Gargantua and Pantagruel | work by Rabelais | Britannica.com Gargantua and Pantagruel The Hobbit Gargantua and Pantagruel, collective title of five comic novels by François Rabelais , published between 1532 and 1564. The novels present the comic and satiric story of the giant Gargantua and his son Pantagruel, and various companions, whose travels and adventures are a vehicle for ridicule of the follies and superstitions of the times. The first two novels were published under the anagrammatic pseudonym Alcofribas (Alcofrybas) Nasier. The first book, commonly called Pantagruel (1532), deals with some of the fantastic incidents of the early years of Pantagruel. Rabelais displayed his profound comic sense, love of language, and storytelling genius within the framework of a mock-heroic romance . Pantagruel is endowed with enormous strength and appetites, and his early years are full of fantastic incidents. While at the University of Paris, he receives a letter from his father that is still considered an essential exposition of French Renaissance ideals.

In Paris Pantagruel also meets the cunning rogue Panurge, who becomes his companion throughout the series. In Gargantua (1534) old-fashioned scholastic pedagogy is ridiculed and contrasted with the humanist ideal of King Francis I , whose efforts to reform the French church Rabelais supported. Le Tiers Livre (1546; “The Third Book”) is Rabelais’s most profound and erudite work. In it Pantagruel has become a sage; Panurge is self-absorbed and bedeviled, wondering if he should marry. He consults various prognosticators, allowing Rabelais to hold forth on sex, love, and marriage and to satirize fortune-tellers, judges, and poets. Panurge persuades Pantagruel and friends to join him on a voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle in Cathay for an answer.

This they do in Le Quart Livre (1552; “The Fourth Book”), which reflects the era’s interest in exploration; the Pantagruelians encounter a series of islands that present opportunities for the author to satirize the religious and political forces that were wreaking havoc on 16th-century Christendom. In a fifth book, Le Cinquième Livre (1564; of doubtful authenticity), the band arrives at the temple of the Holy Bottle, where the oracle answers Panurge with a single word: “Drink!” Learn More in these related articles: Gargantua and Pantagruel eBook by François Rabelais - 1230000344302 | Kobo Or, get it for 4400 Kobo Super Points! See if you have enough points for this eBook. Sign in Synopsis Gargantua and Pantagruel is a collection of five novels written written by major French Renaissance writer François Rabelais in the 16th century in which author describes adventures of two giants named Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. The story can be characterized as amusing, satirical and extravagant.

Rabealis invented hundreds of new words due to Ancient Greek studies, many of them became part of French language. Wordplay and risky humor are distinctive features of this author. Since this novel is a pentalogy, there are five books: The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Very Renowned Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua; The Very Horrific Life of Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel; The Third Book of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Good Pantagruel; The Fourth Book of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Good Pantagruel; The Fifth and Last Book of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Good Pantagruel. The author makes fun of many of human frailties, his contemporary church and government. Feel the French spirit with these daring and wonderful book!

People who read this also enjoyed Gargantua and Pantagruel | Geophagus Gargantua and Pantagruel Tags: book review , medieval literature , rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel (La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a French satire from the 16th century written by Francois Rabelais, a medical doctor. The tome consists of five books that chronicles the life history of two honourable giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. The author is a ruthless social critic, sparing nobody from uppity academics to the clergy. Bawdy and extremely vulgar and violent at times, the stories revolve around the everyday routine of the giants and their sidekicks as they mock and tease everybody who is unfortunate enough to get in their way. It’s definitely not a novel, the chapters are loosely connected with not much of a plot. I laughed out loudly several times while reading it, I guarantee your eyes will not be left dry, should you give it a try.

I’m quite certain the English translation could not entirely convey the humour and poignancy of the French original, but allow me to give you some excerpts to give you a taste. On one occasion Pantagruel is browsing the books in a library, and the author lists the titles (on several pages) our good giant comes across: The Testes of Theology; On the Art of Discreetly Farting in Company, by Magister Noster Ortuinus; Tartaretus: On how to Defecate; Three Books On How to Chew Bacon, by the Reverend Father Provincial of Drivell; Magister Noster Rostock-Assley: On the Serving of Mustard after Dining, Fourteen Books; Eleven Decades on the Taking-off of Spurs, by Magister Albericus de Rosate; Marforio, a Bachelor lying in Rome: On Skinning and Smudging Cardinals’ Mules; Putting Things into the Mouths of Masters of Arts; The Surgeon’s Kiss-me-arse. Another time, young Gargantua imparts the art of arse-wiping to his father.

After listing about a hundred ways and means to wipe one’s bottom, here’s his conclusion: But to conclude: I affirm and maintain that there is no bottom-wiper like a downy young goose, provided that you hold its head between your legs. Believe me on my honour, for you can feel in your bumhole a mirifical voluptuousness, as much from the softness of its down as from the temperate heat of the young goose which is readily communicated to the arse-gut and the rest of the intestines until it reaches the region of the heart and the brain. And do not believe that the blessedness of the heroes and demi-gods in the Elysian Fields lies in their nectar, asphodel or ambrosia, as these old women would maintain: in my opinion it consists in the fact that they wipe their bums on a young goose. Highly recommended. Gargantua and Pantagruel Analysis - eNotes.com Gargantua and Pantagruel Analysis link Link *Paris *Paris. French city to which the affable giant prince Gargantua is sent to be educated. In the City of Light, he is exposed to the light of humanist learning.

The Paris portrayed in this book is that of Rabelais’s own day. Gargantua travels there on a brood mare the size of six elephants. After his arrival, he undergoes a rigorous regimen of classical studies and physical exercise, directed by his tutor, Powerbrain, and some of Paris’s truly learned scholars. This learning is contrasted with that of Paris’s Sorbonne, the college of powerful and conservative theologians at the University of Paris. Combining mental and physical exertion, Gargantua swims across the Seine River while reading a book which he holds high above the water with one hand. Later, Gargantua’s own son, Pantagruel, also goes to Paris to study. He falls into company with Panurge, a brilliant but almost criminal trickster, who explores the seamier side of Parisian life. Although the people of Paris, who are represented realistically in the text, marvel at the giants, they easily accept their presence in their midst. *Touraine *Touraine. Region containing the Loire valley in west-central France, the so-called “garden of France,” where Panurge was born and reared. Touraine was also the birthplace of Rabelais himself.

