (1603) | The Tempest Act 2, Scene 1 |
| It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of service, of riches or of povertie; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle; no respect of kindred, but common, no apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falshood, treason, dissimulations, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them. How dissonant would hee finde his imaginarie common-wealth from this perfection? | Gonzalo:I' the commonwealth I would by contraries execute all things; for no kind of traffic would I admit; no name of magistrate; letters should not be known; riches, poverty, and use of service, none; contract, succession, bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; no use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; no occupation; all men idle, all: and women too, but innocent and pure; no sovereignty...All things in common nature should produce without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, would I not have; but nature should bring forth, of it own kind, all foison, all abundance, to feed my innocent people...I would with such perfection govern, sir, To excel the golden age. |
| That The Taste of Goods or Evils Doth Greatly Depend on the Opinion We Have of Them translated by John Florio (1603) | Hamlet Act 2, Scene 1 |
| "Men...are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not by things themselves" | Hamlet: Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison. |
However, as with Cervantes, Shakespeare's similarities with writers in other nations could be due simply to their simultaneous study of Latin moral and philosophical writers such as Seneca the Younger, Horace, Ovid and Virgil.
Much of Blaise Pascal's skepticism in his Pensées has been traditionally attributed to his reading Montaigne.
The English essayist William Hazlitt expressed boundless admiration for Montaigne, exclaiming that "he was the first who had the courage to say as an author what he felt as a man. ... He was neither a pedant nor a bigot. ... In treating of men and manners, he spoke of them as he found them, not according to preconceived notions and abstract dogmas". Beginning most overtly with the essays in the "familiar" style in his own Table-Talk, Hazlitt tried to follow Montaigne's example.
Ralph Waldo Emerson chose "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic" as a subject of one of his series of lectures entitled Representative Men, alongside other subjects such as Shakespeare and Plato. Friedrich Nietzsche judged of Montaigne: "That such a man wrote has truly augmented the joy of living on this Earth".
The American philosopher Eric Hoffer employed Montaigne both stylistically and in thought. In Hoffer's memoir, Truth Imagined, he said of Montaigne, "He was writing about me. He knew my innermost thoughts." The Welsh novelist John Cowper Powys expressed his admiration for Montaigne's philosophy in his books Suspended Judgements (1916) and The Pleasures of Literature (1938). Judith N. Shklar introduces her book Ordinary Vices (1984), "It is only if we step outside the divinely ruled moral universe that we can really put our minds to the common ills we inflict upon one another each day. That is what Montaigne did and that is why he is the hero of this book. In spirit he is on every one of its pages..."
Read more about this topic: Michel De Montaigne
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