For those of us old enough to know that human life will always seem short, he is a philosopher we should hold dear. Born to wealth near Bordeauxin 1533, he lived not quite 60 years, many of them spent in a tower on his family estate. He wrote a witty and opinionated prose about such wildly random things as cannibalism, thumbs, sex - and mortality.  

Above all, Montaigne was accepting, of the bitter with the sweet, the pleasurable and the painful, the beautiful and the wretched, life and death.  

This will be a small, mostly in person seminar---sometimes zoomed because of instructor travel. We will take up a handful of Montaigne's best essays, and try a few of our own. Modest amounts of reading and some writing will be needed for good discussions: this is not a set of lectures!  

His opinions can be madcap. Often, though, he offers delightful ideas in charming sentences that live on in every French lycée. I invite you to read him with me in translation (or in French if you can) and to weigh his wisdom and follies - as well as our own.

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