1. This is an excerpt from Gargantua and Pantagruel by
Francis Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel is a connected series of five books written by Francois Rabelais. The story is of two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. The book series chronicles their adventures in amazing detail. Rabelais composed the book in an amusing, extravagant, satirical manner. The story line of these books involves a string of related anecdotes about the life and times of the two royal giants who come from a fictitious kingdom in Europe. The subject manner is extravagant and the language is coarse and sometimes filthy. Underneath this layer, there is a subtle undercurrent of satire. Rabelais' use of satire, mixed with serious social commentary, made him an outlaw and a legend.
Francois Rabelais was born in Chinon, France in around 1490. He went to missionary school and was ordained a priest. Around 1530, he left the monastery to study medicine. He became a physician at Lyon but his interests turned increasingly to literature. Rabelais even allowed some of himself to come across in his fanciful writing. Book one of Gargantua from which the excerpt comes, chronicles the giant Gargantua's childhood and his education. Rabelias describes the ways in which Gargantua applied his education of mind, body, and soul in the tradition of the ancient Greeks.
Rabelais' intention with his writing was to challenge the status quo. When the book series was published in France, it caused a scandal. The Paris Faculty of Theology condemned his writings and Rabelais was forced to spend most of his life in hiding. Many in the Roman Catholic Church found Rabelais' works to be distasteful if not blasphemous. Rabelais' mix of humor with seriousness and high theology with grotesqueness offended the Church's sensibilities and undermined its authority.
2. Rabelais wrote with an emphasis on individual liberty and enthusiasm mixed with bawdy humor. Each of the...