Citation

Butterworth E. Renaiss. Stud. 2008; 22(5): 705-722.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1477-4658.2008.00519.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

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.