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Montaigne's Consubstantial Book
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Jen'ay pas plus faict mon livre que mon livre m'a faict, livre consubstantiel à son autheur … ” (I have not made my book any more than my book has made me, a book consubstantial with its author). That was no ordinary assertion in plain language. Montaigne explained his Essais as “concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand extraneous purpose, like all other books.” Its subject was uniquely himself. His usage of the term “consubstantial” projected his design beyond the literary theory of imitation into a theological paradigm of divinity.
Acknowledging that “well-known phrase” and “famous declaration,” literary criticism has much interpreted Montaigne's “consubstantial” book. Yet the slight mention of the word itself has been both undocumented and inaccurate.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1997
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