Thélème Abbey Thélème Abbey. Church along the Loire River, two leagues from the forest of Port-Huault, that Gargantua builds to reward Friar John for his help in winning the mock-heroic war against Picrochole. The abbey is the thematic center of the work, with its credo that instinct forms the only valid basis for morality and social structure. Befitting his gigantic nature,... (The entire section is 724 words.) Get Free Access Start your free trial with eNotes for complete access to this resource and thousands more. 30,000+ Study Guides Save time with thousands of teacher-approved book and topic summaries. Get Homework Help Ask real teachers questions on any subject or search 300,000+ answers. On the Go Access 12 French Classics Every Book Lover Should Read 12 French Classics Every Book Lover Should Read Anahit Behrooz Updated: 2 November 2016 Spanning a multitude of periods, genres and forms, the history of French literature provides a wealth of unequalled works which have sparked literary movements, created new conventions, and entertained millions. Here we list twelve pre-World War II classics you have to read.

Beauty and the Beast, Madame de Villeneuve (1740) This classic fairy tale is unusual for its length and complexity. In this version, the Beast is a visually terrifying yet gentle creature who treats Beauty with great care and kindness. Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to marry him, and every night she rejects him until finally she agrees, only to find when she wakes the handsome prince of whom she has been dreaming of nightly. Villeneuve’s tale features many subplots and fantastical devices, making it not only a retelling of a beloved classic, but also narratively compelling. © Ngims Publishing The Tales of Mother Goose, Charles Perrault (1696) Charles Perrault is arguably only rivaled by the Brothers Grimm when it comes to the European -fairy tale tradition, many of theirs were indeed adapted from Perrault’s own fairy-tale collections. Although the act of retelling fairy tales was becoming established in the 17th century, particularly by women in the salons, Perrault is often credited as concretizing the genre, adapting well-known folktales and rewriting them in a definitive version.

Many of the famous fairy tales of today, including Cinderella , Little Red Riding Hood , and Sleeping Beauty , are derived from Perrault’s collections. Design by Alvin Lustig, courtesy of New Directions The Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire (1857) Charles Baudelaire’s poetry collections The Flowers of Evil (1857) is a passionate rejection of the values and style of Realism which was sweeping throughout European literature. Inspired by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire chose instead to hone in on the dark, sinister aspect of the human imagination. He devoted himself to creating poems which explored themes of excess, decadence and eroticism, filled with striking contrasts between sensual pleasures, exoticism and extravagance on the one hand, and ideas of decay, monstrosity and death on the other.

Courtesy of Penguin Classics Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais, (16th Century) One of the most outrageous books on this list is also one of the oldest: François Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel dates back to the 16th century, and comprises five separate volumes, each of which centers on the adventures and mishaps of the giant Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. While an entirely unique work, the series reflects certain aspects of the French Renaissance’s experimental nature, both in form and content: the novels are characterized by their satirical, bawdy humor and unapologetic instances of crudity and violence – leading to great controversy when they were first published. Courtesy of the Modern Library In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust (1913-1927) Written over a period of almost 20 years, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927) is a masterpiece of unprecedented style and significance.

Defying novelistic definitions of plot, character, and form, In Search of Lost Time focuses instead on depicting the formation of experience and memory through a multiplicity of evolving and interweaving perspectives. Thus, rather than being portrayed as a linear, cohesive narrative, life becomes a quiet, contemplative act which is constantly tied up with the past through the evocative power of memory, an idea beautifully rendered in Proust’s thoughtful, expressive prose. Indiana, George Sand (1831) Written by George Sand, the pseudonym of female writer Amantine Aurore Dupin, Indiana (1831) acts out many of the 19th century’s novelistic conventions, including its themes of love and adultery, yet through the framework of a female perspective. The protagonist Indiana is frustrated and unsatisfied in her loveless marriage, and longs for romantic fulfillment; her struggles between her desires and the strict social rules which govern her life form the basis of the drama. Through her protagonist, Sand critiques women’s unequal social position and their dependence on male support at the price of personal happiness.

Courtesy of Viking Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (1856) The eponymous character of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856) is one of modern literature’s most complex and tragic female protagonists. Beautiful and charming, Emma Bovary sees the world through a veil of romantic novels and fanciful sensibilities, which is constantly at odds with her dull, provincial life and her marriage to the gauche yet well-meaning Charles Bovary. Emma’s constant search for beauty and luxury leads her into debt, adultery, and ruin, and her struggles to separate her romanticised ideals with the reality of country life are masterfully depicted in detailed, sympathetic prose. Design by twodee Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne (1864) As the science-fiction and fantasy market becomes increasingly dominated by English-language works, it is perhaps easy to forget its distinctly European roots. A true classic, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) tells the story of German professor Otto Lidenbrock who finds a strange code in a manuscript telling of volcanic tunnels which lead down to the centre of the Earth.

Setting off in exploration, Lidenbrock encounters strange prehistoric beasts and natural hazards in his search for the Earth’s core. Thrilling and brave even to this day, Verne’s extraordinary novel is testament to the power of the imagination and the period’s fascination with scientific progress. Courtesy of Oxford World Classics The Masterpiece, Émile Zola (1886) As the art world flourished in 19th century France, so did literary works surrounding the lives of artists and their muses. The author of The Masterpiece (1886), Émile Zola, was close friends with many of the great artists of the time, including Édouard Manet and Paul Cézanne; inspired by both their lives and works, Zola depicts in The Masterpiece an accurate depiction of the life of the artist in 19th century France, and the tension between artist and society, as art became more and more part of the public sphere and open to judgement and commodification.

Bookyards.com - The Library To The World | Francois Rabelais - Authors 8 External links Biography Although the place (or date) of his birth are not reliably documented, it is probable that Fran�ois Rabelais was born in 1494 near Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, where his father worked as a lawyer. He was first a novice of the Franciscan order, and later a friar at Fontenay-le-Comte, where he studied Greek and Latin, as well as science, philology, and law, already becoming known and respected by the humanists of his era, including Bud�. Harassed by the Franciscan leadership due to the directions of his studies, Rabelais petitioned Pope Clement VII and was granted permission to leave the Franciscans and enter the Benedictine order at Maillezais, where he was more warmly received. Later he left the monastery to study at the University of Poitiers and University of Montpellier. In 1532 he moved to Lyon, one of the intellectual centres of France, and not only practiced medicine, but edited Latin works for the printer Sebastian Gryphius.

