Autour de Montaigne & Les Essais de Montaigne: Methode(s) et methodologies & Montaigne's Career. .

Emile Faguet. Autour de Montaigne.

Paris: Editions Honore Champion, 1999. 290 pp. [Cents]40.25. ISBN: 2-7453-0142-X.

James Supple. Les Essais de Montaigne: Methode(s) et methodologies. (Etudes Montaignistes, 36.) Paris: Editions Honore Champion, 2000. 468 pp. index. bibl. 420 FF. ISBN: 2-7453-0144-6.

George Hoffmann. Montaigne's Career.

New York and Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford, 1998. 188 pp. index. illus. bibl. $75. ISBN: 0-19-815962-5.

From differing critical perspectives, the books of Antoine Compagnon, James Supple, and George Hoffmann invite readers to examine and reconsider a paradigm of Monraigne criticism that has virally informed the reception of the Essais: the evolution of the author's thought and life as guarantor of the unity of his book. This concept has dominated Montaigne scholarship from the early twentieth century to the present but its underlying assumptions were not questioned until the 1 980s, and, as Antoine Compagnon suggests in his Preface to Autour de Montaigne, they still may not be fully understood. With the advent of postmodernism in the 1980s and 90s, the figure of the author was the catalyst in a polemic leading to a rift in Montaigne criticism; James Supple scrutinizes this wide-ranging dispute in Les Essais de Montaigne: Methode(s) et methodologies. George Hoffmann's initiative in Montaigne's Career renews our way of reading the Essais by offering an alternative view of the author at work, occupied in daily pra ctices.

Antoine Compagnon's engaging account of how the autobiographical paradigm was put in place at the turn-of-the-century appears in his preface to Emile Faguet's Autour de Montaigne. The essays of Faguet, a prolific and influential critic, reveal the precariousness of Montaigne's reception at this time as well as what was at stake in admitting him to the literary canon as one of the "Grands ecrivains francais." Contemporaries questioned whether the Essais could offer solutions to the pressing social and religious questions confronting them. How the Third Republic interpreted the Essais was thus of vital importance in this climate of opinion. Perceived as a dilettante and a conservative monarchist, Montaigne's most unpardonable fault was his suspected "skepticism," a defamatory charge that had been leveled by Renan, St. Beuve, and Michelet. Faguet simply rejected the accusation with Gustave Lanson following suit. However, the strategy of their contemporary, Fortunat Strowski, was to neutralize "ce scepticisme [qui] nous aneantit" (14) by delimiting it to a stage in the evolution of Montaigne's thought. The schema Strowski proposed--an early Stoic period, a skeptical crisis or "cure," dilettantism, and finally a mature Epicurean outlook--was influenced by Brunetiere's theory of literary evolution and even more so by modern autobiography. Faguet strenuously objected to this evolutionary model, opting instead for a "polychrome" (215) Montaigne whose stylistic fragmentation and discontinuity were seen to express a philosophy of "probabilism," of spontaneity, movement, and change. Although Faguet's view is closer to our own mentality, it was Strowski's theory that Pierre Villey adopted as the cornerstone of his own scholarly work and reputation. Thus, in response to the charge of skepticism, a key concept was introduced that helped secure a place for Montaigne in the republican pantheon.

Thanks to Compagnon's critical acumen and incisive research, we understand more clearly why and how the historical genetic approach to the Essais became the canonic way of presenting scholarship for seven decades. Compagnon's thesis is compelling and stimulating, exposing the contradictions the evolutionary theory imposed on our predecessors while enlightening present-day readers so that we may better understand where we stand.

James Supple's thought-provoking study, Les Essais de Montaigne, focuses on the shift of critical paradigms that divided Montaigne criticism in the 1980s and 90s. Attention is drawn to a set of key issues to show how they have shaped interpretive practice. Accordingly he investigates specific cases of textual application: how and why critics apply theories differently; why these are productive (or not) for interpreting a given essay; and what their implications are for a plural reading of the Essais.

Part one presents a watershed event in Montaigne criticism, the publication of Terence Cave's Cornucopian Text in 1979 which problematized traditional interpretive approaches by emphasizing discontinuities and asymmetries that prevent readers from imposing a stable order or unity on the Essais. In response, Supple turns to practice, engaging the reader in plural readings of Montaigne's essay De la gloire or, more precisely, in two practices of interpretation contrasting rhetorical and deconstructive approaches. Each brings out, albeit differently, an ethical dimension of the text, thus serving as a successful testing ground for an eclectic reading. From this interesting exercise is drawn his thesis that the various "Montaignes" identified by critics are largely reflections of the method critics have decided to use (48).

However, what methodological issues are at stake in the choice of method? Supple sets the critical debates of Montaignistes in two camps described as follows: 1) thematic interpretations based on biographical assumptions giving priority to the author's ideas; 2) a focus on the literarity or poetics of the text and the process of writing which diminish or evacuate the subject. Thus, a modernist (traditionalist) might pursue a thematic approach, drawing from different essays to create a conceptual whole. However, if a poststructural or postmodernist view of discontinuity prevailed, the critic would tend to respect the integrity of each essay as a distinct textual unit.

