Publications [#324705] of John J. Martin

Journal Articles

1. Martin, JJ, "Et nulle autre me faict plus proprement homme que cette cy:" Michel de Montaigne's embodied masculinity, European Review of History, vol. 22 no. 4 (July, 2015), pp. 563-578, Informa UK Limited
   (last updated on 2024/04/24)

   Abstract:
   Writing in a period of considerable anxiety about gender roles, Montaigne (1533-92) developed a series of reflections on gender and masculinity in which he destabilized the gender and sexual hierarchies of early-modern France. First, drawing on an increasingly global archive of information about non-European societies, he argued that culture plays a major role in shaping the lives and experiences of women. Secondly, his understanding of nature enabled him to foster a notion of the equality of the sexes, even as he recognized that nature creates certain differences between men and women. Finally, on these foundations, Montaigne constructed a vision of masculinity that stresses it as an ethical value, one that he opposes above all to cruelty. Montaigne's sexual politics were, I suggest, at least in part a response to the Wars of Religion that had led to an excess of barbarity in early-modern France.