RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS. — Writer, born probably at La Dovinière (Touraine) ca. 1494, died in April 1555 (?). In 1521 he was a Franciscan friar at Fontenay-le-Comte, and later joined the Benedictines of St-Pierre de Maillezais. A friend of Budé (v.) and Bouchet, in 1530 he became a bachelor in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier and in 1532 a physician at the Notre Dame de Pitié hospital. In Lyons he deepened his humanist friendships, became associated with E. DOLORE (v.), and began writing Pantagruel, continuing it with Gargantua, works that caused a great stir in the ecclesiastical circles of Lyons, since they were considered immoral and “libertine.” In 1535–36 he was absolved in Rome of the charge of having abandoned the monastic habit. From then on, however, his relations with the clergy were no longer good (the III book of Pantagruel, published in 1546, was condemned in Paris by the Sorbonne; the IV, published in 1552, was violently attacked for its anti-curial satires).
R. owes his fame to Gargantua and Pantagruel (the minor works, although they help to make his personality better known, add nothing to the absoluteness of his art: almanacs, letters, Sciomachie, etc.). The story of the childhood, journeys, adventures, and wars of the giant Pantagruel, and the story of Gargantua, Pantagruel’s father, provide R. with the occasion to weave a narrative, fantastical and rich either in the “gigantic” quality of the I book, or in the intellectual freedom of the II, III, and IV books, or in the satirical character of the V (insofar as anything may remain of R.’s initial inspiration, since the composition of the V book is certainly not his). What is of interest here is the ideal substratum of Rabelaisian writing: R. is engaged in controversy with the priesthood, the intermediary between God and man, but he is not a “strong spirit”; the myth that has been made of him as a libertine is inaccurate. Modern criticism (Febvre) rejects, perhaps going beyond the limit, the interpretation that sees in R. “mysterious designs,” atheistic and “rationalistic,” rather than a simple desire to make people laugh. The problem must therefore be placed within the religious crisis of the sixteenth century, and particularly within Erasmian humanism: Erasmus and R., as Febvre finely observes (v. op. cit. in bibl. p. 334), “have felt mysterious passages opening between their Christianity and ancient wisdom. Both willingly base their theology on sacred texts and profane texts at the same time.” Thus, not atheism, but a humanitarian religion confident in the goodness of natural forces, scarcely feeling the weight of original sin.
In the history of pedagogy, the work represents an educational “method” of secularist humanism: the education of the young is understood therein as a vindication of freedom that stimulates the individual’s energy in acquiring a new, wholly earthly wisdom, a new eudaimonia enriched by the serenity imparted by the humanae litterae. In the history of political utopia, too, R. holds a notable place in outlining “natural freedom,” the Fay ce que voudras of the Abbey of Thélème. But it would be mistaken to insist too much on a supposedly ever-present allegorism in R., since above all he remains a very great narrator: modern Europe has perhaps never seen one richer in satirical, humorous, and comic moods.
