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Montaigne's Aesthetics of Seduction 79
tousjours chez soy; moins il se pique et passionne au jeu, il le conduict
d'autant plus avantageusement et seurement" (III, 10, 986 B).
We could cite the first sentence of "De mesnager sa volonté" as the
anagram generating the entire essay and linking it most convincingly to
seduction aesthetics: "Au pris du commun des hommes, peu de choses
me touchent, ou, pour mieux dire, me tiennent; car c'est raison
qu'elles touchent, pourveu qu'elles ne nous possedent" (III, 10, 980
B). In other words: actio in distans. Through the willful creation of
distance and ritual (i.e. Game Theory), through a conscious
differentiation between epiderm and foy, the political/erotic subject
avoids loss of self possession. He is continuously aware of his
position vis-à-vis the Other. Like Sabina Poppæa, he defines himself
by his hyper-consciousness of his symbolic positioning, thus creating
the possibility of engaging the Other without ever relinquishing
control.
***
My discussion has concentrated on Montaigne's construction of
an interactional model of behavior. Starting with the notion of desire
and its displacement to the aesthetic realm, I attempted to show how a
logic of seduction can be an important analytical tool in understanding
Montaigne's construction of an ethics of engagement where the Moi is
protected from its own unbridled passions. Obviously this highly
volunteeristic model of behavior is open to multiple deconstructions
from psychoanalytical and feminist points of view. My interest here,
however, was to posit seduction as a paradigm in Montaigne's
construction and representation of himself.
As to Montaigne's rhetorical opposition between Seneca and
Ovid, I would suggest that, far from being an anti-Stoic move,
seduction aesthetics and its application and implication to the issues of
identity, sexuality and politics, adopt in fact Senecan precepts à la
lettre. Seneca writes to Lucilius: "For after I have issued my
prohibition against the desires, I shall still allow you to wish that you
may do the same things fearlessly and with greater accuracy of
judgment, and to tell the pleasures more than before." 26 Clearly, then,
26 Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1925), III, p. 333.