Editorial Movement and Subjectivity Image. Notes about Essays, by Michel de Montaigne

Abstract

In view of both literary and editorial issues, these notes present a reflection on two aspects of Essays (1580), by Michel de Montaigne, which resize the debate on the issue of self-writing, namely: the image of subjectivity and the revisional attitude as an editorial movement. The thematic axis holds in its core a reflection on the subjective duration, time of writing inside and outside the text, which dynamizes the specular images of oneself, giving them movement, that is, producing their ghosts. The approach methodology identifies the figures of the mirror and the ghost in three selected essays, but which exemplify the modus operandi of the structure of the work. These notes make use of the interpretations of Starobinski (2018), Birchal (2007) and Scoralick (2016), who are divided as to the characterization of the text and, among them, seek their place, by observing the convergences and divergences.