Gargantua and Pantagruel

Summary

Gargantua and Pantagruel is the collective title of five comic books about a dynasty of giants, written by François Rabelais and published between 1532 and 1564. Pantagruel appeared first, at Lyon in 1532, under the anagram pen-name Alcofribas Nasier; Gargantua, about the father, followed in 1534 or 1535 and is now printed as Book I. The Third Book (1546) and the Fourth Book (complete 1552) bore Rabelais's own name, and a Fifth Book was published in 1564, eleven years after his death; how much of it he wrote is disputed. The library text is the English version begun by Sir Thomas Urquhart (Books I and II, 1653; Book III, 1693) and completed by Peter Antony Motteux. Book I tells of Gargantua's birth from his mother Gargamelle's left ear after a feast of tripe, his enormous appetites, and his schooling. Under the sophisters Tubal Holofernes and Jobelin Bride he learns by rote and grows duller; under the humanist Ponocrates, after a purge of hellebore, he studies the ancients, the sciences, music and exercise from dawn to night. In Paris he steals the bells of Notre-Dame and receives the ridiculous oration of Master Janotus de Bragmardo. A quarrel over cakes between the cake-bakers of Lerne and the shepherds of Grangousier, Gargantua's father, swells into an invasion by King Picrochole, who dreams of conquering the world. Grangousier seeks peace, Friar John of the Funnels defends the abbey vineyard with a staff of the cross, and Gargantua wins the war and treats the conquered with clemency. As a reward Friar John receives the Abbey of Theleme, an anti-monastery of well-bred men and women whose single rule is Do What Thou Wilt. Book II follows Pantagruel from his birth, which costs his mother Badebec her life, through his studies at Paris. There he receives his father's famous letter on learning and meets Panurge, a quick-witted rogue who begs in a dozen languages and becomes his companion. Pantagruel settles an absurd lawsuit, Panurge defeats the English scholar Thaumast in a debate by signs, and the giant wars against the Dipsodes and their king Anarchus. Book III turns on one question: should Panurge marry, and will he be made a cuckold? After praising debtors, he consults a sibyl, a dying poet, an astrologer, the theologian Hippothadee, the physician Rondibilis, the sceptic Trouillogan, the judge Bridlegoose, who decides lawsuits by dice, and the fool Triboulet. The company resolves to sail to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle. Book IV narrates the voyage: the drowning of the merchant Dingdong's sheep, a storm that terrifies Panurge, the islands of Shrovetide and the Chitterlings, the Papimanes, the frozen words, and Messer Gaster, the belly, first master of arts. Book V brings the travellers through the Ringing Island and the court of Gripe-men-all to the priestess Bacbuc, whose oracle answers with one word, Trinc.

Plot or Argument

• Book I (Gargantua): birth and two educations

  Gargantua is born from Gargamelle's ear crying for drink. The sophister Tubal Holofernes spends years teaching him to recite grammars backwards; Ponocrates purges him with hellebore and fills his day with reading, observation, exercise and prayer (chapters XIV-XXIV).

• Book I: the Picrocholine war and Theleme

  A fight over cakes leads King Picrochole to invade Grangousier's lands. Grangousier pleads for peace, Friar John routs the plunderers in the abbey close, and Gargantua defeats Picrochole and pardons the conquered. The last chapters describe the Abbey of Theleme and its rule of free will (chapters XXV-LVIII).

• Book II (Pantagruel): birth, letter and Panurge

  Gargantua weeps and laughs at once over the death of Badebec and the birth of his son. In Paris Pantagruel mocks the titles of the library of St Victor, receives his father's letter on universal learning (chapter VIII) and meets Panurge (chapter IX).

• Book II: lawsuits, debates and the Dipsodes

  Pantagruel judges a lawsuit argued in nonsense, Panurge outdoes Thaumast in a debate by gestures, and the giant conquers the Dipsodes; the narrator explores a world inside Pantagruel's mouth and Epistemon returns from the dead with news of the underworld.

• Book III: should Panurge marry?

  Panurge, made laird of Salmigondin, praises debts, then seeks counsel on marriage from dreams, a sibyl, a poet, a theologian, the physician Rondibilis, the philosopher Trouillogan, Judge Bridlegoose and the fool Triboulet. The book closes with a mock-scientific eulogy of the herb Pantagruelion, which is hemp.

• Book IV: the voyage

  Sailing toward the oracle, the company meets Dingdong, whose sheep Panurge drowns, the bailiffs of Procuration, a storm in which Panurge quakes while Friar John works, the islands of Shrovetide, the Chitterlings and the Papimanes, frozen words thawing in the air, and Messer Gaster, the belly whom the Gastrolaters worship.