As a doctor, he used his spare time to write and publish humorous pamphlets which were critical of established authority and stressed his own perception of individual liberty. His revolutionary works, although satirical, revealed an astute observer of the social and political events unfolding during the first half of the sixteenth century. French literature Literature Portal This box:�view�•�talk�•�edit Using the pseudonym Alcofribas Nasier, in 1532 he published his first book, Pantagruel, that would be the start of his Gargantua series (see Gargantua and Pantagruel). In his book, Rabelais sang the praises of the wines from his hometown of Chinon through vivid descriptions of the eat, drink and be merry lifestyle of the main character, the giant Pantagruel, and his friends. Despite the great popularity of his book, both it and his prequel book on the life of Pantagruel's father Gargantua were condemned by the academics at the Sorbonne for their unorthodox ideas and by the Roman Catholic Church for its derision of certain religious practices. Rabelais's third book, published under his own name, was also banned.

With support from members of the prominent du Bellay family (esp. Jean du Bellay), Rabelais received the approval from King Fran�ois I, to continue to publish his collection. However, after the death of the enlightened king, Rabelais was frowned upon by the academic elite, and the French Parliament suspended the sale of his fourth book. Afterwards, Rabelais travelled frequently to Rome with du Bellay, and lived for a short time in Turin with du Bellay's brother, Guillaume, during which Fran�ois I was his patron. Rabelais probably spent some time in hiding, threatened by being labeled a heretic. Only the protection of du Bellay saved Rabelais after the condemnation of his novel by the Sorbonne. Rabelais later taught medicine at Montpellier in 1537 and 1538, and in 1547 became curate of Saint-Christophe-du-Jambet and of Meudon, from which he resigned before his death in Paris in 1553. There are diverging accounts of Rabelais' death and his last words.

According to some, he wrote a famous one-sentence Will: "I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor", and his last words were "I am off in search of a great perhaps." Rabelais and Thelema Starting from 1532, Rabelais wrote Gargantua and Pantagruel, a connected series of books. They tell the story of two giants—a father (Gargantua) and his son (Pantagruel) and their adventures—written in an amusing, extravagant, and satirical vein. While the first two books are built around the lives of the two giants, the rest of the series is mostly devoted to the adventures of Pantagruel's friends - such as Panurge, a roguish erudite maverick, Brother Jean, a bold, voracious and boozing ex-monk, and others - and their collective naval journey in search of the Divine Bottle. Even though most chapters are humorous, wildly fantastic and sometimes absurd, a few relatively serious passages have become famous for descriptions of humanistic ideals of the time.

In particular, the letter of Gargantua to Pantagruel and the chapters on Gargantua's boyhood present a rather detailed vision of education. It is in the first book where Rabelais writes of the Abbey of Theleme, built by the giant Gargantua. It pokes fun at the monastic institiutions, since his abbey has a swimming pool, maid service, and no clocks in sight. One of the verses of the inscription on the gate to the Abbey of Theleme says: Grace, honour, praise, delight, Do here pursue with might Grace, honour, praise, delight. But below the humor was a very real concept of utopia and the ideal society. Rabelais gives us a description of how the Thelemites of the Abbey lived and the rules they lived by: All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it and were disposed for it.

None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men, when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition by which they formerly were inclined to virtue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude wherein they are so tyrannously enslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden and to desire what is denied us. See also: Thelema Rabelais and language The French Renaissance was a time of linguistic controversies. Among the issues that were debated by scholars was the question of the origin of language. What was the first language? Is language something that all humans are born with or something that they learn (nature versus nurture)?

Is there some sort of connection between words and the objects they refer to or are words purely arbitrary? Rabelais deals with these matters, among many others, in his books. The early 16th century was also a time of innovations and change for the French language, especially in its written form. The first grammar was published in 1530, followed nine years later by the first dictionary. Since spelling was far less codified than it is now, each author used their own orthography. Rabelais himself developed his personal set of - rather complex - rules. He was a supporter of etymological spelling i.e. one that reflects the origin of words and was thus opposed to those who favoured a simplified spelling, one that reflects the actual pronunciation of words. Rabelais' use of his native tongue was astoundingly original, lively and creative. He introduced dozens of Greek, Latin and Italian loan-words and direct translations of Greek and Latin compound words and idioms into French. He also used many dialectal forms and invented new words and metaphors, some of which have become part of the standard language and are still used nowadays. Rabelais is arguably one of the authors who have enriched the French language in the most significant way.

His works are also known for being filled with sexual double-entendre, dirty jokes and bawdy songs that can still surprise - or even shock - modern readers. Contemporary writers on Rabelais Rabelais has attracted many modern writers and scholars. One of the most notable was English mystic, Aleister Crowley. Anatole France lectured on him in Argentina. John Cowper Powys, D. B. Wyndham Lewis, and Lucien Febvre (one of the founders of the French historical school Annales) wrote books about him. Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher and critic, derived his celebrated concept of the carnivalesque and grotesque body from the world of Rabelais. Rabelais was also a major reference point for a few main characters (University Professors and Assistant) in Robertson Davies's novel The Rebel Angels, part of the Cornish Trilogy. Trivia Progressive rock band Gentle Giant recorded two songs inspired by Gargantua and Pantagruel. These were "Pantagruel's Nativity" on their 1971 album Acquiring the Taste, and "The Advent of Panurge" on 1973's Octopus (album).

The bus that runs late at night in Montpellier - his university town - is named "Le Rabelais" in his honour. Rabelais is mentioned in the Meredith Willson musical The Music Man. In Act One the ladies of the town tell Professor Harold Hill that Marian the Librarian advocates "dirty books" (Chaucer, Rabelais, Balzac); in Act Two the ladies admit to Marian, "The Professor told us to read those books, and we simply adored them all!" The title song on Donald Fagen's 2006 album Morph the Cat refers to the Cat as a "Rabelaisian puff of smoke". Rabelais is mentioned extensively in the Novel "The Rebel Angels" written by Robertson Davies. His works are the focus of the main character, Maria Theotoky's Ph.D. thesis. La Trobe University's (Australia) Magazine is also known by the same name.

Passing reference is also made to Rabelais by Alan Bennet in his play "Habeas Corpus" Bibliography La vie tr�s horrifique du grand Gargantua - 1534 Tiers Livre see Pantagruel - 1546 Quart Livre see Pantagruel - 1552 Two versions of a fifth book appeared after his death but how much of this work is that of Rabelais remains unknown. See Pantagruel. Febvre, Lucien. Gottlieb, Beatrice trans. The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982) References Alex Online. (2003). Alex Online. Retrieved on April 20, 2006. Del Campo, Gerald. Rabelais: The First Thelemite. The Order of Thelemic Knights. Thelemapedia. (2004). Fran�ois Rabelais. Retrieved on April 14, 2006.

