Abstract

Montaigne chooses to write the Essays in French, the vulgar language, rather than in Latin, the language of the learned. He uses only the words that areheard in the streets, markets, and taverns of France. And he speaks about the body and the sexual in a manner that goes beyond the limits of propriety. The language of the Essays perfectly reflects Montaigne’s philosophical project, the re-ordering of philosophy to the lowest rather than the highest, to the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. By bringing the private into the public, he frees the private from shame and creates the new, modern public space, i.e., society. The invention of the essay is the invention of society.