Introduction: Why Montaigne and Nietzsche?

Abstract

“I know of only one writer whom, in point of honesty, I can rank with Schopenhauer, and even above him, and that is Montaigne. The fact that such a man has written truly adds to the joy of living on this earth,” wrote Nietzsche in 1874. Nietzsche reveres Montaigne as he reveres no other author. To look at Montaigne with Nietzschean eyes reveals dimensions of the Essais frequently overlooked by other readings. This book is to be read not as an exercise in influence-tracing, but as a sustained dialogue between Montaigne and Nietzsche. The next five chapters interrogate the two writers on particular topics—scepticism, perspectivism, the drives, the free spirit, and asceticism. The final two chapters examine an idea with which both Montaigne and Nietzsche were obsessed, the idea of greatness. An Epilogue accepts Nietzsche’s invitation to take Montaigne as one of his judges.