“Finding yourself” is a common enough term today. I would
say most people are interested in introspective pondering and working to figure
out what makes them feel content and fulfilled. This type of thinking also abounded
in the Renaissance. Rather than think only what they were told to think and do
what they had to do to survive, people in the Renaissance began to think about
the world and themselves in different ways than ever before.
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| Michel de Montaigne, the first essayist. |
A leader in this art was the writer Montaigne. He wrote about his daily life, musing about one topic or another, basically recording his thoughts on paper. These writings he coined “essais” after the French word “essayer,” meaning “to try.” Montaigne’s musings were attempts to understand himself and his world, and they often delved into ideas that were deeper than their titles.
People read Montaigne’s essays and were amazed to see the
situations they had experienced and feelings they had felt written so
brilliantly. A line from We Taste Nothing
Purely reads “In sadness there is some alloy of pleasure.” I know exactly the
feeling he is talking about, but I would never have even thought to put it into
words. His essays also opened people’s minds to new ideas, which was an
integral aspect of the Renaissance. On
Cannibals, for example, explores the idea that the cannibals Montaigne met
in Brazil could be more moral than the “civilized” people of Europe.
The desire to put everyday thoughts and experiences into
words never died out; Montaigne has influenced writers for centuries. Personal
essays of today still exhibit that humanistic exploration of self. Joyas Voladoras, written in 2004 by the
late Brian Doyle, contemplates the heart. “We are utterly open with no one in
the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not
friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart.
Perhaps we must.”
It’s certainly a testament to humanist ideals that, after
all this time of people exploring what it means to be human, we’re still trying
to figure it out.
Image credit: Portrait of Michel de Montaigne, circa unknown by unknown author is in the public domain.
