English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

9/6/05: Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals”

 

 

 

  1. Historical backgrounds and contexts.

 

 

    1. Michel de Montaigne

 

                                                              i.      b. 1533 – d. 1592.  Raised in the Bordeaux region of France, his father a wealthy merchant and mother of Spanish Jewish heritage

 

 

                                                            ii.      Lawyer and politician; he retires from the frustrations of politics in 1571

 

 

                                                          iii.      First two books of Essays appear in 1580

 

Figure 1.  Portrait of Montaigne by Francois Quesnel (c. 1590).  From the Montaigne Studies website, http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/montaigne/

 

 

 

    1. Why read an essay by a French humanist who never traveled to the New World in a course about British-Indigenous cultural encounter?

 

                                                              i.      A theoretical problem for literary history: “impact” vs. “reflection” vs. “circulation.” 

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      Montaigne’s mode of thought, like More’s, was significantly shaped by the turmoil of his time.  The consideration of intercultural contact through literature was part of Montaigne’s technique for processing those changes.  

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      Historical context.

 

 

1.      Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. 

 

 

 

 

2.      1562-1598.  French wars of religion

 

 

 

 

 

3.      1572.  St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. 

 

Figure 2.  An eyewitness representation of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre by François Dubois

 

 

 

                                                           iv.      Skepticism and the essay form. 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. French colonization and Montaigne’s sources.

 

                                                              i.      1555-1567.  France Antartique (Brazil). 

 

 

 

 

3. Woodcut illustration from Jean de Léry, Histoire d'un Voyage.

 

 

                                                            ii.      1562-1565.  French colony in Florida (Fort Caroline, near modern-day Jacksonville, FL). 

4. René de Laudonnière and the Timucuan.  Engraving by Theodor de Bry, after Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, India Occidentales (1591).  From the Library of Congress on-line exhibition, Pictorial Americana, available at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/picamer/toc.html.

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (1578; trans. 1625); Andre Thévet, The New Found Worlde, or Antartike(Les Singularitez de la France Antartique 1558, trans. 1568).  Excerpt from Léry.  Images of cannibalism from Thévet at JCB.

 

 

 

 

  1. “Of Cannibals”

 

    1. Discovery, skepticism, and authority. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Relativism and cultural difference. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Natural “Savagery” vs. Corrupted “Civilization”

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Montaigne’s Golden Age ethnography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Cannibalism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion:

 

 

 

 

 

Next time: Richard Eden (trans.), Sebastian Münster’s A Treatyse of the Newe India (London 1553).  Available on-line as a PDF file.