Part two analyzes a number of essays on Montaigne to show the strengths and weaknesses of recent critical approaches. This section involves the reader in a remarkably energetic dialogue with both the Essais and its critics. Although the opposition he sets up between a thematic approach and a poetics of the text serves as a useful guide, in practice the approaches tend to spill over, straddle, and resist these categories. Accordingly, Supple's emphasis on practice is particularly useful for clarifying divisions within the complex field of Montaigne criticism as it actually evolved during the 1980s and 90s.

Part three concentrates on connections between individual essays of Montaigne to argue for plural readings, combining thematics and poetics whose viability depends on a methodological concern to respect different critical positions. One might infer that only then can the text become the site of a critical dialogue, providing the conditions for an ethics of reading. Supple does, in fact, argue for an ethical reading of the Essais and his own critical practice best exemplifies this thesis by forcefully conveying the moral dimension of the Essais. This stimulating book will be of great interest to all readers of the Essais who are fascinated by the methodological issues and debates raised through critical practice.

George Hoffmann in Montaigne's Career initiates readers into early modern printed book culture with an eye-opening study of the essayist composing in the midst of managing a busy estate. In the intimacy of daily activities, he views Montaigne's writing project for the first time as a career shaped by contemporary writing practices and the economic demands of publishing in sixteenth-century France. His impressive research, compelling analyses, and measured scholarly approach persuasively demonstrate that one can no longer overlook the ways in which a book is produced and sold, including unforeseen circumstances that may have affected its outcome. Montaigne's Career makes a groundbreaking contribution to Montaigne scholarship by focusing on the material conditions of book-making and the daily practices of private life which shape the creative process.

In chapter one, Montaigne's writing vocation is seen, not as an alternative to a political career but rather as "a continuum of the personal and political" (37). This point is ingeniously developed through an examination of architectural spaces as shown in an eighteenth-century survey conducted before the chateau was destroyed by fire. His tower library, far from being an absolute retreat, was the only room in the chateau from which he could overlook the entire estate. Following chapters present Montaigne engrossed in various stages of the writing project: composing and dictating to his secretaries, purchasing paper to share the costs of printing, proofreading copies, and, finally, making extensive revisions to extend the publisher's privileges to his book. Hoffmann's meticulous research of these activities provides an important, largely untapped mine of information.

Hoffmann argues convincingly that everyday contexts and practices may answer certain perplexing questions about Montaigne's writing including important discursive breakthroughs. For example, whether the essayist actually dictated to a secretary has long been a disputed question. To tackle this question Hoffmann carefully scrutinized corrections made while the first edition was being printed. Mistakes made before the Essays were typeset, such as "non" for "nom" or "vile indice" for "vilein vice," (47-48) indicate the kind of slips one would make during dictation, leading to the intriguing possibility that the practice of dictating to a secretary may have influenced Montaigne's cultivation of a conversational style. The possibility that dictation may have "nudged Montaigne away from the controlled, smooth (Ciceronian) prose he used to translate Raymond Sebond....and toward the distinctive stop-and-start style of the Essays" (51), is a plausible suggestion although other factors such as the anti-Ciceronian trend may also have contributed. Chapter three dispels the common criticism that Montaigne printed the first edition at his own expense, using a vaniry press. Rather, it is shown that he split the costs with the Lyon printer Simon Millanges, this being the most common way to publish using the "compte partiel" system. Problems with securing paper, however, meant that he would have had to plan a year in advance thereby changing our ideas, based on Villey's dating, of when certain essays were written.

In the final two chapters Hoffmann is at his best exploring Montaigne's involvement in the actual printing of his book and the impact this experience had upon his later style and method of revising. The practice of revising is a puzzling question: why did the essayist continue to revise old essays, progressively increasing the length of his revisions in later editions rather than simply composing new essays? Hoffmann attributes the growth of revisions to the large format of the 1588 "deluxe" edition with its wider margins. While earlier revisions were usually limited to one sentence per page, Montaigne's later revisions typically included four or five passages, sometimes extending to two pages. More startling is the discovery that expirations of publishing privileges coincided with new, revised editions in Montaigne's time. Publishing privileges were given usually for five to ten years and could not be renewed if the book were not substantially augmented (by up to one third) by the author. Millanges' royal pr ivilege for the 1580 printing lasted eight years, making the second printing in 1588 the exact time when the privilege was to expire and enter the public domain. Hoffmann's observation that proofreading and revising became Montaigne's "entire compositional method" (97) is indeed apt in the context of this system of granting publishing privileges.

Additionally, Hoffmann extends Montaigne's writing career beyond the confines of a business enterprise to encompass social and professional ambitions. Since giving away copies of one's published book figured prominently as a stepping stone to official posts, the Essays may have helped him consolidate a position among colleagues in the legal milieu or may even have increased his visibility at the royal court. Indeed the king intervened personally in appointing Montaigne as Mayor of Bordeaux barely one year after he had been presented with the Essays. Thus, while modestly presented, this important study challenges common assumptions of Montaigne scholarship by shifting the critical paradigm from an evolutionary model of the author's thought-life to a description of daily practices.

The studies of Antoine Compagnon, James Supple, and George Hoffmann will edify all readers engaged in interpreting Montaigne's Essais. The exciting research, fresh insights, and new venues they bring to bear on the production, reception, and publication of the Essais will prompt readers to re-examine canonic and experimental ways of presenting scholarship with heightened awareness and discrimination. Together they deserve praise for mapping and successfully reconfiguring a contested, complex, and often poorly understood area of Montaigne criticism.