Gargantua and Pantagruel: A Philosophical Encyclopedia Beneath the Mask of Jest
Keywords:
Renaissance, humanism, satire, parody, compositionAbstract
One of the invaluable masterpieces of world literature — the French writer
François Rabelais's novel cycle "Gargantua and Pantagruel" — serves as the subject of research for
this article. The study analyzes the work's compositional structure and ideological-artistic content
from a scholarly perspective. Through the characters of Gargantua and Pantagruel and their varied
adventures, the article reveals the author's critical attitude toward the society, educational system,
and religious-moral views of his era. The distinctive feature of the work lies in the fact that,
although it appears outwardly full of humor and jest, this light style skillfully conceals profound
philosophical, pedagogical, and social meaning beneath it. The article concludes with scholarly
conclusions regarding the work's place in the development of world literature and its significance
for the present day.
References
1. Bakhtin, M. M. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1984
2. Screech, M. A. Rabelais. London: Duckworth, 1979, 494 - b.
3. Screech, M. A. " Gargantua and Pantagruel" London: Penguin Classics, 2006
4. "Parody and Appropriation of the Past in the Grandes Chroniques Gargantuines and in
Rabelais's Pantagruel (1532)" — The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and
Architecture. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
5.Burke, Peter. "Rabelais's Box".London Review of Books, vol. 2, no. 6, 1980.
6.Review of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by M. A. Screech's translation. Translation and
Literature journal. Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
7.Wikipedia — "Gargantua and Pantagruel", "Rabelais and His World", "Grotesque body",
"François Rabelais" articles.