• Book V: the Oracle of the Bottle

  The travellers visit the Ringing Island of caged birds, escape the Furred Law-cats of Gripe-men-all, see the court of Queen Quintessence and Lantern-land, and descend to the temple where Bacbuc gives Panurge the oracle's word Trinc and explains it as drink. Authorship of this posthumous book is uncertain.

Characters

• Gargantua, giant prince

  Son of Grangousier, educated twice over, victor of the Picrocholine war and founder of Theleme.

• Pantagruel, giant prince and hero

  Son of Gargantua, a scholar-king of good humour and patience who leads the later books.

• Panurge, companion and trickster

  Witty, cowardly, endlessly resourceful rogue whose question about marriage drives Books III to V.

• Friar John of the Funnels, monk and fighter

  Hearty, unlearned monk who defends his abbey's vineyard and receives Theleme as a reward.

• Grangousier, king

  Gargantua's peace-loving father, who answers Picrochole's aggression with embassies and restitution.

• Picrochole, invading king

  Choleric neighbour whose counsellors persuade him he can conquer the known world.

• Ponocrates, tutor

  Humanist teacher who remakes Gargantua's education.

• Epistemon, tutor and companion

  Pantagruel's learned friend, beheaded in battle and restored to life.

• Janotus de Bragmardo, sophister

  Theologian sent to recover the bells of Notre-Dame with a speech of mangled Latin.

• Rondibilis, physician

  Doctor consulted in Book III, who answers Panurge with medical lore on desire and marriage.

• Bridlegoose, judge

  Old judge who decides lawsuits by casting dice, with long delays to let cases ripen.

• Bacbuc, priestess

  Keeper of the Oracle of the Holy Bottle in Book V.

Lessons

• Two schools for one giant

  Book I sets the rote learning of Tubal Holofernes beside the full day Ponocrates plans, in which Gargantua reads Scripture at waking, studies the stars, handles plants, practises arms and talks over his lessons at meals. Rabelais makes education a matter of forming the whole person, body, mind and devotion, rather than piling up glosses.

  • What does Gargantua learn from the sophisters, and why does it make him worse?
  • Which parts of Ponocrates' timetable would you keep in a school today, and which seem impossible?
  • Why does Gargantua's letter in Book II end with God, conscience and charity rather than with more subjects?

• A war over cakes

  The Picrocholine war begins with a scuffle about cakes and grows because Picrochole's flatterers sketch a conquest stretching to Mesopotamia. Grangousier offers restitution, argues that conquest is contrary to the gospel, and fights only when he must; Gargantua's speech to the vanquished prefers clemency to revenge.

  • How do Picrochole's counsellors feed his ambition in the council scene?
  • What reasons does Grangousier give for refusing to imitate Alexander and Caesar?
  • Does Rabelais's comedy make the case against unjust war more or less persuasive?

• Theleme and free will

  The Abbey of Theleme reverses ordinary monastic rule: no walls, no clocks, men and women together, and the single clause Do What Thou Wilt. Rabelais justifies it by a claim that the well-born and well-taught are moved to virtue by an inner spur called honour. Readers have long debated whether Theleme is an ideal, a joke, or both.

  • Who may enter Theleme, and who is turned away by the inscription on the gate?
  • What does the text say happens to free people who are constrained?
  • Can a rule of pure liberty work without a prior education in virtue?

• Seeking counsel without hearing it

  In Book III Panurge asks almost every kind of authority whether he should marry, and twists every answer to suit his fears or wishes. Pantagruel reads the same answers plainly. The episode is a long comic study of self-deception and of how hard it is to receive advice.

  • How do Pantagruel and Panurge interpret the same prophecy differently?
  • What does the theologian Hippothadee advise, and how does Panurge respond?
  • Why might the fool Triboulet be consulted last?

Context

Rabelais wrote in the generation of Erasmus and Thomas More, when humanists were recovering Greek and Hebrew texts, printing was spreading, and the Reformation was dividing Christendom. He mocks the Sorbonne theologians, scholastic logic, idle monks, lawyers and both papal and later Protestant extremes, while praising evangelical piety, classical learning and the art of medicine. The comic giants come from popular chapbooks sold at the Lyon fairs, which Rabelais transformed into learned satire.

