Gargantua and Pantagruel
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- "Gargantua" redirects here. For the Half-Life creature, see Gargantua (Half-Life). For the daikaiju, see Gargantuas.
Gargantua and Pantagruel is a connected series of five books written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father (Gargantua) and his son (Pantagruel) and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein. There is much crudity and scatological humor as well as needless violence. Long lists of vulgar insults fill several chapters.
Rabelais was one of the first Frenchmen to learn ancient Greek, from which he brought some 500 words into the French language. His quibbling and other wordplay fills the book, and is quite free from any prudishness.
The introduction to the series runs (in an English translation):
- Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book,
- Be not offended, whilst on it you look:
- Denude yourselves of all depraved affection,
- For it contains no badness, nor infection:
- 'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth
- Of any value, but in point of mirth;
- Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind
- Consume, I could no apter subject find;
- One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;
- Because to laugh is proper to the man.
Contents |
Synopsis
Pantagruel
Although modern editions of Rabelais' work place Pantagruel as the second volume of a series, it was actually published first, around 1532 under the pen name Alcofrybas Nasier, an anagram of Francoys Rabelais. Pantagruel was a sequel to an anonymous book entitled Les Grandes Chroniques du Grand et Enorme Géant Gargantua. This early Gargantua text enjoyed great popularity, despite its rather poor construction. Rabelais's giants are not described as being of any fixed height, as in the first two books of Gulliver's Travels, but vary in size from chapter to chapter to enable a series of astonishing images as though these were tall tales. For example, in one chapter Pantagruel is able to fit into a courtroom to argue a case but in another the narrator resides inside Pantagruel's mouth for 6 months and discovers an entire nation living around his teeth.
Gargantua
After the success of Pantagruel, Rabelais revisited and revised his source material. He produced an improved narrative of the life and acts of Pantagruel's father in Gargantua. This volume included one of the most notable parables in Western Philosophy: that of the Abbey of Thélème, which can either be considered a point-for-point critique of the educational practices of the age, or a call to free schooling, or all sorts of notions on human nature.
Le Tiers-Livre
Rabelais then returned to the story of Pantagruel himself in the last three books. The third book concerns Pantagruel and his friend Panurge, who spend the entire book discussing with many people the question of whether Panurge should marry; the question is unresolved. The book ends with the start of a sea voyage in search the oracle of the divine bottle to resolve once and for all the question of marriage.
Le Quart-Livre
The sea voyage continues for the whole of book 4. Pantagruel encounters many satirical characters and societies during this voyage, such as the Shysteroos, who make their living by charging people to beat them up.
Book 5
At the end of the fifth volume, which was published posthumously around 1564, the divine bottle is found. The epic journey ends with Pantagruel producing a large piece of shit, perhaps the ultimate commentary on the subjects of politics and religion which the books satirize.
Although some parts of book 5 are truly worthy of Rabelais, the last volume's attribution to him debatable. Book five was not published until nine years after Rabelais's death and includes much material that is clearly borrowed (such as from Lucian's True History and Colonna's Dream Battle of Polyphile) or of lesser quality than the previous books. In the notes to his translation of Gargantua and Pantegruel, Donald M. Frame proposes that book 5 may have been formed from unfinished material that a publisher later patched together into a book.
Bibliography
The series in the original French is entitled La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel. Available English translations include The Complete Works of François Rabelais by Donald M. Frame and Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel, translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Pierre Antoine Motteux.
External links
eo:Gargantuo fr:Pantagruel it:Pantagruel he:גרגנטואה ופנטגרואל nl:Gargantua en Pantagruel ja:ガルガンチュワとパンタグリュエル pt:Pantagruel zh:巨人传