Order in disorder : intratextual symmetry in Montaigne's Essais / Randolph Paul Runyon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Runyon, Randolph, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592. Essais--Criticism and interpretation.

Montaigne, Michel de.

Symmetry in literature.

Physical Description:

x, 276 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbus : Ohio State University Press, [2013]

Summary:

Montaigne's Essays are treasured for their philosophical and moral insights and the fascinating portrait they give us of the man who wrote them, but another of their undoubted delights is that they tantalize the reader, offering beneath an apparent disorder some hints of a hidden plan. After all, though the essayist kept adding new pages, except when he added the third and final book, he never added a new chapter but worked within the structure already in place. Order in Disorder: Intratextual Symmetry in Montaigne's "Essais," by Randolph Paul Runyon, offers a new answer to the question of how ordered the Essays may be. Following up on Montaigne's likening them to a painters "grotesques" surrounding a central image, and seeing in this an allusion to the ancient Roman decorative style, rediscovered in the Renaissance, of symmetrical motifs on either side of a central image, Runyon uncovers an extensive network of symmetrical verbal echoes linking every chapter with another. Often two chapters of greatly different length and apparent importance (one on thumbs, for instance, balanced against one on the limits of human understanding) will in this way be brought together-not without, Runyon finds, an intended irony. The Essays emerge as even more self-reflexive than we thought, an amazingly intratextual work. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : marginal symmetry

Of means and ends: I: 1 and I: 57

The less said: I: 1 and I: 56

Something to hide: I: 3 and I: 55

Frivolous and vain: I: 4 and I: 54

In or out: I: 5 and I: 53

Trouble back home: I: 6 and I: 52

Words, in effect: I: 7 and I: 51

Of idleness and horses: I: 8 and I: 50

Lying, after a fashion: I: 9 and I: 49

Excess baggage: I: 10 and I: 48

Enough already: I: 11 and I: 47

Anagrams: I: 12 and I: 46

A waiting game: I: 13 and I: 45

More than one port in a storm: I: 14 and I: 44

Custom and princely grandeur: I: 15 and I: 43

Judging Julian judging: I: 16 and I: 42

Glory, given and taken: I: 17 and I: 41

Empty signs: I: 18 and I: 40

Prolonging life: I: 19 and I: 39

Unmasking masks: I: 20 and I: 38

Powers of attraction: I: 21 and I: 37

Complementarities and buried allusions: I: 22 and I: 36

Here and there: I: 23 and I: 35

How to paint a dog: I: 24 and I: 34

Well-nourished daughters: I: 25 and I: 33

God's wrath and the weather: I: 26 and I: 32

Things to come: I: 27 and I: 31

Of immoderation: I: 28 and I: 30

Sorting out the pieces: II: 1 and II: 37

Slipping it in: II: 2 and II: 36

Suicide is painless: II: 3 and II: 35

Caesar the procrastinator: II: 4 and II: 34

Suffering innocence: II: 5 and II: 33

Parallel deaths: II: 6 and II: 32

Rewards and punishments: II: 7 and II: 31

Hidden monsters: II: 8 and II: 30

Only when you need it: II: 9 and II: 29

Act your age: II: 10 and II: 28

Doubly cruel: II: 11 and II: 27

Opposable thumbs: II: 12 and II: 26

Eyes wide shut: II: 13 and II: 25

Equivalent equivalents: II: 14 and II: 24

Civil war vs. civil war: II: 15 and II: 23

Spreading the news: II: 16 and II: 22

Spitting images: II: 17 and II: 21

Consubstantial consubstantiality: II: 18 and II: 20

Distant harmonies: III: 1 and III: 13

Distant theft: III: 2 and III: 12

Intercourse with the lame: III: 3 and III: 11

The little things: III: 4 and III: 10

Sexual vanity, vain sex: III: 5 and III: 9

Borrowed wealth: III: 5 and III: 8

Journey to the center of the book: I: 29, II: 19, and III: 7

Epilogue: the playful text.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780814212400

0814212409

9780814293423

0814293425

OCLC:

838793028