Will Durant --- Rabelais

one himself the unique inexhaustible skeptical hilarious learned and obscene author of the most diverting and most profitable stories which have ever been told burst into the world in 1495 son of a prosperous notary at china he was entered a too early in age into a franciscan monastery he complained later that women who carry children nine months beneath their hearts cannot bear to suffer them nine years and by simply adding an l to their dress and cutting i know not how many hairs from the top of their head by means of certain words they turn them into birds that is they taunt them and make them monks the boy accepted his fate because he was inclined to study and probably like erasmus he was drawn to the books in the monastic library he found there are two or three other monks who wish to study greek and who were excited by the vast ancient world that scholarship was revealing francois made such progress that he received a letter of praise from budae himself matters seemed to be going well and in 1520 the future doubter was ordained a priest but some older monks scented heresy in philology they accused the young hellenists of buying books with the fees they received for preaching instead of handing the money over to the common treasury robele and another monk were put in solitary confinement and were deprived of books which were to them half of life budday apprised of this contratol appealed to francis the first who ordered the scholars reinstated in freedom and privileges some further intercession brought a papal rescript permitting robert to change his monastic allegiance and residence he left the franciscans and entered a benedictine house at maise in 1524. there the bishop jeffrey destisak took such a fancy to him that he arranged with the abbott that robert should be allowed to go wherever he wished for his studies probably went and forgot to return after sampling several universities he entered the school of medicine at montpellier in 1530 he must have had some prior instruction for he received the degree of bachelor of medicine in fifteen thirty one for reasons unknown he did not proceed to earn the doctorate but resumed his wandering until in 1532 he settled down in lyon like cervetis he combined the practice of medicine with scholarly pursuits he served as editorial aide to the printer sebastian griffias edited several greek texts translated the aphorisms of hippocrates into latin and was willingly caught in the humanistic stream then in full flow at leon on november 30th 1532 he dispatched a copy of josephus to erasmus with a letter of adulation strange in a man of 37 but savoring of that enthusiastic age recently sent me flavius josephus's history and asked me to send it to you i have eagerly seized this opportunity o humanist of fathers to prove to you by grateful homage my profound respect for you and my filial piety my father did i say i should call you mother did your indulgence allow it all that we know of mothers who nourish the fruit of their wombs before seeing it before even knowing what it will be who protect it who shelter it against the inclemency of the air that you have done for me for me whose face was not known to you and whose obscure name could not impress you you have brought me up you have fed me at the chaste breasts of your divine knowledge all that i am all that i am worth i owe to you alone if i did not publish it aloud i should be the most ungrateful of men salutations once more beloved father honor of your country supportive letters unconquerable champion of truth in that same november fifteen thirty two we find robert a physician in the other or city hospital of lyon with a salary of forty levers or a thousand dollars a year but we must not think of him as a typical scholar or physician it is true that his learning was varied and immense like shakespeare he seems to have had professional knowledge in a dozen fields law medicine literature theology cookery history botany astronomy mythology he refers to a hundred classic legends quotes half a hundred classic authors sometimes he parades his edition amateurishly he was so busy living that he had no time to achieve meticulous accuracy in his scholarship the additions that he prepared were not models of careful detail it was not in his character to be a dedicated humanist like erasmus or buday he loved life more than books he is pictured for us as a man of distinguished presence tall and handsome a well of learning a light and fire of conversation he was not a topper as an old tradition wrongly inferred from his salutes to drinkers and his peons to wine on the contrary except for one little bastard who lived so briefly as to be only a venial sin he led a reasonably decent life and was honored by the finest spirits of his time including several dignitaries of the church at the same time he had in him many qualities of the french peasant he relished the bluff and hearty types that he met in the fields and streets he enjoyed their jokes and laughter their tall tales and boastful rivalry and unwittingly he made erasmus fame pale before his own because he collected and connected these stories improved and expanded them dignified them with classic lore lifted them into constructive satire and carefully included their obscenity one story then current in many rural areas told of a kindly giant named gargantua his cavernous appetite his feats of love and strength here and there were hills and boulders which said local traditions had dropped from gargantua's basket as he passed such legends were still told as late as 1860 in french hamlets that had never heard of rabalai an unknown writer