A Retrospective Upon a Latin Play by George Buchanan and Montaigne’s Education of Children, or The Master Meets His Tutor

George Buchanan and Michel de Montaigne have not often been studied together in the context of pedagogy. Both were at the College of Guyenne in Bordeaux, Buchanan as tutor and Montaigne as his student. Montaigne testifies in his “Education of Children” that he acted in several of Buchanan’s tragedies. The production of “dramatic entertainments” was common in the schools of the time, despite the general suspicions about plays, especially when acted by children. Few have examined these plays, in Latin or the vernacular, as pedagogical texts, or gone on to ask what drama has to do with the education of children. Montaigne’s program in his essay and Buchanan’s practice as dramatist in his Jephthes exemplify the significance of drama in teaching both how to read texts and how to write in the sixteenth century.