Communication, Relevance, and Power in Montaigne’s Essais
Marina Perkins
Click cover to enlarge Booksellers & libraries: | Research Monographs in French Studies 72 Legenda
ISBN: 978-1-839543-43-2 (hardback) • RRP £95, $120, €120 ISBN: 978-1-839543-44-9 (paperback, forthcoming) ISBN: 978-1-839543-45-6 (JSTOR ebook) RenaissanceFrenchPoliticsPhilosophyLinguistics Readers of the Essais of Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) have long dissected how the text communicates with its audience, devoting particular attention to its digressive style and the extent to which it operates as a dynamic portrait of the author. But how does Montaigne conceive of human communication in the world beyond the author and his audience, in settings where it influenced the social and political structures of France during a period rife with sectarian conflict? Taking up this question, Perkins makes use of a theoretical framework rooted in relevance theory, a cognitively-inflected account of utterance interpretation in the field of pragmatics, to trace patterns in Montaigne’s portrayals of communication across four domains: conversation, diplomacy, jurisprudence, and exegesis and prayer. Contextualizing Montaigne’s views within the broader landscape of Renaissance intellectual history, this study represents the intersection of cognitive approaches to literary criticism and analysis attentive to dynamics of power and politics in early modern Europe. Marina Perkins is a post-doctoral fellow at The Queen’s College, Oxford. Bibliography entry: Perkins, Marina, Communication, Relevance, and Power in Montaigne’s Essais, Research Monographs in French Studies, 72 (Legenda, 2025) First footnote reference: 35 Marina Perkins, Communication, Relevance, and Power in Montaigne’s Essais, Research Monographs in French Studies, 72 (Legenda, 2025), p. 21. Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Perkins, p. 47. (To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.) Bibliography entry: Perkins, Marina. 2025. Communication, Relevance, and Power in Montaigne’s Essais, Research Monographs in French Studies, 72 (Legenda) Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Perkins 2025: 21). Example footnote reference: 35 Perkins 2025: 21. (To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.) This title is distributed on behalf of MHRA by Ingram’s. Booksellers and libraries can order direct from Ingram by setting up an ipage Account: click here for more. Permanent link to this title: www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Communication-Relevance-Power-in-Montaignes-Essais www.mhra.org.uk/publications/rmfs-72 |
24 July 2025 • 206pp