SOURCE: Glidden, Hope H. “The Face in the Text: Montaigne's Emblematic Self-Portrait (Essais III:12).” Renaissance Quarterly 46, no. 1 (spring 1993): 71-97.

In the following essay, Glidden examines Montaigne's self-representation in the essay “Of Physiognomy.”

On the opening page of his penultimate essay, “Of physiognomy,” Montaigne noted that the human race is, by and large, myopic: “Nous n'apercevons les graces que pointues, bouffies et enflées d'artifice. Celles qui coulent soubs la nayfveté et la simplicité eschappent ayséement à une veue grossiere comme est la nostre: elles ont une beauté delicate et cachée; il faut la veue nette et bien purgée pour descouvrir cette secrette lumiere.”¹ (“We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours. They have a delicate and hidden beauty; we need a clear and well-purged sight...