UC Santa Cruz

“Montaigne” or its derivatives appear throughout Herman Melville’s writings as the rhetorical trope anamnesis. The effect is an allegorization of the reading process, which foregrounds other texts either in the case of or in relation to the French essayist Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. Whether imagining reading as polyphonic disputation or meditating upon the violence of misreading within semantic and narrative ambiguity, these increasingly complex allegories disrupt notions of simple, straightforward interpretation. However, the content of specific allegories is less significant than how they require and produce ever more intervening interpretation. Beyond biographical parallels, historical events, and questions of intention, these allegories lead readers to consider their own interpretive processes. This thesis concludes by considering the essayism of literary critics John Bryant and Claire de Obaldia, respectively, moving toward how the reader might adopt a more conscious and conscientious reading practice: a readerly essayism.