Abstract
Born in 1530 to a family of wealthy merchants in Sarlat, Périgord, Étienne de La Boétie was trained in the humanities and law and became a councilor in the Parlement of Bordeaux, where he met Michel de Montaigne, who was to become his closest friend. He died in 1563 near Bordeaux, at the age of 33. His famous Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, probably completed around 1554, was only published in 1574, in a Protestant collection of anti-monarchical essays. However, the critical analysis of domination developed by the Discourse does not concern the sole French Catholic monarchy: La Boétie rather expands the classical analysis of tyranny and applies it to any form of individual power. This political radicalism defined the way La Boétie was to be read and published from the sixteenth century to the present: the Discourse offers a model to link the rejection of any kind of servitude with the constant reminder of the part the subjects themselves always take in it. Indeed, by forging the concept of “voluntary servitude,” La Boétie underlines that no individual may ever reduce any people to servitude without their active consent. He then endeavors to understand the root of this actual corruption of human nature: “custom” is the force that led humanity to forget its native impetus toward freedom, and friendship seems to be the only antidote against the habituation to servitude.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Primary Literature
La Boétie, É. 1976. Le Discours de la servitude volontaire. Ed. M. Abensour. Paris: Payot.
La Boétie, É. 1987. Discours de la servitude volontaire ou Contr’un. Ed. M. Smith. Genève: Droz.
La Boétie, É. 1991. Œuvres Complètes. Ed. L. Desgraves. Bordeaux: William Blake. This edition includes La Boétie’s translations of Xenophon and Plutarch, as well as his French and Latin poetry.
La Boétie, É. 1993. De la servitude volontaire ou Le contr’un, suivi du Mémoire touchant l’édit de janvier 1562. Ed. N. Gontarbert. Paris: Gallimard.
La Boétie, É. 2002. Discours de la Servitude Volontaire. Ed. A. L. Tournon. Paris: Vrin.
Montaigne, M. 2007. Les Essais. Eds. J. Balsamo, M. Magnien, and C. Magnien-Simonin. Paris: Gallimard.
Secondary Literature
Cocula, A.-M. 1995. Étienne de La Boétie. Bordeaux: Sud-Ouest.
Delacomptée, J.M. 1995. Et qu’un seul soit l’ami. La Boétie. Paris: Gallimard.
Geonget, S., and L. Gerbier (eds.). 2012. Amitié et compagnie. Autour du Discours de la servitude volontaire. (Cahiers La Boétie, 1). Paris: Garnier.
Gerbier, L. and O. Guerrier (eds.). 2012. Les Figures de la coutume. (Cahiers La Boétie, 2). Paris: Garnier.
Gerbier, L. (ed.). 2013. Lectures politiques de La Boétie. (Cahiers La Boétie, 3). Paris: Garnier.
Gerbier, L. and O. Guerrier (eds.). 2014. Nature et naturel. (Cahiers La Boétie, 4). Paris: Garnier.
Gerbier, L. 2015. Un sujet vulgaire et tracassé ? Notes pour une lecture philosophique du Discours de la servitude volontaire de La Boétie. Seizième Siècle 11: 331–348.
Guerrier, O. 2008. Aux origines du Discours de la servitude volontaire. Autour d’un mot de Plutarque. In Moralia et Œuvres morales à la Renaissance, ed. Guerrier, O, 237–251. Paris: Garnier.
Guerrier, O., M. Boulet, and M. Thorel. 2015. La Boétie. Discours de la servitude volontaire. Paris: Atlande.
Knop, D., and J. Balsamo. 2014. De la servitude volontaire. Rhétorique et politique en France sous les derniers Valois. Rouen: PURH.
Magnien, M. 1997. Bibliographie des écrivains français : Étienne de la Boétie. Paris: CNRS.
Magnien, M. (ed.). 1999. La Boétie. Montaigne studies, n. 1–2 vol XI. Chicago: The University of Chicago.
Magnien, M. 2003. Pour une attribution définitive du Memoire à Étienne de La Boétie. In Cité de Dieu, cité des hommes, ed. Céard, J., C. Gomez-Géraud, M. Magnien, and F. Rouget, 133–142. Genève: Droz.
O’Brien, J., and Schachter, M. (eds.). 2019. La première circulation de la Servitude Volontaire en France et au-delà. Paris: Champion.
Palayret, G. 1994. L’énigme et le détour. Le pouvoir dans le Discours de la servitude volontaire de La Boétie. In Le Pouvoir, ed. Goddard, J.C., and B. Mabille, 88–108. Paris: Vrin.
Panichi, N. 2008. Plutarchus Redivivus? La Boétie e i suoi interpreti. Roma: Edizione di Storia e Letteratura.
Podoksik, E. 2003. La Boétie and the Politics of Obedience. Bulletin d’Humanisme et de Renaissance 65: 83–95.
Ragghianti, R. 2010. Rétablir un texte. Le Discours de la servitude volontaire d’Étienne de La Boétie. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki.
Tetel, M. (ed.). 2004. Étienne de La Boétie. Sage révolutionnaire et poète périgourdin. Paris: Champion.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gerbier, L. (2022). La Boétie, Étienne de. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_302
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_302
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14168-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14169-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities