The Confessions of Montaigne

doi:10.3390/rel3040950

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Religions 2012, 3(4), 950-963; doi:10.3390/rel3040950

Article

The Confessions of Montaigne

John Jeffries Martin

Department of History, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA

Received: 24 September 2012; in revised form: 10 October 2012 / Accepted: 11 October 2012 / Published: 15 October 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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Abstract: Montaigne rarely repented and he viewed confession—both juridical and ecclesiastical—with skepticism. Confession, Montaigne believed, forced a mode of self-representation onto the speaker that was inevitably distorting. Repentance, moreover, made claims about self-transformation that Montaigne found improbable. This article traces these themes in the context of Montaigne’s Essays, with particular attention to “On Some Verses of Virgil” and argues that, for Montaigne, a primary concern was finding a means of describing a self that he refused to reduce, as had Augustine and many other writers before and after him, to the homo interior.

Keywords: Montaigne; self; confession; prayer; repentance; interiority; sexuality; sincerity

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MDPI and ACS Style

Martin, J.J. The Confessions of Montaigne. Religions 2012, 3, 950-963.

AMA Style

Martin JJ. The Confessions of Montaigne. Religions. 2012; 3(4):950-963.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Martin, John J. 2012. "The Confessions of Montaigne." Religions 3, no. 4: 950-963.

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