Cambridge University Press Montaigne and the Life of Freedom: Series Number 101 (Ideas in Context, Series Number 101)

More than any other early modern text, Montaigne's Essais have come to be associated with the emergence of a distinctively modern subjectivity, defined in opposition to the artifices of language and social performance. Felicity Green challenges this interpretation with a compelling revisionist reading of Montaigne's text, centred on one of his deepest but hitherto most neglected preoccupations: the need to secure for himself a sphere of liberty and independence that he can properly call his own, or himself. Montaigne and the Life of Freedom restores the Essais to its historical context by examining the sources, character and significance of Montaigne's project of self-study. That project, as Green shows, reactivates and reshapes ancient practices of self-awareness and self-regulation, in order to establish the self as a space of inner refuge, tranquillity and dominion, free from the inward compulsion of the passions and from subjection to external objects, forces and persons. Review 'Stimulating and challenging.' The Times Literary Supplement Book Description A new interpretation of the Essais, situating Montaigne's project of self-study in the context of a broader commitment to liberty. About the Author Felicity Green is Junior Research Fellow in history at Trinity College, Cambridge. She has also held fellowships at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and at the Huntington Library.