Performing the Demonic: Witchcraft, Skepticism and Gender Constructions in Michel de Montaigne's "De la force de l'imagination" and "Des Boyteux."

Abstract

In both essays, the textual representation of the processes that govern communal attitudes is accompanied by the narrative enactment of the fashioning of male selfhood and identity which concentrates on sexual psychopathology and is deeply rooted in the Renaissance discourse of sexuality and gender identity. In Montaigne's apparently skeptical account of demonic agency the figure of the witch not only turns out to be an emblem that epitomizes central attitudes and practices structuring the field of cultural exchange but also serves as a model for the male subject's relation to woman, which leads to a reformulation of the narrative project underlying the writing process.