Michel de Montaigne's "Of Cannibals"

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Note: All passages from Montaigne in discussions by members of the 2002 class come from Donald M. Frame's The Complete Essays of Montaigne (Stanford UP, 1948). All such passages in discussions by members of the 2003 and 2005 class come from 1877 Cotton translation.

• Text (1877 edition: Translated by Charles Cotton. Edited by William Carew Hazilitt.)

Literary Relations

• Wisdom Speaker vs. Satirist: The Use of Comparison and Relativism in Montaigne and Swift
• Aristotle and Montaigne's "Of Cannibals"

Themes

• Barbaric Wars of Jealousy
• The Absence of the Body in Montaigne's Analysis of Cannibalism
• Montaigne on the limitations of the interpreter
• Montaigne and the Issue of a Writer's Credibility
• Comparisons to Europe in "Of Cannibals"
• Romanticizing the New World
• Berlin, Montaigne, and Understanding other cultures
• Montaigne on valor
• Generations of Mythic Identity
• Is Monaigne naive?
• Montaigne's Noble Savagery
• The Barbaric Other
• Views of the other in Montaigne's "Of Cannibals"
• Montaigne's Aversion to Art
• Classical Valor and Modern Barbarity
• Moral Barbarism in Montaigne's "Of Cannibals"

Techniques

• The Power of the Narrator in "Of Cannibals"
• The Rhythm of Montaigne: Perfecting Essay Writing to a Science
• New World writing as a reflection on the Old World
• Narrator's Point of View
• The Credibility of Montaigne's Support for Unadorned Nature
• Credibility in Montaigne
• Ethos and Cannibal Song
• Montaigne's Narrative Voice in "Of Cannibals"

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Last modified 14 February 2005