Composition

Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534 or 1535) were printed at Lyon under the pseudonym Alcofribas Nasier. The Third Book (1546) appeared under Rabelais's name with a royal licence to print; a partial Fourth Book appeared in 1548 and the complete one in 1552. L'Isle sonante (1562) and the full Fifth Book (1564) were published after his death, and scholars still debate their authorship. Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, a Scottish royalist, published Books I and II in English in 1653; his Book III appeared in 1693 under Peter Antony Motteux's editorship, and Motteux translated Books IV and V. The library's Project Gutenberg text reprints the 1653 text of the first two books, with some notes from the Maitland Club edition (1838).

Reception

The Sorbonne condemned the books, and Rabelais's name became a byword among some contemporaries for impiety, though he presented himself as an evangelical Christian. Later readers, including Swift and Sterne, imitated him; the adjective Rabelaisian entered English for coarse, exuberant humour. Urquhart's translation, which often expands Rabelais's lists into even longer ones, is itself counted a classic of English prose. Twentieth-century critics such as Lucien Febvre, who argued against reading Rabelais as an unbeliever, and Mikhail Bakhtin, who read him through popular carnival culture, have offered contrasting accounts of his religion and his laughter.

Comparisons

• don-quixote

  Cervantes and Rabelais both build comic epics from popular romance; Don Quixote and Sancho, like Pantagruel and Panurge, pair a serious idealist with a fleshly, talkative companion.

• utopia

  Rabelais borrows More's word: Pantagruel's mother is a daughter of the king of the Amaurots in Utopia, and in Book III Pantagruel resettles Utopians in Dipsody; Theleme can be read as a comic answer to More's ordered commonwealth.

• essays-montaigne

  Montaigne, a generation later, shares Rabelais's humanist reading, scepticism of pedantry and interest in education, but replaces giant comedy with quiet self-examination.

• gullivers-travels

  Swift's voyages to lands of giants and absurd academies continue Rabelais's satirical travel narrative of Book IV.

• candide

  Voltaire's travelling philosophers and their failed consultations recall Panurge's endless search for an answer in Book III.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The prologue to Book I and its image of the dog breaking the bone for marrow: how seriously should the reader take the comedy?
• The contrast between Gargantua's two teachers in Book I, Chapters XIV-XXIV.
• Grangousier's patient diplomacy against Picrochole's council of flatterers in the cake war.
• The inscription on Theleme's gate and the rule of Do What Thou Wilt in Chapters LIV-LVII.
• Gargantua's letter to Pantagruel in Book II, Chapter VIII, and its turn from knowledge to conscience.

Key terms and names

Theleme

From the Greek thelema, will: the abbey Gargantua builds for Friar John, without walls or bells, whose only rule is Do What Thou Wilt.

Sophister

Rabelais's word for the scholastic teachers of the Sorbonne, like Tubal Holofernes and Janotus de Bragmardo, who teach by rote and quibble.

Picrocholine war

The war of Book I, begun over cakes, in which King Picrochole (whose name means bitter bile) invades Grangousier's land.

Pantagruelism

The good-humoured cheerfulness, steady in the face of fortune, that Rabelais names after his hero in the later prologues.

Oracle of the Holy Bottle

The goal of the voyage in Books IV and V, where the priestess Bacbuc gives Panurge the word Trinc.

Humanism

The Renaissance movement to recover Greek, Latin and Hebrew sources and reform education, which shapes Ponocrates' teaching and Gargantua's letter.

Content note

The books are full of bawdy jokes, bodily and scatological humour and comic violence; teachers often assign selected chapters, such as the education chapters, the cake war, Theleme and the letter.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How does the war between Grangousier and Picrochole begin, and how does Grangousier first respond?
2. Comprehension What subjects does Gargantua tell Pantagruel to study in his letter, and what does he say must accompany them?
3. Comprehension Whom does Panurge consult in Book III, and what is the question he keeps asking?
4. Interpretation Why does Rabelais give Friar John, who cannot read well, the reward of Theleme?
5. Interpretation What is the difference between the sophisters' learning and Ponocrates' learning, judging by what each does to Gargantua?
6. Interpretation Is the oracle's answer Trinc a joke on Panurge, a serious teaching, or both?
7. Big Question Can laughter teach truths that sober argument cannot, and are there truths it should not touch?
8. Big Question Does true freedom consist in doing what one wills, or in being formed so that one wills the good?

Faith Connections

• Proverbs 17:22 (Scripture)

  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: Rabelais, a physician, made a similar claim for his laughter in the verses to the reader and later prologues.

• Galatians 5:13 (Scripture)

  Paul calls Christians to liberty but warns against using it as an occasion to the flesh; this sets a sharp question beside Theleme's rule of Do What Thou Wilt.

