Michel de Montaigne
The Department of French & Italian presents a Horizons of Knowledge lecture by
John O’Brien
"O courbes, méandre …": Montaigne and Epicurus
Wednesday,
February 21, 2007
5:30 pm
Dogwood Room, Indiana
Memorial Union
Epicurus did not enjoy a good reputation in the Renaissance. Perceived as the advocate of self-indulgent pleasure, he was often labelled an atheist. By contrast with Epicurean doctrines, with which he often disagrees, Montaigne reacts positively to Epicurus the man, reading him in the first instance through the highly-acceptable Stoic philosopher, Seneca. Adapting methodology found in Terence Cave’s work on “pre-histories,” this lecture analyses the procedures of indirection (the curves and meanders of the title) by which an early-modern writer such as Montaigne comes to appropriate Epicurean pleasure as the expression of his pleasure. It discusses how intellectual revolutions come about not by a clean break with what precedes, but as subtle departures from prevailing dogma, departures that are only retrospectively regarded as decisive but still present serious problems of interpretation.
John O'Brien is Professor of French at the University of London, Royal Holloway. He is author of Anacreon Redivivus; editor of (Ré) interprétations; co-editor of Montaigne et la rhétorique, Belleau's Les Odes d'Anacréon, Distant Voices Still Heard and La familia de Montaigne; and author of articles on various aspects of Renaissance literature, particularly Montaigne. He is currently working on The Cambridge Companion to Rabelais, on the imagination and on the Martin Guerre narratives.
The lecture is in English, with quotations in French accompanied by English translations.
Sponsored by the Department of French & Italian, the Dean of Faculties, Renaissance Studies, and West European Studies.
If you have a disability
and need assistance, accommodations
can be made to
meet most needs. Please
call 855-5458 for assistance.
