UC Davis

This dissertation explores the literary, historical, and philosophical connections between Michel de Montaigne's Essays and Friedrich Nietzsche's works of the middle period. In two sections that focus on Nietzsche and Montaigne respectively, I explore the complementary elements of their thinking on education, the nature of individual experience and interpersonal dynamics, and the literary innovations they use to express and communicate these ideas. Each writer proposes an individualist approach to self-understanding and knowledge that nevertheless leaves space for productive educational and intellectual relationships in addition to the creation of a deeper and more authentic form of self. This study offers new ways of thinking about the relationship between Montaigne and Nietzsche's works and Montaigne's influence on Nietzsche's "joyous" way of thinking and living, as well as implications for pedagogy and educational dynamics in the contemporary classroom.