• James 4:1-2 (Scripture)

  Wars come from desires that war within; Picrochole's lust for conquest, inflamed by his counsellors, is a comic illustration.

• Augustine, Homilies on 1 John 7.8 (Great Conversation)

  Augustine's maxim Love, and do what you will grounds freedom in charity; comparing it with Theleme's motto shows what Rabelais keeps and what he leaves out.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: If people are well born, well taught and kept in honest company, then an inner sense of honour will move them to virtue; constraint only provokes the desire for what is forbidden; therefore the best rule for such people is liberty. Theleme and Ponocrates' school together make this humanist case, while Panurge's antics test it.

Rhetorical device: accumulatio (comic catalogue). Rabelais piles up lists, from the games of Gargantua in Book I, Chapter XXII to the titles of the library of St Victor in Book II, Chapter VII, and Urquhart lengthens them further in English.

Debate: Resolved: that the Abbey of Theleme describes a good way to live.

Memory Work

Because to laugh is proper to the man.

But because, as the wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and that knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul

Writing Prompts

Essay: Is Theleme a serious ideal or a satire of ideals? Argue from the inscription on the gate, the rule of Do What Thou Wilt and its stated reason, and the life of the Thelemites in Book I, Chapters LII-LVII.

Comparison with Utopia: Compare More's island of Utopia with Rabelais's Abbey of Theleme: what does each society regulate, what does each leave free, and what does each assume about human nature?

Medical Lens

Rabelais was a practising physician, lecturer on Hippocrates and Galen at Montpellier and editor of the Aphorisms, and his books are full of the medicine of his day: humoral explanations of appetite and temperament, purges, regimen and diet, and anatomical lists. Gargantua's letter urges his son to read the Greek, Arabic and Latin physicians and to gain knowledge of man the microcosm through frequent anatomies, a striking recommendation in the decades before Vesalius. Book III gives a physician, Rondibilis, his own consultation scene, a comic portrait of medical advice on desire, marriage and the fee. The constant drinking is comic and festive rather than clinical, and readers should be cautious about reading it as a picture of alcohol dependence. Rabelais's own claim, in later prologues and dedications, that laughter helps the sick is a period idea worth noting for the history of medicine.

• Book I, Chapters IV-VI

  Gargamelle's feast of tripe, the labour, the attentions of the midwives and Gargantua's comic birth through her left ear.

  Childbirth Maternal
• Book I, Chapter XXIII

  Ponocrates purges Gargantua with Anticyrian hellebore to make him forget the sophisters' teaching, then sets a regimen of study, meals, exercise and sleep.

  Pharmacology Poisons Humoral Medicine
• Book II, Chapters II-III

  Badebec dies in giving birth to Pantagruel, and Gargantua is torn between grief for his wife and joy at his son.

  Childbirth Maternal Grief
• Book II, Chapter VIII

  Gargantua's letter recommends the ancient physicians and frequent anatomies as part of a complete education.

  Physicians Doctors Anatomy Dissection Ancient Medicine
• Book III, Chapters XXXI-XXXIV

  The physician Rondibilis advises Panurge on the cooling of desire, on marriage and on cuckoldry, and accepts his fee with a show of reluctance.

  Physicians Doctors Humoral Medicine
• Book III, Chapters XLIX-LII

  The mock-encyclopedic praise of Pantagruelion (hemp), its preparation and its many uses, parodying the herbals of the period.

  Pharmacology Poisons

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Compare the education Tubal Holofernes gives Gargantua with Ponocrates' timetable in Book I, Chapter XXIII, and argue which elements of the humanist plan are still the heart of a good education.

• Dialogue

  Write a new consultation for Book III in which Panurge asks a modern expert whether he should marry, keeping his habit of turning every answer to his own purpose.

• Classroom

  Stage the council of Picrochole's captains in Book I, Chapter XXXIII, with students adding countries to the imaginary conquest until the plan collapses under its own absurdity.

• Fiction

  Describe one day in the Abbey of Theleme from the point of view of a newcomer who has just read the inscription on the gate.

Further Reading

• Rabelais and His World, Mikhail Bakhtin

  Influential study of the books through popular festive and carnival culture.

• The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais, Lucien Febvre

  Argues that Rabelais should not be read as a modern unbeliever.

• Rabelais, M. A. Screech

  Detailed study of Rabelais's humanism, evangelical faith and learning.

• The Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus

  The humanist satire of theologians, monks and pedants that most shaped Rabelais's comedy.