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

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.

Political power and magic

“…The third dilemma is how to distinguish between genuine magic powers (whether maleficium or magia) and the bogus trickery of charlatans and hoaxers. (Greenblatt,1988a:98-9;Butterworth 2008) In Shakespeare, magic practices are both taken for granted as a reality, and are the object of scepticism -there will be more on this when we examine magic in Macbeth and Tempest. Scepticism is unambiguously expressed by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679, who laments that ordinary people don't understand science -thinking of geometry as conjuring, a magic art.…”