The Confessions of Montaigne

Abstract

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.