Preface to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne by his Adoptive Daughter, Marie Le Jars de Gournay by Richard Hillman, Colette Quesnel

Abstract

REVIEWS that the aids to readers be as complete as possible. The book is 1043 pages long, and I suspect that the Press would have been extremely reluctant to let it grow any further. It is a shame (although perhaps peculiarly appropriate!) if the exigencies of production have been allowed to affect the usefulness of this superb volume. But the negative is, in the grand scheme of this grand history, a small thing. David Wallace and his contributors are to be congratulated on a monumental achievement. SIÂN ECHARD / University of B ritish Columbia Preface to the Essays of Michel de Montaigne by his Adoptive Daughter, Marie Le Jars de Gournay. Translated, with Supple­ mentary Annotation, by Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel. Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998. Voi. 193. 199. $18. Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel provide for the first time the English translation of Marie de Gournay’s “Preface” to her initial edition of Montaigne’s Essais (edition of 1595). This “Preface” is crucial to the understanding of how Montaigne was received at the end of the Renaissance as well as to under­ standing the literary ideas of Gournay on her own work. Until recently, not very much credit was given to Gournay in her role of defending and promoting Montaigne’s legacy. Olivier Mil­ let in his book La Première réception des Essais de Montaigne (1580-1640) (1995) and the proceedings of several conferences held on Gournay (Marie de Gournay et l’édition de 1595 des Es­ sais de Montaigne [1996], and Montaigne et Marie de Gournay, Actes du colloque international de Duke [1995], [1997]) paid a legitimate tribute to this female writer known as one of the first feminists in French history. All these collections of essays, however, undoubtedly owe a debt to François Rigolot’s major study reproducing Gournay’s “Preface” in French and including abundant annotation. This work was published in 1989. In fact, Hillman and Quesnel reproduce Rigolot’s critical edition with their English translation on the opposite pages. The translators successfully provide a precise and elegant trans497 ESC 26, 2000 lation, which could not have been an easy task considering the specific rhetorical and often metaphorical qualities of Gournay’s prose. Although their critical annotation of the “Preface” is primarily based on Rigolot’s scholarship, it often gives signifi­ cant additional information to the reader. For example, taking into account the needs of their readers (mainly graduate stu­ dents and scholars familiar with, but not specialists in, French Renaissance literature), Hillman and Quesnel provide explana­ tions pertaining to the language, the time, and the personality of Gournay (cf. 25, 33). Sometimes, the translators add a much more detailed explanation of an allusion than in Rigolot’s edi­ tion (cf. 39: Timon of Athens/Socrates). Of course, scholarship and philological work on texts are never definitive. Another intertextual reference or literary source might be suggested to our colleagues here. When we read: “Un esprit sage se commet et remet à plusieurs, et se fie de peu de personnes” [A wise mind commits itself to, and consults with, a number and has confi­ dence in few] (66-67), we are inevitably reminded of a similar thought of Montaigne’s when he recommends that “il se faut prester à autrui et ne se donner qu’à soy-mesme” (Essais, III.10, “De ménager sa volonté”). The introduction (1-17) written by Hillman puts the “Pref­ ace” into its historical context and emphasizes its polemical and theoretical aspects. Readers will adequately understand the im­ portance of Gournay’s role in the reception of the Essais and in women’s attempts to reach literary respect and autonomy. The bibliography (105-09) provides the main critical elements produced on the subject. Two elements could be added: the proceedings of the conference at Duke quoted above (although the authors indicate the English version of these proceedings in the Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 25, 1995), and Editer les Essais de Montaigne, Actes du colloque de Paris IV (1997). Despite a few typographical errors (read “Preface à ... ,” Table of Contents; “Élyane,” p. 2, n. 2; “wished her to do so,” not “her do to so,” p. 12...