MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE: WRITERLY NUDITY AND THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SEXUAL CHASM

Abstract

On his way to Rome, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) made a one-day visit to the city of Vitry-le-François on September 10, 1580. There, he met a female-born man whose male sexual organs had been generated as the erstwhile young girl had been making large strides. The narrative of the event in Montaigne’s Essais reflects his interest in the complexities of sexual difference and his critical approach of the regnant scheme of sexual binarity. The present contribution highlights Montaigne’s attentiveness to sexual configurations at variance with the male/female template that subtends the normative views upheld by the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of the French sixteenth century. Not being an outspoken advocate of contrarian sexual takes, Montaigne sufficed himself with pointing to the existence of mythological, anthropological and historical accounts implying the categorial inadequateness of subsuming individuals under one of two mutually exclusive sexes. What appears at first to be merely illustrations of anormative sexual forms, is actually meant to open the way toward the validation, within the ambit of sexuality, of Montaigne’s foremost ontic principle: "Nature has committed herself not to make any other thing that was not different." On this assumption, Montaigne eventually hints in his comprehensive essay "On some verses of Virgil "at a template of sexual differentiation that dispenses with the prevalent (albeit thoughtless) scheme of dichotomous sexuality. Despite introducing a self-deprecative tone to dissipate possible accusations of propounding an un-Christian stance on sexual matters, the brief passage at stake envisages surrendering the immemorial fixity of sexual compartmentations to the limitless sexual variability that occurs in Nature, thereby setting the theoretical stage for his writerly aspiration to portray himself "tout nud" in a world free of taxonomic closures.