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.

Outline

It was Pantagruel, which became the second volume of the series, which was published first, around 1532. Then Rabelais wrote of Pantagruel's birth and upbringing in Gargantua. This volume included a notable parables in Western Philosophy: that of the Abbey of Thélème, which can either be considered a point-for-point critique of the educational practises of the age, or a call to free schooling, or all sorts of notions on human nature, Christianized or not.

Then Rabelais returned to the story of Pantagruel himself in the last three books. It is a tale of a sea voyage to find the Holy Bottle (and a loyal woman for one of his companions). The characters are satirical stereotypes and have wildly contradictory motivations. At the end of the fifth volume, which was published posthumously around 1564, the Holy Bottle is arrived at.

Some consider this last volume's attribution to Rabelais debatable. The reason is that the series of islands depicted in this volume is the same as that in Lucian's similar tale of impossible wonders, his True History, but in reverse order. For example, Lucian's party first lands on an island the springs of which flow of wine.

Rabelais's giants are not described to 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. There is much crudity and needless violence; nonetheless this is an important work.

Rabelais was one of the first Frenchmen to learn ancient Greek, from which he brought some 500 words into the French language. This was his major work in which he did such introductions. His quibbling and other wordplay fills the book, and is quite free from any prudishness. Long lists of vulgar insults fill several chapters.

The introduction to the series runs:

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.

The Ending

The epic journey ends with Pantagruel producing a large shit, perhaps the ultimate commentary on the subjects of politics and religion which the books satirize.

Bibliography

The series in the original French is entitled La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel. An available English translation is Five Books of the Lives, Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel, translated by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Pierre Antoine Motteux.

External link

• Online edition (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/aut/rabelais_francois.html) illustrated by Gustave Doré