François Rabelais François Rabelais Location of death: Paris, France Cause of death: unspecified Nationality: France Executive summary: Gargantua and Pantagruel French humorist, born at Chinon on the Vienne in the province of Touraine. The date of his birth is wholly uncertain: it has been put by tradition, and by authorities long subsequent to his death, as 1483, 1490, and 1495. There is nothing in the positive facts of his life which would not suit tolerably well with any of these dates; most 17th-century authorities give the earliest, and this also accords best with the age of the eldest of the Du Bellay brothers, with whom Rabelais was (perhaps) at school. In favor of the latest it is urged that, if Rabelais was born in 1483, he must have been forty-seven when he entered at Montpellier, and proportionately and unexpectedly old at other known periods of his life.

In favor of the middle date, which has, as far as recent authorities are concerned, the weight of consent in its favor, the testimony of Guy Patin (1601-1672), a witness of some merit and not too far removed in point of time, is invoked. The only contribution which need be made here to the controversy is to point out that if Rabelais was born in 1483 he must have been an old man when he died, and that scarcely even tradition speaks of him as such. With regard to his birth, parentage, youth, and education everything depends upon this tradition, and it is not until he was according to one extreme hypothesis thirty-six, according to the other extreme twenty-four, that we have solid testimony respecting him. In the year 1519, on the 5th of April, the Fran�ois Rabelais of history emerges. The monks of Fontenay le Comte bought some property (half an inn in the town), and among their signatures to the deed of purchase is that of Fran�ois Rabelais. Before this all is cloudland.

It is said that he had four brothers and no sisters, that his father had a country property called La Devini�re, and was either an apothecary or a tavern-keeper. Half a century after his death De Thou mentions that the house in which he was born had become a tavern and then a tennis-court. It still stands at the corner of a street called the Rue de la Lamproie, and the tradition may be correct. An indistinct allusion of his own has been taken to mean that he was tonsured in childhood at seven or nine years old; and tradition says that he was sent to the convent of Seuilly. From Seuilly at an unknown date tradition takes him either to the university of Angers or to the convent school of La Baumette or La Basmette, founded by good King Ren� in the neighborhood of the Angevin capital. Here he is supposed to have been at school with the brothers Du Bellay, with Geoffroy d'Estissac and others.

The next stage in this (so far as evidence goes, purely imaginary) career is the monastery of Fontenay le Comte, where, as has been seen, he is certainly found in 1519 holding a position sufficiently senior to sign deeds for the community, where he, probably in 1511, took priest's orders, and where he also pursued, again certainly, the study of letters, and especially of Greek, with ardor. From this date he becomes historically visible. The next certain intelligence which we have of Rabelais is somewhat more directly biographical. The letters of the well-known Greek scholar Budaeus, two of which are addressed to Rabelais himself and several more to his friend and fellow monk Pierre Amy, together with some notices by Andr� Tiraqueau, a learned jurist, to whom Rabelais rather than his own learning has secured immortality, show beyond doubt what manner of life the future author of Gargantua led in his convent.

The letters of Budaeus show that an attempt was made by the heads of the convent or the order to check the studious ardor of these Franciscans; but it failed, and there is no positive evidence of anything like actual persecution, the phrases in the letters of Budaeus being merely the usual exaggerated Ciceronianism of the Renaissance. Some books and papers were seized as suspicious, then given back as innocent; but Rabelais was in all probability disgusted with the cloister -- indeed his great work shows this beyond doubt. In 1524, the year of the publication of Tiraqueau's book above cited, his friend Geoffroy d'Estissac procured from Pope Clement VII an indult, licensing a change of order and of abode for Rabelais. From a Franciscan he became a Benedictine, and from Fontenay he moved to Maillezais, of which Geoffroy d'Estissac was bishop. But even this learned and hospitable retreat did not apparently satisfy Rabelais.

In or before 1530 he left Maillezais, abandoned his Benedictine garb for that of a secular priest, and, as he himself puts it in his subsequent Supplicatio pro Apostasia to Pope Paul III , "per seculum diu vagatus fuit." For a time the Du Bellays provided him with an abode near their own ch�teau of Langey. He is met at Montpellier in the year just mentioned. He entered the faculty of medicine there on the 16th of September and became bachelor on the 1st of November, a remarkably short interval, which shows what was thought of his acquirements. Early in 1531 he lectured publicly on Galen and Hippocrates , while his more serious pursuits seem to have been chequered by acting in a morale com�die, then a very frequent university amusement. Visits to the �les d'Hi�res, and the composition of a fish sauce in imitation of the ancient garum, which he sent to his friend �tienne Dolet, are associated, not very certainly, with his stay at Montpellier, which, lasting rather more than a year at first, was renewed at intervals for several years.

In 1532, however, he had moved from Montpellier to Lyons. Here he plunged into manifold work, literary and professional. He was appointed before the beginning of November physician to the H�tel Dieu, with a salary of forty livres per annum, and lectured on anatomy with demonstrations from the human subject. He edited for Sebastian Gryphius, in the single year 1532, the medical Epistles of Giovanni Manardi, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, with the Ars Parva of Galen, and an edition of two supposed Latin documents, which, however, happened unluckily to be forgeries. At this time Lyons was the center and to a great extent the headquarters of an unusually enlightened society, and indirectly it is clear that Rabelais became intimate with this society. A manuscript distich, which was found in the Toulouse library, deals with the death of an infant named Th�odule, whose country was Lyons and his father Rabelais, but we know nothing more about the matter. What makes the Lyons sojourn of the greatest real importance is that at this time probably appeared the beginnings of the work which was to make Rabelais immortal.

It is necessary to say "probably", because the strange uncertainty which rests on so much of his life and writings exists here also. There is no doubt that both Gargantua< and Pantagruel< were popular names of giants in the Middle Ages, though, curiously enough, no mention of the former in French literature much before Rabelais' time has been traced. In 1526, however, Charles de Bordign�, in a satiric work of no great merit, entitled la L�gende de Pierre Faifeu, has the name Gargantua with an allusion, and in 1532 (if not earlier) there appeared at Lyons les Grandes et inestimables chroniques du grand et �norme g�ant Gargantua. This is a short book on the plan of the later burlesques and romances of the Round Table. Arthur and Merlin appear with Grantgosier, as he is here spelled, Galemelle (Gargamelle), Gargantua himself, and the terrible mare.

