« Naturaliser l’art(ifice) ». Montaigne encyclopédiste

The encyclopaedic phenomenon in Renaissance France mixes the parody, even satire, of what Rabelais called “the stormy age, sensing the infelicity and calamity of Gothz, who had destroyed all good literature”, with the enthusiasm for discoveries leading to an explosion of knowledge but also a questioning of the past. This article analyses Montaigne’s singular model of encyclopaedia by studying the quasi-omnipresence of Menippean approaches in the Essais.