Montaigne in Motion

Book excerpt: Educated in the humanities and trained in psychiatry, Jean Starobinski is a central figure in the Geneva School of criticism. For twenty-five years his work has had considerable influence on postmodern European critics (notably Derrida), scholars of French literature, and intellectual historians. Montaigne in Motion is his subtly conceived and elegantly written study of the Essais of Montaigne, whose deceptively plainspoken meditations have entranced readers and stimulated philosophers since their first publication in 1580 and 1595. Starobinski here offers a decidedly postmodern reading of Montaigne. In chapters dealing with the themes of public and private life, friendship, death, the body, and love, Starobinski interprets Montaigne's writings as a constant "working through" that leads Montaigne from a situation of unreasoned dependence to a revolt affirming his independence and self-sufficiency, and finally toward an acceptance and mastery of necessary relations. Placing this ternary movement at the very heart of the Montaignian enterprise, Starobinski reveals much that will remind us that Montaigne's thought is as apropos to our time as it was to his own.