But there is no trace of the action or other characters of Gargantua that was to be, nor is the manner of the piece in the least worthy of Rabelais. No one supposes that he wrote it, though it has been supposed that he edited it and that in reality it is older than 1532, and may be the direct subject of Bordign�'s allusion six years earlier. What does, however, seem probable is that the first book of Pantagruel (the second of the whole work) was composed with a definite view to this chapbook and not to the existing first book of Gargantua, which was written afterwards, when Rabelais discovered the popularity of his work and felt that it ought to have some worthier starting-point than the Grandes chroniques. The earliest known and dated edition of Pantagruel is of 1533, of Gargantua 1535, though this would not be of itself conclusive, especially as we actually possess editions of both which, though undated, seem to be earlier.

But the definite description of Gargantua in the title as P�re de Pantagruel the omission of the words "second livre" in the title of the first book of Pantagruel while the second and third are duly entitled "tiers" and "quart", the remarkable fact that one of the most important personages, Friar John, is absent from book II, the first of Pantagruel, though he appears in book I (Gargantua), and many other proofs show the order of publication clearly enough. There is also in existence a letter of John Calvin , dated 1533, in which he speaks of Pantagruel, but not of Gargantua, as having been condemned as an obscene book. Besides this, 1533 saw the publication of an almanac, the first of a long series which exists only in titles and fragments, and of the amusing Prognostication Pantagrueline (still, be it observed, Pantagrueline, not Gargantuine).

Both this and Pantagruel itself were published under the anagrammatic pseudonym of "Alcofribas Nasier", shortened to the first word only in the case of the Prognostication. This busy and interesting period of Rabelais' life was brought to a close apparently by his introduction or reintroduction to Jean du Bellay, who, in October 1533, passing through Lyons on an embassy to Rome, engaged Rabelais as physician. The visit did not last very long, but it left literary results in an edition of a description of Rome by Marliani, which Rabelais published in September 1534. It is also thought that the first edition of Gargantua may have appeared this year. In the spring of 1535 the authorities of the Lyons hospital, considering that Rabelais had twice absented himself without leave, elected Pierre de Castel in his room; but the documents which exist do not seem to infer that any blame was thought due to him, and the appointment of his successor was once definitely postponed in case he should return.

At the end of 1535 Rabelais once more accompanied Jean du Bellay, now a cardinal, to Rome and stayed there until April in the next year. This stay furnishes some biographical documents of importance in the shape of letters to Geoffroy d'Estissac, of the already-mentioned Supplicatio pro Apostasia, and of the bull of absolution which was the reply to it. This bull not only freed Rabelais from ecclesiastical censure, but gave him the right to return to the order of St. Benedict when he chose, and to practice medicine. He took advantage of this bull and became a canon of St. Maur. In 1537 he took his doctor's degree at Montpellier, lectured on the Greek text of Hippocrates , and next year made a public anatomical demonstration. During these two years he seems to have resided either at Montpellier or at Lyons. But in 1539 he entered the service of Guillaume du Bellay-Langey, elder brother of Jean, and would appear to have been with him (he was governor of Piedmont) until his death on 9th January 1543.

Rabelais wrote a panegyrical memoir of Guillaume, which is lost, and the year before saw the publication of an edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel, book I, together (both had been repeatedly reprinted separately), in which some dangerous expressions were cut away. Nothing at all is known of his life, whereabouts, or occupations until the publication of the third book, which appeared in 1546, "avec privil�ge du roi", which had been given in September 1545. Up to this time Rabelais, despite the condemnation of the Sorbonne referred to above, had experienced nothing like persecution or difficulty. Even the spiteful or treacherous act of Dolet, who in 1542 reprinted the earlier form of the books which Rabelais had just slightly modified, seems to have done him no harm. But the storm of persecution which towards the end of the reign of Francis I was fatal to Dolet himself and to Des P�riers, while it exiled and virtually killed Marot, threatened him.

There is no positive evidence of any measures taken or threatened against him; but it is certain that he passed nearly the whole of 1546 and part of 1547 at Metz in Lorraine as physician to the town at the salary of 120 livres, and Sturm speaks of him as having been "cast out of France by the times" in a contemporary letter, and says that he himself in another letter gives a doleful account of his pecuniary affairs and asks for assistance. At Francis's death on 31st March 1547 Du Bellay went to Rome, and at some time not certain Rabelais joined him. He was certainly there in February 1549, when he dates from Du Bellay's palace a little account of the festivals given at Rome to celebrate the birth of the second son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici . This account, the Sciomachie as it is called, is extant. In the same year a monk of Fontevrault, Gabriel du Puits-Herbault, made in a book called Theotimus the first of the many attacks on Rabelais.

It is, however, as vague as it is violent, and it does not seem to have had any effect. Rabelais had indeed again made for himself protectors whom no clerical or Sorbonist jealousy could touch. The Sciomachie was written to the cardinal of Guise, whose family were all-powerful at court, and Rabelais dedicated his next book to Odet de Chatillon, afterwards cardinal, a man of great influence. Thus Rabelais was able to return to France, and in 1550 was presented to the livings of Meudon and St. Christophe de Jambet. It may, however, surprise those who have been accustomed to hear him spoken of as "cur� de Meudon", and who have read lives of him founded on legend, to find that there is very little ground for believing that he ever officiated or resided there. He certainly held the living but two years, resigning it in January 1552 along with his other benefice, and it is noteworthy that at the episcopal visitation of 1551 he was not present.

To this supposed residence at Meudon and to the previous stay at Rome, however, are attached two of the most mischievous items of the legend, though fortunately two of the most easily refutable. It is said that Rabelais met and quarrelled with Joachim du Bellay the poet at Rome, and with Ronsard at Meudon and elsewhere, that this caused a breach between him and the Pl�iade, that he satirized its classicizing tendencies in the episode of the Limousin scholar, and that Ronsard after his death avenged himself by a libellous epitaph. The facts are these. Nothing is heard of the quarrel with Du Bellay or of any meeting with him, nothing of the meetings and bickerings with Ronsard, until 1697, when Bernier tells the story without any authority. The supposed allusions to the Pl�iade date from a time when Ronsard was a small boy, and are mainly borrowed from an earlier writer still, Geoffroy Tory.

