Talk:Étienne de La Boétie

Name Pronunciation
can someone please write his name in IPO; it's a tricky one (ends more like "see" than "tee") Coughinink 12:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * ? La Boétie's name is properly pronounced Bwettie (with a hard t) in the Périgord dialect of the region in which La Boétie lived. See footnote #1 of Rothbard's introduction. Geoffrey Allan Plauche 03:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The name is universally pronounced as lah-boh-ay-see, as can be confirmed by a stroll down the rue la Boétie in Paris or by peeking into Webster's Biographical Dictionary. jacomo (talk) 22:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Discours de la servitude volontaire, translated and with an introduction about its reception., which this article references, says "The name of the author should be pronounced with the "t" sounding like "ss" and riming with "poesy" accented on the last syllable." ("Notes in the Introduction", #3). This appears not to jibe with other info given here. -- 201.17.36.246 (talk) 01:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhpas it is worth noting that according to Montaingne he disavowed his views expressed in the tract on voluntary servitude. - 121.79.64.55, 18November2007 - sig info added by 201.17.36.246 (talk) 00:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

WERE LA BOÉTIE AND MONTAIGNE LOVERS? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.33.49.143 (talk) 21:13, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No. They loved each other profoundly (Montaigne was devastated by La Boétie's death), but it's virtually certain there was nothing sexual between them. Montaigne says in "On Friendship" that it's wrong for men to have sexual relations with each other. One can reasonably assume that Montaigne was neither a liar nor a hypocrite. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 00:55, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Boétie an anarchist?
Some of Boétie's thoughts may well chime with modern ideas of anarchism, but to describe him as an anarchist (without qualification) seems an anachronism. It's at best a suggestion, perhaps to be mentioned in the body of the article (with comments), not in the intro. Sleuth21 (talk) 11:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

agree w/ Sleuth 21. Murray Rothbard writes [start of last paragraph, p.11 here

{ also that part is in an online article http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard29.html

"Several historians of anarchism have gone so far as to classify La Boétie’s treatise itself as anarchist, which is incorrect since La Boétie never extended his analysis from tyrannical government to government per se.[21] But while La Boétie cannot be considered an anarchist, his sweeping strictures on tyranny and the universality of his political philosophy lend themselves easily to such an expansion. All this considerably disturbed La Boétie’s biographer, Paul Bonnefon, who wrote of the Discourse:

After having failed to distinguish legitimate from illicit authority, and having imprudently attacked even the principle of authority, La Boétie put forth a naive illusion. He seems to believe that man could live in a state of nature, without society and without government, and discovered that this situation would be filled with happiness for humanity. This dream is puerile. . . .[22]

Footnotes reference that discussion.

WRITING/ need to drop claim of Montaigne authorship of "the Discourse" or cite source
"Some Montaigne scholars have argued that the essay was in fact the work of Montaigne himself. "

If this is to be left in, I feel a source needs to be cited. Murray Rothbard states:

... "Montaigne had read the essay long before he first met La Boetie as a fellow member of the Bordeaux Parlement in 1559." last sentence, first paragraph http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1551642921/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_ on p. 5

or http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard29.html (slightly different version, but same claimed date of first meeting, 1559. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erichwwk3 (talk • contribs) 01:28, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 11:22, 30 April 2016 (UTC)