In this collection, a generation of researchers pays homage to Jean-Yves Pouilloux by returning to the notion of awakening presented in his influential text Montaigne, l’éveil de la pensée. Various definitions of awakening emerge from these articles, which take the form of investigations, souvenirs, declarations of friendship, or meditations by philosophers and professors of early modern and modern literature. This range reflects the eclecticism of Pouilloux, who is as much a specialist of Rabelais and Montaigne as he is of modern writers (Queneau, Borges, and Paulhan), and also a translator of Quentin Skinner and David Leavitt.
The chronological organization of the chapters emerges in the course of reading, beginning with a nod to the humanist tradition from Homer (Marie-Françoise Marein), then confronting the question of imitation from an essentially medieval perspective (Yves Delègue), followed by an analysis of Borges and Lulle (Valérie Fasseur), then a series of texts dedicated to the study of Montaigne (Kristi Sellevold, Terence Cave, Bernard Croquette, Olivier Guerrier, Claudie Martin-Ulrich, André Tournon, Jaume Casals Pons), Pascal (Muriel Bourgeois), Rousseau (John D. Lyons), Proust (Laurent Jenny), and Genet (Eden Viana-Martin). The volume closes with a series of articles on broader political or philosophical themes (Patrick Hochart, Christiane Albert, Michel Deguy), finally concluding with the question of musical awakening (Bernard Sève, Pierre Pachet, Christine Van Rogger-Andreucci).
The most inspiring definition of awakening must be attributed to Bernard Sève. He argues that a musical awakening is defined by the recognition of a thing for which one experiences a love generated by a feeling of destiny or a desire for possession (259). To this he adds further definitions of awakening: a pause, a moment of silence between what follows and what has come before; or a surprising discovery of an artwork that awakens the sensation of a world hitherto unknown; or a philosophical conversion stirring a receptiveness to the appeal of the good, with Socratic irony as the most effective tool of this awakening. The agents of awakening are numerous but Michel Deguy focuses on paradox. Paradoxes permit one to leave behind what one usually hears, the doxa, and to cast oneself in opposition to the opinion of everyone. In this sense, paradoxes, contradictions, oxymora, and ironies have the goal of relativising opinions, awakening the reader to difference, to the contingent. They stimulate judgment to avoid associating opinions with universal truth, thereby encouraging tolerance. Thus, Deguy proposes a new tolerance, one in which traditions and transgressions, norms and innovations, are joined.
As the notion of “éveil” is primarily associated with Montaigne’s work, several articles are devoted to him. Kristi Sellevold and Terence Cave show that the essayist’s cognitive method is present from the beginning, and his earliest essays cannot be reduced to simple leçons on the model of Pedro Mexia. On the contrary, these essays highlight the inconstancy of human judgment, which is, according to André Tournon, the source of Montaigne’s anxiety that his readers may misunderstand him. In an article entitled “Le son d’un être” (“the sound of a being”), Olivier Guerrier associates Montaigne’s Essais with the presence of orality in writing (sound), and the substance of Montaigne’s ethos (being). Thus a language emerges that can only be explored by “les esprits forts” in an ethical awakening. Christiane Martin-Ulrich argues that Montaigne’s critique of judgment in the Essays elevates his own capacity to judge others by limiting his praise to the few men he deems worthy. The object of praise looms large. “Dis-moi qui tu loues, je te dirai qui tu es” (“Tell me whom you praise, I will tell you who you are,” 115).
Finally, two of the most original articles focus on Rousseau. Through a reading of Montaigne, John D. Lyons offers a better understanding of Rousseau’s critique of the imagination. Then Patrick Hochart stirs the reader with an analysis of the foundations of equality. He concludes that equality among men cannot exist in the presence of a plurality of incommensurable beings, adding that Rousseau does not desire equality under the aegis of a sovereign chosen by the Social Contract but rather the equality offered by friendship as “un échange réciproque et gracieux de donataires” (“a reciprocal and gracious exchange between donors,” 229).
