The work of the devil? Theatre, the supernatural, and Montaigne's public stage

This article takes as its starting point the story of the hoax ghost that Montaigne tells in Chapter 11 of Book 3 of the Essais , ‘Des boyteux’. Montaigne employs a consistent vocabulary of the theatre in describing this hoax as a ‘farce’ and a ‘battelage’. The article explores the sixteenth‐century contexts this intersection between demonology and theatricality throws into relief: the traditional suspicion of the theatre as diabolical, the efforts of demonologists to quantify and explain juggling tricks, and the impact a whiff of the theatre had on both witch‐finders’ certainty and sceptics’ critiques. Montaigne's chapter is also a meditation on political action, and accordingly the article examines how the theatrical model that appears through the story of the hoax ghost offers a different way of thinking and acting in a France polarized by the religious wars

Art · Demonology · Epistemology · Hoax · Literature · MAGIC (telescope · Skepticism · French Literature and Criticism · History · Philosophy · Renaissance Literature and Culture