perhaps robert himself as a tour de rear jotted some of the fables down and had them printed in leo as the great and inestimable chronicles of the great and enormous giant gargantua this in 1532 the book sold so readily that rabalay conceived the idea of writing a sequel to it about gargantua's son so at the lyon fair of october 1532 there appeared anonymously the horrible and dreadful deeds and prowesses of the most renowned panther rule this name had been used in some popular dramas but rabalay gave the character new content in depth the sorbonne and the monks condemned the book as obscene and it sold well francis the first enjoyed it some of the clergy relished it not till fourteen years later did robert admit his authorship he feared to endanger if not his life his reputation as a scholar he was still so wedded to scholarship that he neglected his duties at the hospital and was dismissed he might have had trouble buttering his bread had not john de bella bishop of paris and co-founder of the college de france taken rabalai with him as physician on a mission to italy in january 1534 returning to lyon in april rabalai published there in october the very horrible life of the great gargantua father of pentagrul this second volume which was later to form book one of the full work contained such rollicking satires of the clergy that it won another sorbonnean condemnation soon the two stories published together outsold every publication in france except the bible and the imitation of christ again we are told king francis laughed and applauded but on the night of october 17th to 18th 1534 the posting of insulting protestant placards on paris buildings and the king's own doors changed him from a protector of humanists into a persecutor of heretics robert had again concealed his authorship but it was widely suspected and he had good reason to fear that the sorbonne carrying the king in its train would demand the scandalous writer's head again jean du bois came to his rescue now a cardinal the genial churchman snatched the endangered scholar physician pornographer out of his lyon den and took him to rome in 1535 it was robert's luck to find there an enlightened pope paul iii forgave him his neglect of his monastic and priestly duties and gave him permission to practice medicine as amanda nara blah blah blah expunged from future editions of his now double-backed book the passages most offensive to orthodox taste and when a tiendo lay played a trick on him by publishing without permission and unexpected edition he crossed him from the roster of his friends under the protection of the cardinal he studied again in montpellier received the doctorate in medicine lectured to large audiences there and then returned to leon to resume his life as physician and scholar in june 1537 doley described him as conducting an anatomy lesson by dissecting an executed criminal before an assemblage of students thereafter we know only snatches of his undulate career he was in the suite of the king at the historic meeting of francis the first and charles v in eggmort in july 1538 two years later we find him at turin as physician to guillaume de belei brother to the cardinal and now french ambassador to savoy about this time spies found in robele's correspondence some items that raised a flurry in paris he hurried to the capital faced the matter out bravely and was exonerated by the king in 1541 despite renewed condemnations of gargantua and pantic rule by the sorbonne francis gave the harassed author a minor post in the government as metra de recruit commissioner of petitions and official permission to publish book two of pantic rule which robille gratefully dedicated to marguerite of navarre the volume aroused such commotion among the theologians that robert judged it discreet to take refuge in mets then part of the empire there he served for a year as physician in the city hospital from 1546 to 1547. in 1548 he thought it's safe to return to lyon and in 1549 to paris finally his ecclesiastical protectors secured his appointment in 1551 as parish priest of murdon just southwest of the capital and the hunted aging gadfly resumed his sacral robes apparently he delegated the duties of his benefits to subordinates and confined himself to using the income so far as we know he was still curie of madonna when a bit anomalously he published what is now book four of his work in 1552 this was dedicated to o'day cardinal de chateaune presumably with permission evidently there were then in france high churchmen of the learning and lenience of the italian renaissance cardinals nevertheless the book was denounced by the sorbonne and its sailor was forbidden by the palmol francis the first and marguerite were now dead and probably found no favor with the somber henry ii he absented himself for a while from paris but soon returned there after a long illness he died on april 9 1553. an old story tells how when he was asked on his deathbed where he expected to go he answered i go to seek a great perhaps alas it is a legend 2. gargantua the prologue to book 1 originally book 2 gives it once the taste and smell of the whole most noble and illustrious drinkers and you thrice precious pockified blades for to you and none else to i dedicate my writings to abide the outside of socrates and esteemed of him by his external appearance you would not have given the peel of an onion for him you my good disciples and some other jolly fools of ease and pleasure reading the pleasant titles of some books of our invention are too ready to judge that there is nothing in them but jests mockeries lascivious discourse and recreative lies but in the