**RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS.** - Writer, born probably at La Devinière (Touraine) c. 1494, died in April 1555 (?). In 1521 he was a Franciscan friar at Fontenay-le-Comte, later becoming a Benedictine at St-Pierre in Maillezais. Budé (v.) and Bouchet, in 1530 he became bachelor in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier and in 1532 physician at the Hôtel-Dieu of Notre-Dame de Pitié. In Lyon he deepened his humanistic friendships, formed a bond with E. DOLORE (v.), and began writing *Pantagruel*, continuing with *Gargantua*. These works aroused great scandal in ecclesiastical circles in Lyon, being considered immoral and “libertine.” In 1535–36 he was absolved in Rome of the charge of abandoning the monastic habit. From then on, however, his relations with the clergy were no longer good (the third book of *Pantagruel*, published in 1546, was condemned in Paris by the Sorbonne; the fourth, published in 1552, was violently attacked for its anti-curial satires).
Rabelais owes his fame to *Gargantua* and *Pantagruel* (his minor works, while useful for understanding his personality, add nothing to the absolute quality of his art: almanacs, letters, *Sciomachies*, etc.). The story of the childhood, travels, adventures, and wars of the giant Pantagruel, and the story of Gargantua, father of Pantagruel, gave Rabelais the occasion to weave a narrative that is fantastic and rich in the “gigantic” of the first book, in intellectual freedom of the second, third, and fourth books, or in satire of the fifth (as far as can be discerned from Rabelais’s initial inspiration, since the fifth book was certainly not written by him). What matters here is the ideal substratum of Rabelaisian writing: Rabelais was in conflict with the priesthood, the intermediary between God and man, but he was not a “free thinker”; the myth of him as a libertine is unfounded. Modern criticism (Febvre) perhaps goes too far in rejecting the interpretation that sees in Rabelais “mysterious designs” of atheism and rationalism, rather than the simple desire to make people laugh. The problem must therefore be situated within the context of 16th-century religious crisis, and particularly within Erasmian humanism: Erasmus and Rabelais, Febvre finely observes (v. *op. cit.* in bibliography p. 334), “felt mysterious passages opening between their Christianity and ancient wisdom. Each of them willingly based their theology on sacred texts and profane texts alike.” Thus, not atheism, but a humanitarian religion confident in the goodness of natural forces, almost oblivious to the weight of original sin.
In the history of pedagogy, his work represents an educational “method” of secular humanism: the education of youth is conceived as a vindication of freedom that spurs the individual’s energy in acquiring a new, entirely earthly wisdom, a new eudaimonia rich in the serenity that the *humanae litterae* provide. In the history of political utopia, too, Rabelais holds a notable place in delineating natural freedom, the *Fay ce que vouldras* of the Abbey of Thélème. Yet it would be mistaken to insist too much on a supposed ever-present allegorism in Rabelais, for he remains above all a great storyteller: perhaps modern Europe has never seen one richer in satirical, humorous, and comic moods.