Montaigne y el elogio de los animales

In the midst of France’s desolation caused by the religious wars, Montaigne rejects the distinction between civilization and barbarism as much as the distinction between man and animal—which means a rejection to the humanistic idea of man’s greatness and centrality regarding the universe. He supports, in fact, a “Pythagoric” friendship with animals. In Montaigne there will not be found those fantastic, monstrous animals that the medieval bestiaries located in a faraway space and time, and that only a labile line separated from real animals.