Old and new worlds : What is Montaigne saying about the West in On Cannibals ?

Résumé du document

Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne, was born in 1533, the son of a successful fish merchant. After an education focusing on Latin (he spoke it as a native), he studied law at Toulouse. He had made a career as a provincial magistrate. He travelled one year in Germany and Italy, and was mayor of Bordeaux for five years (1581-1585). In 1571, he left public affairs, and started to write his Essais; for the remind of his life he never left his castle in Périgord where he was born (and where he died).
In the Sixteenth Century, the European colonization of the New World discovered in 1492 was continuing, especially by the Spanish and Portuguese who shared South and Central America. This discovery of a new area and its inhabitants led the intellectuals of the Old World to think about these new societies but also, by comparison, about European societies. Montaigne was one of them, in Des Cannibales (1580) and Des Coches (1588); he depicts these unknown people called savages, barbarians or cannibals because of their strangeness.
In Des Cannibales (book 1, chapter XXXI), Michel de Montaigne tries to show that these populations (from Brazil) are not the barbarians Europeans think they are, but straightforwardly they are different, another kind of humanity. Then he displays that they are savages but only because they are nearer the Nature than the Europeans. At last, he explains the causes of their alleged barbarism and demonstrates that the Old World is much more barbarous than them.
We are going to see what is the basis of Montaigne's vision of these Brazilians, and what are the goals of the author when he wrote this Essay about the New World. We will notice the different steps of his argumentation and why he was one of the forerunners of some ideas.

Extraits

[...] Afterwards, in the last three paragraphs, by the way of the Brazilians feelings about French society, Michel de Montaigne demonstrates that many things could appear as strange as many aspects of the New World. Three Indian leaders met the French king Charles IX, and also the author at Rouen. After this meeting with the king, two main characteristics had surprised them. Firstly, they could not understand the fact that the king was a child whom everybody obeyed, even though the soldiers look powerful and can choose one of them to order. [...]

[...] We will notice the different steps of his argumentation and why he was one of the forerunners of some ideas. I. A. Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne, was born in 1533, the son of a successful fish merchant. After an education focusing on Latin (he spoke it as a native), he studied law at Toulouse. He had made a career as a provincial magistrate. He travelled one year in Germany and Italy, and was mayor of Bordeaux for five years (1581-1585). [...]

[...] Montaigne's Response to Columbus, in D. BERVEN, Montaigne: A Collection of Essays, vol. Montaigne's Message and Method, New York C. LOCHER, Primary and Secondary Themes in Montaigne's Cannibales”, in D. BERVEN, Montaigne: A Collection of Essays, vol. Sources of Montaigne's Thought, New York G. MERMIER, L'essai Cannibales” de Montaigne, in D. BERVEN, Montaigne: A Collection of Essays, vol. Language and Meanings, Work Study in Montaigne's Essais, New York, 1995. [...]

[...] He accepts the word to depict them, but he linked this word with another meaning, the meaning that is used to talk about nature, animals and plants. He calls them wild but with a positive connotation, as pure, uncontamined. It seems for the authors that the most perfect societies are those which are the more linked with the nature. In his point of view, living in unaltered Nature is the best way of life, the European societies moved too far away from it. [...]

[...] Both use the depiction of alien civilization to judge European culture. Bibliography P. MOREAU, Montaigne, Paris E. MARCU, Répertoire des idées de Montaigne, Geneva H. CHAMPION Montaigne: Espace, Voyage, Écriture, Paris A. GIDE, The Living Thoughts of Montaigne, London P. BURKE, Montaigne, Oxford J. PLATTARD, Montaigne et son temps, Paris G. NAKAM, Les Essais de Montaigne, miroir et procès de leur temps, Paris F. RIGOLOT, What Is Civilization? [...]