In Gargantua and Pantagruel frank fooling is mingled with keen social satire, political insight, and pedagogic wisdom, but the work is conspicu ously lacking in continuity. It may he noted, however, that in the first book, Garguntua, will be found, together with the farcical adventures of that giant, the notable deeds of Friar John, the founding of the Abbey of Thelema, and the quintessence of Rabelaisian social and pedagogi cal philosophy. The second had fur its original descriptive title "Pantagruel, King of the Drunk ards, Portrayed According to Life, with His Amazing Deeds and Feats of Prowess." The title of the third, fourth. and fifth books is •"Of the Heroic Sayings and Doings of the Good (or Noble) Pantagruel." In both second and third books the central figure is Panurge. an original creation, accomplished, shrewd, but quite without moral character. His debate with him self and his counsel-taking with others as to whether he shall marry, in the third book, is perhaps the most famous pas sage of the romance. It is finally deter mined to consult the oracle of the Dire Bouteille. The voyage in search of this furnishes occasion for the fourth and fifth books. The oracle is 'Trinq.' As nearly as may be Panta gruel is Rabelais. Most of his writing is pure fooling, though always the sport of a philosopher and a scholar, satirizing what he professed to believe, not because he was insincere, but because lie saw an essential antinomy in all apprehension of truth—no uncommon attitude of mind during the Renaissance. In him antique reason is op posed to modern faith. He is not an innovator, but a restorer of enlightened paganism, first in that series of Pantagruelists that counts Des cartes, Courier, Balzac, and Lemaitre. His very
uncleanness of speech is the expression of a lusty animalism in revolt against medimval asceticism, of a militant faith in nature and instinct, in whose sturdy humor and destructive satire is to be found the spirit of eighteenth-eentury ethics and of modern realism. Rabelais does not direct ly attack the Christian. or even the Roman Cath olic faith. He was a freethinker, who clung to the skirts of Catholic faith, a cautious heretic, and no Protestant, a stout defender of free thought in France. Rabelais's influence on the development of fiction was small, but Panta gruel, Panurge, and Friar John are imperishable creations.
The first annotated edition of Rabelais was by Le Duchat and Bernard de la Monnaye (1711). There are subsequent annotated editions by Esmangart (Paris. 1823-261 ; Burgaud des Marets and Rath6ry (Paris, 1857-58) ; A. de Mon taiglon and Louis Lacaud ( ib.. 1S6S-73) ; Marty Laveaux (4 vols., ib., I870-81). the best ; Pierre Jannet (ib., 1873) ; Moland (lb., ISSI ) ; and .Touart (ib., 18,85). There is a very remarkable English translation by Urquhart and Motteux (London 1653-94; often reprinted). Consult the bibliography appended to Marty-Laveaux's study of Rabelais; Petit de Julleville Histoire de la longue et dc 1a litteratune franealse (Paris, 1806-98) ; and especially Stapler, Rabelais. sa personae. son genie, son (Torre (ib., 1889) ; Geb hart, Rabelais, la renaissance et la reforme (ib., 1S95) ; Ileulhard,Rabc/ais chirurgien (ib., 1885) ; id., Rabelais, ses col/ages in Halle, son exil moz, (ib.,.1891) ; and in English, Walter Besaut, Rabelais (London, 1879) ; id., Readings in Rabe lais (ib., 1881).