Gargantua and Pantagruel

The novels were written progressively without a preliminary plan. ==Synopsis==

Pantagruel illustration of a young Pantagruel, who drinks the milk of thousands of cows The full modern English title for the work commonly known as Pantagruel is The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Very Renowned Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua and in French, Les horribles et épouvantables faits et prouesses du très renommé Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes, fils du Grand Géant Gargantua. The original title of the work was Pantagruel roy des dipsodes restitué à son naturel avec ses faictz et prouesses espoventables. Although most 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 "Alcofribas Nasier", an anagram of François Rabelais. The narrative begins with the origin of giants; Pantagruel's particular genealogy; and his birth. His childhood is briefly covered, before his father sends him away to the universities. He acquires a great reputation. On receiving a letter with news that his father has been translated to Fairyland by Morgan le Fay, and that the Dipsodes, hearing of it, have invaded his land and are besieging a city, Pantagruel and his companions depart. Through subterfuge, might, and urine, the besieged city is relieved, and their residents are invited to invade the Dipsodes, who mostly surrender to Pantagruel as he and his army approach their towns. During a downpour, Pantagruel shelters his army with his tongue, and the narrator travels into Pantagruel's mouth. He returns some months later and learns that the hostilities are over. Gargantua , Chapter XXXVIII After the success of Pantagruel, Rabelais revisited and revised his source material, producing an improved narrative of the life and deeds of Pantagruel's father: The Very Horrific Life of Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel (in French, La vie très horrifique du grand Gargantua, père de Pantagruel), commonly known as Gargantua. The narrative begins with Gargantua's birth and childhood. He impresses his father (Grandgousier) with his intelligence, and is entrusted to a tutor. This education renders him a great fool, and he is later sent to Paris with a new tutor. After Gargantua's reeducation, the narrator turns to some bakers from a neighbouring land who are transporting some fouaces. Some shepherds politely ask these bakers to sell them some of the said fouaces, which request escalates into war. Gargantua is summoned, while Grandgousier seeks peace. The enemy king (Picrochole) is not interested in peace, so Grandgousier reluctantly prepares for violence. Gargantua leads a well-orchestrated assault, and defeats the enemy. The Third Book , Chapter XXV In The Third Book of Pantagruel (in French, Le tiers-livre de Pantagruel; the original title is Le tiers livre des faicts et dicts héroïques du bon Pantagruel), Rabelais picks up where Pantagruel ended, continuing in the form of a dialogue. Pantagruel and Panurge discuss the latter's profligacy, and Pantagruel determines to pay his debts for him. Panurge, out of debt, becomes interested in marriage, and wants advice. A multitude of counsels and prognostications are met with, and repeatedly rejected by Panurge, until he wants to consult the Divine Bottle. Preparations for a voyage thereto are made. The Fourth Book , Chapter XLI In The Fourth Book of Pantagruel (in French, Le quart-livre de Pantagruel; the original title is Le quart livre des faicts et dicts héroïques du bon Pantagruel), Rabelais picks up where The Third Book ended, with Pantagruel and companions putting to sea for their voyage toward the Divine Bottle, Bacbuc (which is the Hebrew word for "bottle", בקבוק) They sail onward, passing, or landing at, places of interest, until they meet a storm, which they endure, until they can land again. Having returned to sea, they kill a sea-monster, and drag that ashore, where they are attacked by Chitterlings. Fierce culinary combat ensues, but is peaceably resolved, having been interrupted by a flying pig-monster. Again, they continue their voyage, passing, or landing at, places of interest, until the book ends, with the ships firing a salute, and Panurge soiling himself. The Fifth Book The Fifth Book of Pantagruel (in French, Le cinquième-livre de Pantagruel; the original title is Le cinquiesme et dernier livre des faicts et dicts héroïques du bon Pantagruel) was published posthumously around 1564, and chronicles the further journeyings of Pantagruel and his friends. At Ringing Island, the company find birds living in the same hierarchy as the Catholic Church. On Tool Island, the people are so fat they slit their skin to allow the fat to puff out. At the next island they are imprisoned by Furred Law-Cats, and escape only by answering a riddle. Nearby, they find an island of lawyers who nourish themselves on protracted court cases. In the Queendom of Whims, they uncomprehendingly watch a living-figure chess match with the miracle-working and prolix Queen Quintessence. Passing by the abbey of the sexually prolific Semiquavers, and the Elephants and monstrous Hearsay of Satin Island, they come to the realms of darkness. Led by a guide from Lanternland, they go deep below the earth to the oracle of Bacbuc. After much admiring of the architecture and many religious ceremonies, they come to the sacred bottle itself. It utters the one word "trinc". After drinking liquid text from a book of interpretation, Panurge concludes wine inspires him to right action, and he forthwith vows to marry as quickly and as often as possible. ==Analysis==

