Nincs absztrakt.

The study examines the philosophical works that Ignác Martinovics wrote in Latin, German and French from a formal-rhetorical angle. Although scholars of the Hungarian literature of the Age of Enlightenment have applied the principles of Genette and Lejeune primarily on belles lettres, this study illustrates that it is not unjustified to deploy the tool kit of peritextual rhetoric on different genres. Similarly to belles lettres, volumes of philosophical texts are also „products of the author’s creative, semantic and discursive will”, which means that it is misleading to focus on philosophical content alone, ignoring the analysis of the formal, rhetorical and medial characteristics of these publications. Readers do not read the pure text: what they hold in their hands is a book-object, the result of a number of editorial and authorial decisions. Previous information (prior to entering the text) found in these carriers of text influence their interpretation significantly. This study, accordingly, examines the texts’ language, prologues, mottoes and place of publication in relation to their content.