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“Le Propre de l’homme”: Reading Montaigne’s ‘Des cannibales’ in Context

O'Brien, John

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Abstract

This article undertakes an ‘embedded reading’ of the term ‘cannibale’ in book 1, chapter 31 of Montaigne’s Essais, bringing out the preconceptions about both the term and the Brazilian natives which Montaigne does so much to revise. Different understandings of ‘cannibale’ and associated terms such ‘barbare’ and ‘sauvage’ are explored, with radically different implications for ‘le propre de l’homme’ to which such descriptors are linked. It is shown that the French Wars of Religion played a major role in undermining distinctions between epithets designating civilized and barbaric, human and inhuman, and Christian and pagan. Three examples of seventeenth-century discussions of ‘Des cannibales’ are provided in order to demonstrate the long-term effects of Montaigne’s work.

Citation

O'Brien, J. (2016). “Le Propre de l’homme”: Reading Montaigne’s ‘Des cannibales’ in Context. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 53(2), 220-234. https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqw056

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 1, 2015
Online Publication Date Sep 23, 2016
Publication Date Sep 23, 2016
Deposit Date Jan 24, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Forum for Modern Language Studies
Print ISSN 0015-8518
Electronic ISSN 1471-6860
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 53
Issue 2
Pages 220-234
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqw056

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Copyright Statement
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Forum for modern language studies following peer review. The version of record O'Brien, John (2017). “Le Propre de l’homme” Reading Montaigne’s ‘Des cannibales’ in Context. Forum for Modern Language Studies 53(2): 220-234 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqw056




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