perusal of this treatise you shall find a doctrine of a more profound and abstract consideration as well as in what concerneth our religion as matters of public state and life economical a certain adul-headed coxcomb sayeth ill of my books but a bren for him prolly now my lads cheer up your hearts and joyfully read pull away supernaculum this is urkhart's famous translation which sometimes overdoes the original but it is here quite faithful to it even with pithy words now no longer permitted in learned discourse in these two paragraphs we have rabalai's spirit and aim syria satire clothed in neck saving buffoonery and sometimes smeared with unfumigated smut we proceed at our own risk thankful that the printed word does not smell and trusting to find some diamonds in the dung hill gargantua begins with a peerless genealogy scriptural in form the father of the giant was grand guzier king of utopia the mother was gargamel she bore him for 11 months and when her pains began their friends gathered for a merry bout of wine alleging that nature abhors a vacuum on with the sheep's courage the proud father tells his wife painlessly dispatch this boy and we will speedily fall to work making another for a moment she wishes him the fate of abelar he proposes to accomplish this forthwith but she changes her mind the unborn gargantua finding the usual outlet of maternity blocked by an untimely astringent entered the vena cava of gargamel climbed through her diaphragm and neck and issued forth by the left ear as soon as he was born he cried out so loudly the two counties hurt him drink drink drink seventeen thousand nine hundred thirteen cans of milk were set aside for his nourishment but he early showed a preference for wine when it came time to educate the young giant and make him fit to succeed to the throne he received his tutor metro jobless who made adult of him by stuffing his memory with dead facts and befuddling his reason with scholastic argument driven to a desperate expedient gargamel turned the boy over to the humanist ponocrates teacher and pupil went off to paris to get the latest education gargantuar wrote on a tremendous mayor whose swishing tale cut down vast forests as she proceeded hence part of france is a plane arrived in paris gargantua alighted on a tower of notre dame he took a fancy to the bells and purloined them to hang them about his horse's neck bonocritis began the re-education of the spoiled giant by giving him an enormous purgative to cleanse the bowels and the brain which are near allied so purified gargantua became enamored of education he began zealously to train at once his body his mind and his character he studied the bible the classics and the arts he learned to play the loot in the virginal and to enjoy music he ran jumped wrestled climbed and swam he practiced riding jousting and the skills needed in war he hunted to develop his courage and to develop his lungs he shouted so that all paris heard him he visited metal workers stone cutters goldsmiths alchemists weavers watchmakers printers dyers and giving them somewhat to drink studied their crafts he took part every day in some useful physical work and sometimes he went to a lecture or a trial or to the sermons of evangelical preachers a protestant touch amid all this education gargantuar was suddenly called back to his father's realm for another king pikrochol had declared war on grangouzier why robert steals a story from pluto's life of paris and tells how pikrochol's generals boasted of the lands they would conquer under his leadership france spain portugal algeria italy sicily crete cyprus rhodes greece jerusalem because rejoices and swells but an old philosopher asks him what shall be the end of so many labors and crosses when we return answers pikrochol we shall sit down rest and be merry but suggests the philosopher if by chance we should never come back for the voyages long and dangerous were it not better for us to take our rest now enough cried pikrochol go forward i fear nothing he that loves me follow me gargantua's horse almost wins the war against beaker shoal by drowning thousands of the enemy with one simple easement but the real hero of the war was friar john a monk who loved fighting more than praying and who let his philosophical curiosity venture into the most dangerous alleys what is the reason he asks that the thighs of a gentlewoman are always fresh and cool and though he finds nothing about this engaging problem in aristotle or plutarch he himself gives answers rich in femoral erudition all the king's men like him feed and whine him to his poncho's content they invite him to take off his monastic robe to allow more eating but he fears that without it he will not have so good an appetite all the faults that the protestant reformers alleged against the monks are satirized through this jolly member of their tribe their idleness gluttony guzzling prayer mumbling and hostility to all but a narrowing range of study and ideas in our abbey says friar john we never study for fear of the mumps gargantuar proposed to reward the friars good fighting by making him abbot of an existing monastery but john begged instead to be given the means of establishing a new abbey with rules contrary to all others first there should be no encompassing walls inmates are to be free to leave at their pleasure second there is to be no exclusion of women however only such women shall enter as our fair well featured of a sweet disposition and between the ages of 10 and 15. third only men between twelve and eighteen will be accepted and they must be comely and of good birth and manners no soughts or bigots may apply no