Enter Rabelais, laughing
Francois Rabelais (1483?-1553) is a difficult and often misunderstood author, whose reputation for coarse "Rabelaisian" jesting and "Gargantuan" indulgence in food, drink, and sex is highly misleading. He was in fact a committed humanist who expressed strong views on religion, good government, education, and much more through the mock-heroic adventures of his giants. While most books about Rabelais have relatively little to say about his comedic genius, Enter Rabelais, Laughing analyses the many sides of Rabelais's humor, focusing on why his writing was so hilariously funny to sixteenth-century readers
Print Book, English, ©1998
Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, ©1998
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xv, 230 pages ; 23 cm
9780826513069, 0826513069
38174519
Prologue
How rabelaisian is Rabelais?
Laugh, and the world laughs with you
French literary laughter
Rire est le propre de l'homme
Laughing Rabelais
'Literary' genres
Epic and mock-epic laughter
Laughter stage
From humanism to trivial pursuit
Humanist facetiae
Reformation satire
The library of Saint-Victor
Rabelais and rhetoric
Panurge orator: The Parisian lady
Panurge orator: The praise of debts
Doctor Rabelais
Therapeutic laughter
Comic diet
Law and medicine
Roman and canon law
Rabelais and law
Bridoye
Envoi
Appendix
Appendix
Endnotes
Bibliography