Assaigs

by Michel de Montaigne

A l'edat de trenta-nou anys, Michel de Montaigne (Perigord, 1533-1592) es va retirar a la biblioteca del seu castell per començar una obra que ja no deixaria fins a la mort i que iniciava un nou gènere l'assaig. Fill de l'humanisme i de l'afany cultural i artístic del Renaixement, Montaigne creia que el saber havia de permetre a l'home l'aprenentatge per viure i morir serenament. En aquest sentit, els seus Assaigs manifesten una lúcida penetració que revela, a més d'una curiositat per totes les expressions de la natura humana, un poder constant de comprensió, de calma espiritual i d'independència. Home de vasta erudició i cultura literària, Montaigne se serveix de les lectures dels clàssics per entreteixir les seves reflexions, amb un estil planer que dóna a l'obra un to de conversa. Els Assaigs han estat i són encara un referent indispensable de la cultura europea. Insistentment citats i discutits durant segles, constitueixen el model d'una manera de fer i de pensar que, al costat de Shakespeare i Cervantes, inaugura la modernitat.  Vicent Alonso (Godella, 1948) ha dut a terme la traducció íntegra dels  Assaigs  ―publicada entre el 2006 i el 2008 per Proa en tres volums el primer dels quals va rebre el Premi de la Crítica Serra d’Or a la millor traducció―, que ara reeditem revisada per ell mateix.

1830 pages, Paperback

Published November 16, 2022

About the author

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1532-1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, from William Shakespeare to René Descartes, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Stephan Zweig, from Friedrich Nietzsche to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was a conservative and earnest Catholic but, as a result of his anti-dogmatic cast of mind, he is considered the father, alongside his contemporary and intimate friend Étienne de La Boétie, of the "anti-conformist" tradition in French literature.

In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman then as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, "I am myself the matter of my book", was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, "Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?").

Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary nonfiction has found inspiration in Montaigne, and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal storytelling.