Lastly, the epitaph, read impartially, is not libellous at all, but simply takes up the vein of the opening scenes of Gargantua in reference to Gargantua's author. There is indeed no reason to suppose that either Ronsard or Du Bellay was a fervent admirer of Rabelais, for they belonged to a very different literary school; but there is absolutely no evidence of any enmity between them, and Du Bellay actually refers to Rabelais with admiration. Some chapters of Rabelais' fourth book had been published in 1548, but the whole did not appear until 1552. The Sorbonne censured it and the parliament suspended the sale, taking advantage of the king's absence from Paris. But it was soon relieved of the suspension. He died, it is said, on the 9th of April 1553, but actual history is quite silent save on the point that he was not alive in May of the next year, and the legends about his deathbed utterances -- "La farce est jou�e", "Je vais chercher un grand peut-�tre", etc. are altogether apocryphal.

The same may be said of the numerous silly stories told of his life, such as that of his procuring a free passage to Paris by inscribing packets "Poison for the king", and so forth. Ten years after the publication of the fourth book and nine after the supposed date of the author's death there appeared at Lyons sixteen chapters entitled l'�'le sonnante par maistre Fran�ois Rabelais, and two years later the entire fifth book was printed as such. In 1567 it took place with the others, and has ever since appeared with them. But from the beginning of the 17th century there have never been wanting disbelievers in its authenticity. The controversy is one of some intricacy, but as it is also one of capital importance in literary history the heads of it at least must be given here.

The opponents of the book rely (1) on the testimony of a certain Louis Guyon, who in 1604 declared that the fifth book was made long after Rabelais' death by an author whom he knew, and who was not a doctor, and on the assertion of the bibliographer Du Verdier, about the same time, that it was written by an "�colier de Valence"; (2) on the fact that the anti-monastic and even anti-Catholic polemic is much more accentuated in it; (3) on the arguments that parts are apparently replicas or rough drafts of passages already appearing in the four earlier books; and (4) that some allusions are manifestly posterior to even the furthest date which can be assigned for the reputed author's decease.

On the other hand, it is urged that, though Guyon and Du Verdier were in a sense contemporaries, they wrote long after the events, and that the testimony of the former is vitiated, not merely by its extreme vagueness, but by the fact that it occurs in a plaidoyer, tending to exculpate physicians from the charge of unorthodoxy; that Du Verdier in another place assigns the Pantagrueline Prognostication to this same unknown student of Valence, and had therefore probably confused and hearsay notions on the subject; that the rasher and fiercer tone, as well as the apparent repetitions, are sufficiently accounted for on the supposition that Rabelais never finally revised the book, which indeed dates show that he could not have done, as the fourth was not finally settled until just before his death; and that it is perfectly probable, and indeed almost certain, that it was prepared from his papers by another hand, which is responsible for the anachronous allusions above referred to.

But the strongest argument, and one which has never been attacked by authorities really competent to judge, is that the "griffe de l'aigle" is on the book, and that no known author of the time except Rabelais was capable of writing the passage about the Chats fourr�s, the better part of the history of Queen Whims (La Quinte) and her court, and the conclusion giving the Oracle of the Bottle. To this argument we believe that the more competent a critic is, both by general faculty of appreciation and by acquaintance with contemporary French literature, the more positive will be the assent that he yields. The reader must, however, be on his guard against confusing the authenticity of the fifth book generally with that of supposed early copies of it -- an edition of 1549 was proven apocryphal. Gargantua and Pantagruel, notwithstanding their high literary standing and the frequency with which certain passages from then are cited, are, owing partly to their archaism of language and partly to the extreme license which their author has allowed himself, so little read that no notice of them or of him could be complete without some sketch of their contents.

The first book, Gargantua, describes the birth of that hero (a giant and the son of gigantic parents), whose nativity is ushered in by the account of tremendous feast. In this the burlesque exaggeration of the pleasures of eating and drinking, which is one of the chief exterior notes of the whole work, is pushed to an extreme -- an extreme which has attracted natural but perhaps undue attention. Very early however, the author becomes serious in contrasting the early education of his hero -- a satire on the degraded schools of the middle ages -- with its subsequent and reformed stage, in the account of which all the best and noblest ideas of the humanist Renaissance in reference to pedagogy are put with exceptional force. Gargantua is recalled from Paris, to where he had been sent to finish his education, owing to a war between his father, Grandgosier, and the neighboring king, Picrochole. This war is described at great length, the chief hero of it being the monk, Friar John, a very unclerical cleric, in whom Rabelais greatly delights.

Picrochole defeated and peace made, Gargantua establishes the abbey of Thelema in another of Rabelais' most elaborate literary passages, where all the points most obnoxious to him in monastic life are indicated by the assignment of their exact opposites to this model convent. The second book, which introduces the principal hero of the whole, Pantagruel, Gargantua's son, is, on any other hypothesis but that already suggested of its prior composition, very difficult to explain, but in itself it is intelligible enough. Pantagruel goes through something like a second edition (really a first) of the educational experiences of his father. Like him, he goes to Paris, and there meets with Panurge, the principal triumph of Rabelaisian character-drawing, and the most original as well as puzzling figure of the book. Panurge has almost all intellectual accomplishments, but is totally devoid of morality: he is a coward, a drunkard, a lecher, a spiteful trickster, a spendthrift, but all the while infinitely amusing.

This book, like the other, has a war in its latter part; Gargantua scarcely appears in it and Friar John not at all. It is not until the opening of the third book that the most important action begins. This arises from Panurge's determination to marry -- a determination, however, which is very half-hearted, and which leads him to consult a vast number of authorities, each giving occasion for satire of a more or less complicated kind. At last it is determined that Pantagruel and his followers (Friar John has reappeared in the suite of the prince) shall set sail to consult the Oracle of the Dive Bouteille. The book ends with the obscurest passage of the whole, an elaborate eulogy of the "herb pantagruelion", which appears to be, if it is anything, hemp. Only two probable explanations of this have been offered, the one seeing in it an anticipation of Joseph de Maistre's glorification of the executioner, the other a eulogy of work, hemp being on the whole the most serviceable of vegetable products for that purpose. The fourth and fifth books are entirely taken up with a description of the voyage.

Many strange places with stranger names are visited, some of them offering obvious satire on human institutions, others, except by the most far-fetched explanations, resolvable into nothing but sheer extravaganza. At last the Land of Lanterns, borrowed from Lucian , is reached, and the Oracle of the Bottle is consulted. This yields the single word "Trinq", which the attendant priestess declares to be the most gracious and intelligible she has ever heard from it. Panurge takes this as a sanction of his marriage, and the book ends abruptly. This singular romance is diversified by, or to speak more properly, it is the vehicle of the most bewildering abundance of digression, burlesque amplification, covert satire on things political, social and religious, miscellaneous erudition of the literary and scientific kind. Everywhere the author lays stress on the excellence of "Pantagruelism", and the reader who is himself a Pantagruelist (it is perfectly idle for any other to attempt the book) soon discovers what this means. It is, in plain English, humor. The definition of humor is a generally acknowledged crux, and until it is defined the definition of Pantagruelism will be in the same position.

