Montaigne Essay

    After reading David Foster Wallace's quote, I would have to say that the writing of Michel De Montaigne contradicts what Foster says in his quote. Montaigne's writing is about a full on opposite on Wallace saying "...words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it...". But here are some explanations and examples on why this is.

   One way that Montaigne's writing contradicts Wallace's quote is that Montaigne's essays tend to be quite extensive. Now, we could just end it there and say that it contradicts Wallace's quote because he has long essays, but there is more to it that makes his essays long. First off, Montaigne makes many references to quotes of ancient Greeks to former kings in Europe to help support a point or an argument. When he makes a reference any of these people, he goes the distance of quoting them, and naming source, almost like a works cited page on an essay, but in this case, it's actually in the essay or paragraph.

  To answer the next question of his style providing a window to his thinking, it's the quotes and references from either ancient Greeks, or others that help show his thoughts and perspectives. Montaigne's usage of them show where he's get's his thoughts and opinions from, which will help try and get his readers a better understanding of his perspective. 

   Now comparing Montaigne's writing to Austen, one thing that both authors have in common are both their usage and references to other people, or other literature in their writing. In Pride And Prejudice, Austen makes a few allusions and references to other works of literature in the story itself. Austen makes allusions from a few old English books.

  So this sums Montaigne and his relation to Austen's writing, and Wallace's quote. Both authors using either quotes, references, and allusions throughout their writings, and both contradicting Wallace's quote saying how words barely sketch the outline of  anything at any given instant.