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Is Barbarous In Montaigne's Essay Of Cannibals

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One word which Michel de Montaigne uses in very interesting ways, in his essay “Of Cannibals,” is barbarous. The reason the use of barbarous is so interesting in his essay is because he explains the different ways it can be defined in his own attempt to find the meaning of the word. The word Barbarous is used to critique and compare the societies of the island of cannibals and Europe. Montaigne starts his essay by quoting King Pyrrhus, “I do not know what barbarians these are (for so the Greeks called all foreign nations), but the formation of this army I see is not at all barbarous” (Montaigne 150). King Pyrrhus is describing the Romans as barbarous when, in Montaigne’s time, everyone knows the Roman empire was far from uncivilized. This
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