Trying to make sense of Montaigne

Where to start with Montaigne? The sheer bulk of Montaigne’s essays, in the monster single-volume translation by Michael Screech, is forbidding enough - some 1280 pages. But let’s be a little more realistic: the essays are certainly readable, which is a good start. This post is about first impressions of reading Montaigne – although I’ve looked at the essays before, I can’t say I’ve ever really engaged with them. How do they appear on an initial read?

·       First of all, they are the writings of a thinker, someone willing to attempt to examine just what they think, unlike the complacency of, say, James Woodforde (I don't get the impression he ever examined his own ideas critically). You couldn’t imagine a greater contrast.

·       But Montaigne’s essays are a hotchpotch. They vary widely in length, from just over a thousand words (‘On Idleness’) to book-length (‘An Apologie for Raymond Sebonde’, which is nearly 200 pages in the Penguin edition. The title and the length of each essay don’t appear to be related.

·       The title of each essay often seems to be bear little relationship to what is discussed within. Moreover, some of the titles look to have little relevance to a man trying to determine his own views (‘Ceremonial at the meeting of kings’).

·       On first reading, it seems the essays represent many years of rethinking. But the three editions of the essays, which editors by convention label A, B, and C, were written in 1580, 1588, and after his death in 1592 – a period of only twelve years. Nonetheless, it is fascinating to see evidence of a writer changing his mind, or at least his approach. Many writings contain multitudes, as Whitman said, but not always as visibly as here.

·       Most importantly, I can’t help seeing the vast number of quotations, mainly from classical authors. It’s as if Montaigne couldn’t look at the weather without quoting a classical writer on the subject. Now I know the Renaissance was fixated on ancient Greece and Rome, but it’s still a shock to see how frequent Montaigne’s quotes are. Did he never disagree with classical authors? What if their opinions were so cryptic that they offered no guidance, a bit like Vitruvius describing the classical method of architecture, which has remained unintelligible from his time to the present day? Nonetheless, it is certainly true today that an accepted style for non-fiction writing is to state an opinion and to follow it up by an authority who states in writing a confirmation of that opinion. So the pattern still exists today; we just don’t use classical authors so often as our exemplars.

·       Of course, Montaigne uses the classical authors for his own ends. The selection of a quote from a classical author is to an extent the construction of your own ideas. We can’t say that Montaigne had classical attitudes. But we can look in the classics to see if there is a correspondence between Montaigne’s ideas and those of the Classical writers he read most frequently.

·       A fundamental problem of the Essays, a problem shared with all writings of the time, is that they combine formulaic views, which were the accepted opinions of the day, with unconventional and perhaps radical ideas. I’m no expert in Renaissance thought, so I inevitably depend on authorities to point these opinions out. At least initially, then, the commentators are looking at the text with rather different criteria to my own. For a modern reader like me, many of the commonplace views are surprising; I am fascinated (at least initially) by what was probably unexceptional to Montaigne’s contemporaries. I can’t (initially) get excited by Montaigne’s scepticism, as I am so fascinated by his everyday opinions and how different they are to those of the present day.

·       Thus, for example, in ‘To Philosophize is to learn how to die’, Montaigne talks about the importance of being ready for death at any moment: “As far as we possibly can we must always have our boots on, ready to go; above all we should take care to have no outstanding business with anyone else.” What a strange attitude! How different to the present-day, where death is largely suppressed from our thinking. Of course people die, but for the most part we can ensure that death is painless and predictable. Usually, in the modern world, we can ignore death and pretend that it will never happen.

·       What about a present-day Montaigne? What if someone were to read Montaigne and to try to assemble the modern assumptions and expectations, and then to analyse themselves to show which of those assumptions he or she didn’t agree with? That would be a project indeed!

James Woodforde: the complacent cleric

James Woodforde was a parson of a Norfolk country church for 27 years. In principle, his diary could be a unique insight into rural life in the 18th century, but I found it an excruciating read.  In a word, Woodforde is complacent. For example, pretty much every entry in the diary begins as follows:

I breakfasted, supped and slept again at home.

The reader might think, because the author has not moved house, that such a detail is not worth recording – at least not repeating the same sentence thousands of times. For Woodforde, it seems a significant guide to his character. Habit, repetition, the daily round, is good. He records:

·       How much money he gave away in charitable donations - but he doesn’t mention the much larger sums he received in tithes from his parishioners. According to Wikipedia, the living of his parish was worth £400 per year.

·       How much money he won or lost playing at cards

·       How much he spent on travel.

·       What he cooked or ate.

Does anything else motivate Woodforde? Not religion. Woodforde’s faith is of the “minimal folk superstition” variety. Religion is only mentioned when someone dies, is born, gets married, of if something exceptional happens. There is no questioning or investigation of faith. Typical references to religion are:

I got to Ansford, I thank God safe and well this evening about 6 o’clock [Feb 1st 1764]
I … married my Sister Jane and Mr Pouncett by license. Pray God send Thy Blessing upon them both, and may they be happy in each other. [May 24 1774]
Thank God Almighty, for preserving us all safe from so violent a Tempest. [Aug 10 1787]

As for positive aspects of the diary, they seem to be an excellent depiction of the unthinking life at Oxford in the 18th-century: Woodforde records drinking, competing for livings, and disciplining undergraduates who drink too much, but no mention of any learning. These are the words of a complacent fellow.

