Le langage chez Montaigne et Varchi

I examine the question of language and its connection with the reflection on tongue in Benedetto Varchi and Michel de Montaigne. Varchi (1503-1565) attempts to reconcile the literary language of the court considered by Bembo as a model of linguistic unification and the linguistic forms of the Florentine dialect of his time that had not yet been approved by the literary canon. In the dialogue L’Hercolano (1570), his analyses on language (spoken and written) are inscribed into a broader theory on the nature and characters of language that also examines the debated question of language and animal reason. Starting with references to Varchi in the “Apologie de Raimond Sebond”, I aim to compare the respective views of the Florentine humanist and Montaigne on human and animal language and on the presence of spontaneity and artifice in spoken and written language.