beggars lawyers judges scribes users gold graspers or sniveling hypocrites fourth no vows of chastity poverty or obedience the members may marry enjoy wealth and in all matters be free the abbey is to be called telem or what you will and its soul rule will be face cavuldra do what you wish for men that are free well-born well-bred and conversant in honest companies have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them to virtuous actions and withdraws them from vice and this instinct is called honor gargantua provided the funds for this aristocratic anarchism and the abbey rose according to specifications which robert gave in such detail that architects have made drawings of it he provided for at a library a theater a swimming pool a tennis court a football field a chapel a garden a hunting park orchards stables and nine thousand three hundred thirty two rooms it was an american hotel in vacation land probably forgot to provide a kitchen or to explain who would do the menial work in this paradise three pantagral after gargantua had succeeded his father as king he took his turn at procreation and pedagogy at the age of four hundred four score forty and four years he begot pentagrul on badabek who died in giving birth whereat gargantua wept like a cow for his wife and laughed like a calf over his robust son pantagrul grew up to bobbing naggy in proportions in one of his meals he inadvertently swallowed a man who had to be excavated by a mining operation in the young giants digestive tract when pentagrul went to paris for his higher schooling gargantua sent him a letter redland of the renaissance most dear son although my deceased father of happy memory grand guzier had bent his best endeavors to make me profit in all perfection and political knowledge and that my labor and study was fully correspondent to yea went beyond his desire nevertheless as thou mayest well understand the time then was not so proper and fit for learning as it is at present for that time was darksome obscured with clouds of ignorance and savoring a little of the infillicity and calamity of the goths who had wherever they set footing destroyed all good literature which in my age hath by the divine goodness been restored unto its former light and dignity and that was such amendment and increase of knowledge that now hardly should i be admitted under the first form of the little grammar school boys now the minds of men are qualified with all manner of discipline and the old sciences revived which were many ages were extinct now the learned languages are to their pristine purity restored viz greek without which a man may be ashamed to account himself a scholar hebrew arabic chaldean and latin printing likewise is now in use so elegant and so correct that better cannot be imagined i intend that thou learn the languages perfectly let there be no history which thou shalt not have ready in my memory of the liberal arts geometry arithmetic and music i gave these some taste were now worth yet little proceed further in them as for astronomy study all the rules thereof let past nevertheless astrology as being nothing else but plain cheats and vanities as for the civil law of that i would have thee to know the texts by heart and then to confer them with philosophy the works of nature i would have the study exactly fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the greek arabian and latin physicians not despising the talmudists and kabbalists and by frequent anatomies get the the perfect knowledge of the microcosm which is man and at some hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the holy scriptures first in greek the new testament then the old testament in hebrew but because as the wise man solomon saith wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind and science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul it behooveth thee to serve to love to fear god be serviceable to all thy neighbors and love them as thyself reverence thy preceptors shun the conversation of those whom now desirous not to resemble and receive not in vain the graces which god hath bestowed upon thee and when thou shalt see that thou has detained to all the knowledge that is to be acquired in that part return unto me that i may see thee and give thee my blessing before i die thy father gargantua pentagrul studied zealously learned many languages and might have become a bookworm had he not met banures here again even more than in friar john the subordinate character stands out more clearly than his master as sancho ponza sometimes outshines the dawn probably does not find full scope for his irreverent humor and ride his vocabulary in gargantua or pantegral he needs this quarter scoundrel quarter lawyer quarter v quarter philosopher as a vehicle for his satire he describes panuer which means ready to do anything as lean like a starving cat walking gingerly as if he trot on eggs a gallon fellow but a little lecherous and subject to a kind of disease called lack of money a pickpocket a lewd rogue a cousiner a drinker and very dissolute fellow but otherwise the best and most virtuous man in the world into panucha's mouth robert puts his most rippled sally's particularly resented the habit which the ladies of paris adopted of buttoning their blouses up the back he sued the women in court and might have lost but he threatened to start a similar custom with male culotte whereupon the court decreed that women must leave a modest but passable opening in front angered by a woman who scorned him panurge sprayed her skirts while she knelt in prayer at church with the aphrovia of an itching pet when the lady emerged all the six