Sagesse e autoretrato dos Essais face à descoberta do Novo Mundo

Wisdom and autoportrait in the Essais in front of the New World

Abstract

The article examines Montaigne’s ethos or sagesse from the often made
topos in the Essais of his contrast to the hybris ambitions of the century. It tries first
to define this sagesse in its general lines: in its distance from the tradition and in its
opposition to the ambition of contemporaries, both in the solitary life and in the
active life. The article then goes on to examine how this topos works in the context
of the discovery of the New World, or of the encounter with the “savages” as an
extreme case that best develops the opposition of Montaigne and his century in its
ethical and moral consequences. The occurrence of the same term designating in
different contexts the ambition of the “commun des hommes” as a desire to embrasser
all things, articulates here the essays De la Solitude, De ménager sa volonté and Des
Cannibales and reaffirms the importance of the topos in the general plan of the Essays.

Keywords : sagesse – constantia – cannibal – ambitions - autoportrait