Authorship of The Fifth Book The authenticity of The Fifth Book has been doubted since it first appeared in 1564. (Rabelais died in 1553.) and that somebody, "after some adding and padding", which he cites in support of his opinion. J. M. Cohen, in his Introduction to a Penguin Classics edition, indicates that chapters 17–48 were so out-of-character as to be seemingly written by another person, with the Fifth Book "clumsily patched together by an unskilful editor." Bakhtin's analysis of Rabelais Mikhail Bakhtin's book Rabelais and His World (published in 1965) explores Gargantua and Pantagruel and is considered a classic of Renaissance studies. Bakhtin declares that for centuries Rabelais' book had been misunderstood. Throughout Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin attempts two things. First, to recover sections of Gargantua and Pantagruel that in the past were either ignored or suppressed. Secondly, to conduct an analysis of the Renaissance social system in order to discover the balance between language that was permitted and language which was not. but used to store items of high value. In Socrates, and particularly in The Symposium, Rabelais found a person who exemplified many paradoxes, and provided a precedent for his "own brand of serious play". In these opening pages of Gargantua, Rabelais exhorts the reader "to disregard the ludicrous surface and seek out the hidden wisdom of his book"; and Gargantua and Pantagruel covers "the entire satirical spectrum". Its "combination of diverse satirical traditions" challenges "the readers' capacity for critical independent thinking"; which latter, according to Bernd Renner, is "the main concern". It also promotes "the advancement of humanist learning, the evangelical reform of the Church, [and] the need for humanity and brotherhood in politics", among other things. According to John Parkin, the "humorous agendas are basically four": • the "campaigns in which Rabelais engaged, using laughter to enhance his principles"; • he "derides medieval scholarship both in its methods and its representatives"; • he "mocks ritual prayer, the traffic in indulgences, monasticism, pilgrimage, Roman rather than universal Catholicism, and its converse, dogmatic Protestantism"; • and he "lampoons the emperor Charles V, implying that his policies are tyrannical". ==Reception and influence==

depicted King Louis Philippe as Gargantua, sitting on his throne (a close stool), consuming a continuous diet of tribute fed to him by various bureaucrats, dignitaries, and bourgeoisie, while defecating a steady stream of titles, awards, and medals in return. Daumier was prosecuted in 1832 for this unflattering depiction of the King. In the wake of Rabelais' book the word gargantuan (glutton) emerged, which in Hebrew is גרגרן Gargrån. French ravaler, following betacism a likely etymology of his name, means to swallow, to clean. English literature There is evidence of deliberate and avowed imitation of Rabelais' style, in English, as early as 1534. The full extent of Rabelais' influence is complicated by the known existence of a chapbook, probably called The History of Gargantua, translated around 1567; and the Songes drolatiques Pantagruel (1565), ascribed to Rabelais, and used by Inigo Jones. This complication manifests itself, for example, in Shakespeare's As You Like It, where "Gargantua's mouth" is mentioned; ==English translations==

Urquhart and Motteux The work was first translated into English by Thomas Urquhart (the first three books) and Peter Anthony Motteux (the fourth and fifth) in the late seventeenth-century. Terence Cave, in an introduction to an Everyman's Library edition, notes that both adapted the anti-Catholic satire. Moreover, The translation is also extremely free. Urquhart's rendering of the first three books is half as long again as the original. Many of the additions spring from a cheerful espousal of Rabelais's copious style. [...] Le Motteux is a little more restrained, but he too makes no bones about adding material of his own. [...] It is a literary work in its own right. Smith William Francis Smith (1842–1919) made a translation in 1893, trying to match Rabelais' sentence forms exactly, which renders the English obscure in places. For example, the convent prior exclaims against Friar John when the latter bursts into the chapel, What will this drunken Fellow do here? Let one take me him to prison. Thus to disturb divine Service! Smith's version includes copious notes. Donald M. Frame, with his own translation, says that Smith "was an excellent scholar; but he shuns R's obscenities and lacks his raciness". and, elsewhere, says it is "better than nothing". From The Third Book, Chapter Seven: 'Odsbody! On this bureau of mine my paymaster had better not play around with stretching the esses, or my fists would go trotting all over him! Screech Penguin published a translation by M. A. Screech in 2006 which incorporates textual variants; and brief notes on sources, puns, and allusions. In a translator's note, he says: "My aim here for Rabelais (as for my Penguin Montaigne) is to turn him loyally into readable and enjoyable English." ==List of English translations==

Complete translations • Thomas Urquhart (1653) and Peter Anthony Motteux (1694) • Thomas Urquhart (1653) and Peter Anthony Motteux (1694), revised by John Ozell (1737) • Thomas Urquhart (1653) and Peter Anthony Motteux (1694), revised by Alfred Wallis (1897) • William Francis Smith (1893) • Jacques Leclercq (1936) • Samuel Putnam (1948) • J. M. Cohen (1955) • Burton Raffel (1990) • Donald M. Frame (1991) • Michael Andrew Screech (2006) Partial translation Andrew Brown (2003; revised 2018); books 1 and 2 only ==Illustrations==

An example of the giants' shift in body size, above where people are the size of Pantagruel's foot, and below where Gargantua is under twice the height of a human. The most famous and reproduced illustrations for Gargantua and Pantagruel were done by French artist Gustave Doré and published in 1854. Over 400 additional drawings were done by Doré for the 1873 second edition of the book. An edition published in 1904 was illustrated by W. Heath Robinson. Another set of illustrations was created by French artist Joseph Hémard and published in 1922. Frank C. Papé illustrated an edition published in 1927. The first two books were the basis for the 1979 comic book Gargantua e Pantagruel by Dino Battaglia. ==See also==