hundred thousand fourteen male dogs of paris pursued her with unanimous and indefatigable devotion pantagruel himself a very mannerly prince takes to this rascal as a relief from philosophy and invites him on every expedition as the story rolls on into book three manures debates with himself and others whether he should marry he lists the arguments pro and khan through a hundred pages some sparkling many wearisom but in those pages we meet the man who married a dumb wife and the renowned jurist bridal goose who arrives at his soundest judgments by throwing dice the prologue to book four catches a cue from lucian and describes a consistory of gods in heaven with jupiter complaining about the unearthly chaos reigning on the earth the thirty wars going on at once the mutual hatreds of the peoples the divisions of theologies the syllogisms of the philosophers what shall we do with this ramu and galland who together are setting all paris by the ears priapus counsels him to turn those two piers into stones or pierre here abele steals a pun from scripture returning to earth he records in books four and five the long gulliverian voyages of pentagrul kanuresh fryer john and a royal utopian fleet to find the temple of the holy bottle and to ask whether panus should marry after a score of adventures satirizing lenten fasts protestant pope haters bigot pope oliters monks dealers and fake antiques lawyers ferd cats scholastic philosophers and historians the expedition reaches the temple over the portal is a greek inscription to the effect that in wine there is truth in a nearby fountain is a half submerged bottle from which a voice emerges gurgling drink and the priestess bakbuk explains that wine is the best philosophy and that not laughing but drinking cool delicious wine is the distinguishing character of man manures is happy to have the oracle confirm what he has known all the time he resolves to eat drink and be married and to take the consequences manfully he sings an obscene hymeneal chant and bakbuk dismisses the party with a blessing may that intellectual sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere whom we call god keep you in his almighty protection so with a typical blend of lubricity and philosophy the great romance comes to an end book five was published in 1562 nine years after robert's death probably the first fifteen chapters were left by robert the remaining thirty two are of doubtful authenticity four the king's jester what sense is there behind this nonsense and is there any wisdom in this demijohn of fellaini and the priest and hilarity we country clowns robert makes one of his asses say are somewhat gross and apt to knock words out of joint he loves words has an endless supply of them and invents a thousand more he draws them like shakespeare from every occupation and profession every field of philosophy theology and law he makes lists of adjectives nouns or verbs as if for the pleasure of contemplating them he multiplies synonyms in an ecstasy of redundancy this planism was already an old trick on the french stage it is part of ramalei's boundless and uncontrollable humor an overflow beside which even the humor of aristophanes or moliere is a modest trickle his coarseness is another phase of this unmanageable flux perhaps some of it was a reaction against monastic aestheticism some of it the anatomical indifference of a physician some of it a bold defiance of pedantic precision much of it was in the manner of the age undoubtedly rabalai carries it to excess after a dozen pages of urogenital excretory and gaseous details we weary and turn away another generation of classic influence would be needed to tame such volcanic exuberance into disciplined form we forgive these faults because ramalei's style runs away with us as with him it is an unpretentious and literary style natural easy flowing just the medium for telling a long story the secret of his verb is imagination plus energy plus clarity he sees a thousand things unobserved by most of us notes innumerable quirks of dress and conduct and speech unites them fantastically and sets the mixtures chasing one another over the sportive page he borrows right and left as the custom was and with shakespeare's excuse that he betters everything that he steals he helps himself to hundreds of proverbial snatches from erasmus adagio and follows many a lead from the praise of folly or the colloquis he assimilates half a hundred items from plutarch years before amio's translation opened that treasury of greatness to any literary thief the appropriate solutions heavenly discourse and follengo's tale of the self-drowned sheep he finds in the comedies of his time the story of the man who regretted that he had cured his wife's speechless and he uses a hundred suggestions from the fablio and interludes that had rolled down from medieval france in describing the voyages of pentagrul he leans on the narratives that were being issued by the explorers of the new world and the far east yet with all this borrowing there is no author more original and only in shakespeare and cervantes do we find imaginative creations so lusty with life as friar john and panurge rabalai himself however is the main creation of the book a composite of pentagrul friar john paneurs erasmus vesselius and jonathan swift babbling bubbling smashing idols loving life because he loved life he played those who made it less lovable perhaps he was a bit too hard on the monks who had been unable to share his humanistic devotions he must have been clawed by a lawyer or two for he tears their fur revengefully mark my words he warns his readers if you live but six olympiads in