An Apology for Raymond Sebond

By: Michel De Montaigne and M. A. Screech

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Synopsis: In his introduction, Screech writes: "Montaigne gives his readers the fruits of his own wide reading and of his own reflections upon it, all measured against his personal experience during a period of intellectual ferment and of religious and political disarray. Montaigne never let himself be limited by his office or station. As husband, father, counsellor, mayor, he kept a critical corner of himself to himself, from which he could judge in freedom and seek to be at peace with himself. He does not crush his reader under the authority of the great philosophers: he tries out their opinions and sees whether they work for him or for others. Traces of Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Cicero, St Augustine or of his own contemporaries can be found in every page he wrote, but they are skilfully interwoven into his own discourse, being renewed and humanized in the process. And he hardly ever names them. An Apology For Raymond Sebond has all these qualities, despite its being the longest piece Montaigne ever wrote. In it, Montaigne remains triumphantly himself."