The Buildings are grand at Cambridge but few of them [May 22 1776]

Quite a Summer’s day and exceeding fair.

Had a letter this evening from my Sister Pounsett.

Had another from Dr. Oglander, Warden of New

Coll: Oxford, in answer to mine, and very satis-

factory it was. Five poor unhappy young men were

hanged this day at Norwich, for divers misdemeanours,

at the last Assizes they were condemned — Bell, Boddy,

Bridges, Partridge and Gryfin, none of them but

what were quite young, but Villains … [April 3 1778]

The effect of the diary is smug and soporific. Worse, it brings into question the whole nature of diary writing. Must writing a journal be as egocentric and complacent as this? What makes a good personal diary or journal? Montaigne’s writings are a fierce self-examination, carried out over many years. Sartre describes his childhood with merciless condemnation of the people about him. Boswell’s journals are a masterpiece of self-assurance accompanied by the less comfortable reality he encounters. He is enthusiastic. Where is Woodforde’s excitement?

Did you know Rigoletto was Charlie Chaplin?

Glyndebourne Touring Opera production of Rigoletto: Rigoletto (R) and Gilda (L)

No, I didn’t know either, until I saw the Glyndebourne Touring production of Verdi’s Rigoletto (Norwich, December 2019). The opera was now set in a film studio, with Rigoletto himself dressed in the distinctive guise of the little tramp. Except that the singer playing Rigoletto happened to be about 20 stone and as unlike Charlie Chaplin in physique as you could imagine. The director, Christiane Lutz, appears to be responsible for this interpretation. She states, in the programme:

“We then thought about Charlie Chaplin, an iconic comedian, someone with enough charisma to fill the huge figure of Rigoletto, who worked within the studio system at this time, as the starting point for our staging… When you say ‘Charlie Chaplin’, everyone has an image, an idea in mind, and that richness of association was what we wanted.”

But the more you think about it, the more unlikely the analogy becomes. Chaplin was famous in films as the victim, the little man who suffers from an impersonal and cruel society, and at others’ hands. Rigoletto, in contrast, is someone who is clearly very successful, surrounded and protected by rich people, many of whom resent him for his success. There is nothing the two characters have in common.  Lines such as this would sound very strange coming from Charlie Chaplin:

Rigoletto

Who could harm me? I’m not afraid of them.
No one dare touch someone protected by the Duke.

Gratuitous videos are a commonplace of modern opera productions, and this production has a good example. Glyndebourne shows the three-act opera in two parts, with an interval between. Before the start of each part, there is a short video in which someone (I assume an elderly Chaplin, although uncredited) talks about the importance of moving forward, not looking back. These videos, together with the amateurish mime of an actor writing the word “forwards” in a circle, do not help us understand or appreciate the plot. In what way does Rigoletto look forward? It seems to me he spends most of his time worrying about the curse put on him - not very forward-looking.

There were other aspects of this production that left me guessing. For example, whose daughter is Gilda? The Count of Monterone, according to the synopsis, “confronts the Duke for seducing his daughter”. In this production, the daughter is seen on stage with a baby – and Rigoletto is seen to take the baby. So who exactly seduced the Count’s daughter? Or is Rigoletto acting honourably in taking responsibility for the Duke’s transgressions?

One problem with this production was that I didn’t get much of an idea of Rigoletto as evil. Perhaps Nikoloz Lagvilava, the baritone playing Rigoletto, simply doesn’t do nasty very well. In this production, he appeared as the wounded bear: a big, ungainly animal ridiculed by his peers. Theatre is supposed to deal with archetypes. I was lost by the archetypes depicted here.

Complexities of the story

To be fair to the production team, Rigoletto is a rather confused opera. Some of the story makes perfect sense, and can be readily grasped by the audience. The coup de theatre when Rigoletto discovers he has had his own daughter murdered is stunning; the moment he hears the tune of La donna e mobile in the background, he realises the dead body in the blanket in front of him is clearly not his intended victim, the duke. But other key points are not at all clear. Is the Duke a good or a bad man? At the start of the opera, he is the archetypal seducer:

Duke

If today one woman pleases me

Perhaps it’ll be another one tomorrow.

Constancy, tyrant of the heart,

We detest like a disease.

Yet later in the opera, the Duke appears in all sincerity as a man converted to constancy for love of Gilda:

Duke

She who first kindled in my heart

The flame of a constant love

She so pure, whose modest expression

Almost convinced me to a virtuous life!

The opera, and this production, would suggest the Duke is entirely sincere in his affections towards Gilda. Later in the opera, he is seen trying to seduce Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena. Perhaps it was just me, but I interpreted this not as the actions of a serial seducer, but as the ravings of a man who has just lost his true love. However, it's something of a condemnation of the plot that it's still not clear after I have seen Rigoletto performed several times. Of course, Verdi’s operas are melodramas, which means there is little room for complexity of character; it is perhaps trying to fit an over-complex plot into the opera format. I would see this as a limitation of the opera itself, not of this production.

Unnecessary action in this production

There are two actors in this production whose job it is to swan around and ‘interpret’ the music in some way (apart from singing - they are silent roles). Only one actor is credited in the programme, so perhaps the second actor appeared, like the extras in Noises Off, just in case the first one didn’t manage to appear on stage at the right time. Helpfully, the two of them killed each other off just before the final curtain. Otherwise, we could have been there all night.