But that it consists in the extension of a wide sympathy to all human affairs, together with a comprehension of their vanity, may be said as safely as anything else. Moroseness and dogmatism are as far from the Pantagruelism of Rabelais as maudlin sentimentality or dilettantism. Perhaps the chief things lacking in his attitude are, in the first place, reverence, of which however, from a few passages it is clear he was by no means totally devoid, and secondly, an appreciation of passion and poetry. Here and there there are touches of the latter, as in the portrait of Quintessence, but passion is everywhere absent -- an absence for which the comic structure and plan of the book do not by any means supply a complete explanation. Some detailed remarks regarding the estimate of Rabelais' literary character must be given here. There are three questions which must be considered. These are -- What is the general drift and purpose of Gargantua and Pantagruel, supposing there to be any? What defense can be offered, if any defense is needed, for the extraordinary license of language and imagery which the author has permitted himself?

What was his attitude towards the great questions of religion, philosophy and politics? These question succeed each other in the order of reason, and the answer to each assists the resolution of the next. There have been few more remarkable instances of the lues commentatoria than the work of the editors of Rabelais. Almost every one appears to have started with a Rabelais ready made in his head, and to have, so to speak, read that Rabelais into the book. Those who have not done this, like Le Duchat, Motteux, and Esmangart, have generally committed the error of tormenting themselves and their author to find individual explanations of personages and events. The extravagance of the last-named commentator takes the form of seeing elaborate allegories; that of some others devotes itself chiefly to identifying the characters of the romance with more or less famous historical persons. But the first blunder, that of forming a general hypothetical conception of Rabelais and then adjusting interpretation of the work to it, is the more common. This conception, however, has singularly varied.

According to some expositors, including Fleury, Rabelais is a sober reformer, an apostle of earnest work, of sound education, of rational if not dogmatic religion, who wraps up his morals in a farcical envelope partly to make them go down with the vulgar and partly to shield himself from the consequences of his reforming zeal. According to others, of whom we have had in England a distinguished example in Sir Walter Besant , Rabelais is all this but with a difference. He is not religious at all; he is more or less anti-religious; and his book is more or less of a general protest against any attempt to explain supernaturally the riddle of the earth. According to a third class, the most distinguished representative of which was Paul Lacroix, the Rabelaisian legend does not so much err in principle as it invents in fact. Rabelais is the incarnation of the "esprit Gaulois", a jovial, careless soul, not destitute of common sense or even acute intellectual power, but first of all a good fellow, rather preferring a broad jest to a fine-pointed one, and rollicking through life like a good-natured undergraduate.

Of all these views it may be said that those who hold them are obliged to shut their eyes to many things in the book and to see in it many which are not there. The religious part of the matter will be dealt with presently; but it is impossible to think that any unbiased judge reading Rabelais can hold the grave-philosopher view or the reckless-goodfellow view without modifications and allowances which practically deprive either of any value. Those who identify Rabelais with Pantagruel strive in vain, on any view intellectually consistent or morally respectable, to account for the vast ocean of pure or impure laughter and foolery which surrounds the few solid islets of sense and reason and devotion. Those who in the same way identify Rabelais with Panurge can never explain the education scheme, the solemn apparition of Gargantua among the farcical and fantastic variations on Panurge's wedding, and many other passages; while, on the other hand, those who insist on a definite propaganda of any kind must justify themselves by their own power of seeing things invisible to plain men. But these vagaries are not only unjustifiable; they are entirely unnecessary.

No one reading Rabelais without parti pris, but with a good knowledge of the history and literature of his own times and the times which preceded him, can have much difficulty in appreciating his book. He had evidently during his long and studious sojourn in the cloister (a sojourn which was certainly not less than 25 years, while it may have been 35, and of which the studiousness rests not on legend but on documentary evidence) acquired a vast stock of learning. He was, it is clear, thoroughly penetrated with the instincts, the hopes, and the ideas of the Renaissance in the form which it took in France, in England and in Germany -- a form not merely humanist but full of aspirations for social and political improvement, and above all for a joyous, varied, and non-ascetic life. He had thoroughly convinced himself of the abuses to which monachism lent itself. Lastly, he had the spirit of lively satire and of willingness desipere in loco which frequently goes with the love of books. It is in the highest degree improbable that in beginning his great work he had any definite purpose or intention.

The habit of burlesquing the romans d'aventures was no new one, and the form lent itself easily to the two literary exercises to which he was most disposed -- apt and quaint citation from and variation on the classics and satirical criticism of the life he saw around him. The immense popularity of the first two parts induced him to continue them, and by degrees (the genuineness of the fifth book, at any rate in substance, is here assumed) the possibility of giving the whole something like a consistent form and a regular conclusion presented itself to him. The voyage in particular allowed the widest license of satirical allusion, and he availed himself of that license in the widest sense. Here and there persons are glanced at, while the whole scenery of his birthplace and its neighborhood is curiously worked in; but for the most part the satire is typical rather than individual, and it is on the whole a rather negative satire. In only two points can Rabelais be said to be definitely polemic. He certainly hated the monkish system in the debased form in which it existed in his time; he as certainly hated the brutish ignorance into which the earlier systems of education had suffered too many of their teachers and scholars to drop.

At these two things he was never tired of striking, but elsewhere, even in the grim satire of the Chats fourr�s, he is the satirist proper rather than the reformer. It is in the very absence of any cramping or limiting purpose that the great merit and value of the book consist. It holds up an almost perfectly level and spotless mirror to the temper of the earlier Renaissance. The author has no universal medicine of his own (except Pantagruelism) to offer, nor has he anybody else's universal medicine to attack. He ranges freely about the world, touching the laughable sides of things with kindly laughter, and every now and then dropping the risibile and taking to the rationale. It is not indeed possible to deny that in the Oracle of the Bottle, besides its merely jocular and fantastic sense, there is a certain "echo", as it has been called, "of the conclusion of the preacher", a certain acknowledgment of the vanity of things. But in such a book such a note could hardly be wanting unless the writer had been a fanatic, which he was not, or a mere voluptuary, which he was not, or a dullard, which he was least of all.

