Had Montaigne not been Montaigne, Marcel would not have been Marcel. Nor Nietzsche, Nietzsche; Emerson, Emerson. And although it is a matter of dispute among Shakespeare scholars, without Montaigne, Shakespeare might have been less than the Shakespeare we know.
In his essay on "Montaigne and Francis Bacon," Harold Bloom writes: "What Montaigne gives you goes beyond wisdom, if so secular a transcendence is acceptable to you" (Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?, 120).
Montaigne re-invented humanism for the Modern Age.
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