Novels & Major Fiction Codexery

Gargantua and Pantagruel

A satirical pentalogy of giant adventures and wordplay.

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François Rabelais authored a pentalogy of novels in the 16th century, often shortened to Gargantua and Pantagruel, which recounts the exploits of the giant Gargantua and his son Pantagruel.[1][2] The text is characterized by its humorous, excessive, and mocking tone, incorporating learned references, coarse language, and playful manipulation of words.[2]

Making and release

The first book, Pantagruel, was published around 1532 under the pen name "Alcofribas Nasier", an anagram of François Rabelais.[3] The full modern English title for this work is The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Very Renowned Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua.[3] The Third Book continues in the form of a dialogue where the second book ended.[4] The Fourth Book has Pantagruel and companions putting to sea for their voyage toward the Divine Bottle, Bacbuc.[4]

The Fifth Book was published posthumously around 1564 and chronicles further journeyings of Pantagruel and his friends.[4] J. M. Cohen indicates that chapters 17–48 were seemingly written by another person, with the Fifth Book "clumsily patched together by an unskilful editor"[5] Because Rabelais passed away in 1553, questions about whether The Fifth Book is genuine have existed ever since its 1564 publication.[6] The Collège de la Sorbonne's censors branded the work as obscene.[7]

What the cited sources add

Mikhail Bakhtin's book Rabelais and His World, published in 1965, explores Gargantua and Pantagruel and is considered a classic of Renaissance studies.[8][9] Bakhtin attempts to recover sections of the work that were previously ignored or suppressed, and to analyze the Renaissance social system's balance between permitted and unpermitted language.[8] Bakhtin pinpoints two important subtexts: carnivalesque as a social institution and grotesque realism as a literary mode.[8] According to Bakhtin, at carnival time the individual feels part of a collectivity and ceases to be himself, exchanging bodies through costume and mask.[8]

M. A. Screech's 2006 Penguin translation of Gargantua et Pantagruel includes textual variants along with notes on sources, puns, and allusions.[10][11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: (The Five Books) or (The Five Books of the Deeds and Sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel) are shortened forms referring to the full title carried by the earlies (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: translated from the French by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Pierre Le Motteux; with an introduction by Terence Cave", Everyman's Library, 1994, p. xii; Rabelais, "The Complete Works of François Rabelais: translated from the French by Donald M. Frame; with a foreword by Raymond C. La Charité", University of California Press, 1999; Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translated and edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech", Penguin, 2006; Bakhtin, "Rabelais and his world", Indiana Uni en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "Rabelais Oeuvres Complètes", Gallimard, 1955, p. 1033; Rabelais, "Rabelais Oeuvres Complètes", Gallimard, 1955, p. 1033 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "Rabelais Oeuvres Complètes", Gallimard, 1955, p. 1033 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "Gargantua & Pantagruel", Penguin Books, 1955, p. 3 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "The Complete Works of François Rabelais", University of California Press, 1999, p. 909; Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translated and edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech", Penguin, 2006; Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translated and edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech", Penguin, 2006; Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translated and edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech", Penguin, 2006; Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translated and edited wit en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "Rabelais", Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1952; Le Cadet, Nicolas (2009). , Accessed 22 November 2010. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Clark, "Mikhail Bakhtin", Harvard University Press, 1984 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Open Library record, ISBN 9780674574175 ("Mikhail Bakhtin"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rabelais, "Gargantua and Pantagruel: Translated and edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech", Penguin, 2006 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Open Library record, ISBN 9780140445503 ("Gargantua et Pantagruel"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Gargantua and Pantagruel (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

Test yourself on TriviaCafe: Who wrote "Gargantua and Pantagruel": Italo Calvino, Qian Zhongshu, Charles Dickens or François Rabelais? · More literature trivia

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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