It is, after all, little more than a suggestion, and is certainly not strengthened by anything in the body of the work. Rabelais is, in short, if he be read without prejudice, a humorist pure and simple, feeling often in earnest, thinking almost always in jest. He is distinguished from the two men who alone can be compared with him in character of work and force of genius combined -- Lucian and Jonathan Swift -- by very marked characteristics. He is much less of a mere mocker than Lucian, and he is entirely destitute, even when he deals with monks or pedants, of the ferocity of Swift. He neither sneers nor rages; the rire immense which distinguishes him is altogether good-natured; but he is nearer to Lucian than to Swift, and Lucian is perhaps the author whom it is most necessary to know in order to understand him rightly. If this general view is correct it will probably condition to some extent the answer to be given to the two minor questions stated above. The first is connected with the great "blemish" of Gargantua and Pantagrue -- their extreme coarseness of language and imagery.

It is somewhat curious that some of those who claim Rabelais as an enemy of the supernatural in general have been the loudest to condemn this "blemish", and that some of them have made the exceedingly lame excuse for him that it was a means of wrapping up his propaganda and keeping it and himself safe from the notice of the powers that were. This is not complimentary to Rabelais, and, except in some very small degree, it is not likely to be true. For as a matter of fact obscenity no less than impiety was charged against him by his ultra-orthodox enemies, and the obscenity no less than the supposed impiety gave them a handle against him before such bodies as the Sorbonne and the parliaments. As for the extreme theory of the anti-Rabelaisians, that Rabelais was a "dirty old blackguard" who liked filth and wallowed in it from choice, that hardly needs comment. His errors in this way are of course, looked at from an absolute standard, unpardonable. But judged relatively there are several, we shall not say excuses, but explanations of them.

In the first place, the comparative indecency of Rabelais has been much exaggerated by persons unfamiliar with early French literature. The form of his book was above all things popular, and the popular French literature of the middle ages as distinguished from the courtly and literary literature, which was singularly pure, can hardly be exceeded in point of coarseness. The fabliaux, the early burlesque romances of the Audigier class, the farces of the 15th century, equal (the grotesque iteration and amplification which is the note of Gargantua and Pantagruel being allowed for, and sometimes without that allowance) the coarsest passages of Rabelais. His coarseness, moreover, disgusting as it is, has nothing of the corruption of refined voluptuousness about it, and nothing of the sniggering indecency which disgraces men like Alexander Pope , like Voltaire , and like Laurence Sterne . It shows in its author a want of reverence, a want of decency in the proper sense, a too great readiness to condescend to the easiest kind of ludicrous ideas and the kind most acceptable at that time to the common run of mankind.

The general taste having been considerably refined since, Rabelais has in parts become nearly unreadable -- the worst punishment for his faults. As for those who have tried to make his indecency an argument for his laxity in religious principle, that argument, like another mentioned previously, hardly needs discussion. It is notoriously false as a matter of experience. Rabelais could not have written as he has written in this respect and in others if he had been an earnestly pious person, taking heed to every act and word, and studious equally not to offend and not to cause offense. But no one in his senses would dream of claiming any such character for him. This brings us to the last point -- what his religious opinions were. He has been claimed as a freethinker of all shades, from undogmatic theism to atheism, and as a concealed Protestant. The last of these claims has now been very generally given up, and indeed Erasmus might quite as reasonably be claimed for the Reformation as Rabelais. Both disliked and attacked the more crying abuses of their church, and both at the time and since have been disliked and attacked by the more imprudent partisans of that church.

But Rabelais, in his own way, held off from the Reformation even more distinctly than Erasmus did. The accusation of freethinking, if not of directly anti-Christian thinking, has always been more common and has recently found much favor. It is, however, remarkable that those who hold this opinion never give chapter and verse for it, and it may be said confidently that chapter and verse cannot be given. The sayings attributed to Rabelais which color the idea (such as the famous "Je vais chercher un grand peut-�tre", said to have been uttered on his deathbed) are, as has been said, purely apocryphal. In the book itself nothing of the kind is to be found. Perhaps the nearest approach to it is a jest at the Sorbonne couched in the Pauline phrase about "the evidence of things not seen", which the author removed from the later editions.

But irreverences of this kind, as well as the frequent burlesque citations of the Bible, whether commendable or not, had been, were, have since been, and are common in writers whose orthodoxy is unquestioned; and it must be remembered that the later Middle Age, which in many respects Rabelais represents almost more than he does the Renaissance, was, with all its unquestioning faith, singularly reckless and irreverent in its use of the sacred words and images, which were to it the most familiar of all images and words. On the other hand, there are in the book, in the description of Gargantua's and Pantagruel's education, in the sketch of the abbey of Thelema, in several passages relating to Pantagruel, expressions which either signify a sincere and unfeigned piety of a simple kind or else are inventions of the most detestable hypocrisy. For these passages are not, like many to be found from the Renaissance to the end of the 18th century, obvious flags of truce to cover attacks -- mere bowings in the house of Rimmon to prevent evil consequences. There is absolutely no sign of the tongue in the cheek.

They are always written in the author's highest style, a style perfectly eloquent and unaffected; they can only be interpreted (on the freethinking hypothesis) as allegorical with the greatest difficulty and obscurity, and it is pretty certain that no one reading the book without a thesis to prove would dream of taking them in an unnatural sense. It is not to be contended that Rabelais was a man with whom religion was in detail a constant thought, that he had a very tender conscience or a very scrupulous orthodoxy. His form of religious sentiment was not evangelical or mystical, any more than it was ascetic or ceremonial or dogmatic. As regards one of the accepted doctrines of his own church, the excellence of the celibate life, of poverty, and of elaborate obedience to a rule, he no doubt was a strong dissident; but the evidence that, as a Christian, he was unorthodox, that he was even a heretical or latitudinarian thinker in regard to those doctrines which the various Christian churches have in common, is not merely weak, it is practically nonexistent. The counter-testimony is, indeed, not very strong, and still less detailed. But that is not the point.

It is sufficient to say that there is absolutely nothing within the covers of Rabelais' works incompatible with an orthodoxy which would be recognized as sufficient by Christendom at large, leaving out of the question those points of doctrine and practice on which Christians differ. Beyond this no wise man will go, and short of it hardly any unprejudiced man will stop.

Question: 'Gargantua' and 'Pantagruel' are literary works written by which 16th century French author?
Answer: FRANCOIS RABELAIS