How Confessions drew on The Complete Essays
A documented line of influence: Jean-Jacques Rousseau demonstrably engaged Michel de Montaigne’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Complete Essays
Michel de Montaigne · 1580
RenaissanceThe influenced
Confessions
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1782
EnlightenmentRelevance
8/10
On Confessions’s page
- Rousseau is writing in Montaigne's shadow — and wants you to know he's surpassing it
- He calls out the Essays by name, accusing Montaigne of only "feigning" to confess his faults while flattering himself; the Confessions promises the unflattering version
- Read Montaigne first and you see what Rousseau is reacting against: the genteel self-portrait he's trying to blow open into total self-exposure
On The Complete Essays’s page
- Montaigne invented the self-portrait in prose — and Rousseau set out to outdo him
- Two centuries later the Confessions defines itself against the Essays: Rousseau scorns Montaigne for "feigning" to confess his faults while taking care to give himself only amiable ones
- The line runs Augustine → Montaigne → Rousseau — the Essays are the link that turns confession into the secular examination of a single ordinary self