Gargantua, Pantagruel, etc.
Gargantua, Pantagruel, etc.,by F. Rabelais , the first two volumes published under the anagrammatical pseudonym Alcofribas Nasier.
Gargantua ( 1534 ) introduces Pantagruel's father: his birth, early education, and attendance at the University of Paris, his successful defence of the paternal territories against military invasion, his foundation of a commemorative abbey. The book evokes the province of Rabelais's birth, parodies and criticizes various kinds of education, attacks aggressive war, commends the virtues of the vita activa, and defines ecclesiastical and communal ideals (the abbey of Thélème).
Pantagruel ( 1532 or 1533 ), the first of the sequence to be written, celebrates the prodigious strength and appetite of a popular giant. It describes his fantastic birth and childhood, his tour of the French universities, his experience of Paris, his employment of the rascally Panurge, and his...
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