Montaigne: journeying to the limits of the human

Ready to take your next journey of Discovery? The Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery at BRLSI is a yearlong programme of talks and events exploring the many joys, revelations and something of the broader cultural legacy of a movement still making waves in the 21st century.  Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Martin Luther, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Hieronymus Bosch, if you love culture then you’ll love our new talks series!

So how did the Renaissance change the way we look at the world? The distinctive intellectual approach of Montaigne’s Essays (1580-95) is to put everything to the test; the word essay is indeed related to the word assay: a trial, an attempt, a test.

The purpose of this talk is to show how Montaigne tests and explores the limits of the human in key areas of his thought: the boundaries of mortality, the edge of knowledge, the confines of the body. In so doing, he redefines what it means to be human and to be a humanist trained in the literature of Classical antiquity.

Professor John O’Brien, University of Durham

To learn more about the Renaissance and our exciting year long programme, don’t forget to follow our Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery webpage: https://www.brlsi.org/renaissance/