the age of two dogs more you'll see these law cats lords of all europe but he lays his whip also upon judges scholastics theologians historians travelers indulgence peddlers and women there is hardly a good word for women in all the book this is robert's blindest spot perhaps the price he paid as monk and priest and bachelor for never earning tenderness partisans have debated whether he was a catholic a protestant a free thinker or an atheist calvin thought him an atheist and my own belief concluded his lover anna told france is that he believed nothing at times he wrote like the most irreverent cynic as in the language of the sheep drover about the best way to fertilize a field he ridiculed fasting indulgences inquisitors to creetals and enjoyed explaining the anatomical requisites for becoming a pope he had evidently no belief in hell he echoed the protestant arguments that the papacy was draining the nations of their gold that the cardinals of rome lived lives of gluttony and hypocrisy he sympathized with the french heretics pantegrul he says did not stay long and to lose because there they burned their regents alive like red herrings referring to the execution of an heretical professor of law but his protestant sympathies seem to have been limited to those who were humanists he followed erasmus admiringly but only mildly favored luther and he turned with distaste from the dogmatism and puritanism of calvin he was tolerant of everything but intolerance like nearly all the humanists when driven to choose he preferred catholicism with its legends intolerance and art to protestantism with its predestination intolerance and purity he repeatedly affirmed his faith in the fundamentals of christianity but this may have been the prudence of a man who in defense of his opinions was willing to go to the stake exclusively he loved his definition of god so well that he or his continuator repeated it he apparently accepted the immortality of the soul but in general he preferred schatology to eschatology farrell called him a renegade for accepting the pastorate of mudal but this was understood by donor and recipient as merely a way of eating israel faith was in nature and here perhaps he was as trustful and credulous as his orthodox neighbors he believed that ultimately the forces of nature work for good and he underestimated her neutrality as between men and fleas like rousseau and against luther and calvin he believed in the natural goodness of man or like other humanists he was confident that a good education and a good environment would make men good like montagna he counseled men to follow nature and possibly he looked with impish unconcern on what would then happen to society and civilization in describing the abbey of talem he seemed to be preaching philosophical anarchism but it was not so he would admit to it only those whose good breeding education and sense of honor would fit them for the trials of freedom his final philosophy was pentagralism this must not be confused with the useful word of pantograulion which is merely hemp and whose final virtue is that it can make appropriate neckties for criminals pantic rulism is living like pentagrul in a genial and tolerant fellowship with nature and men in grateful enjoyment of all the good things of life and in cheerful acceptance of our inescapable vicissitudes and termination once rabalay defined pantographism as inception desperate confidence for to eat a certain deity of spirit preserved in contempt of the accidents of life it combined xeno the stoic diogenes the cynic and epicurus to bear all natural events with equanimity to view without offense all natural impulses and operations and to enjoy every sane pleasure without puritanic inhibitions or theological remorse pantegraul took all things in good part and interpreted every action in the best sense he neither vexed nor disquieted himself since all the goods that the earth contains are not of so much worth as that we should for them disturb or disorder our emotions trouble or perplex our senses or spirits we must not exaggerate the epicurean element in this philosophy robele's litanies to wine were more verbal than alcoholic they do not quite comport with the contemporaries description of him as a man of serene gracious and open countenance the wine he celebrated was the wine of life and this pretended lord of dipsophilic put into the mouth of gargantua a sentence that in ten words phrases the challenge of our own time science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul france has treasured rabalai more than any other of her giants of the pen except montagna moliere and voltaire in his own century etienne pasquiere called him the greatest writer of the age in the 17th century his manners stiffened under lace and baruch and classic form became literally der riger he lost some standing in the nation's memory but even then moliere racine and lafontaine were confessively influenced by him fontenelle and madame de sivignier loved him and pascal appropriated his definition of god voltaire began by despising his coarseness and ended by becoming his devotee as the french language changed rabalai became almost unintelligible to french readers in the 19th century and perhaps he is now more popular in the english speaking world than in france for in 1653 and 1693 sir thomas ercott published a translation of books one and three into viral english as exuberant as the original peter de mateur completed the version in 1708 and by the work of these men gargantua and pantagrul became an english classic swift stole from it as if by right of clergy and stern must have found in it some levin for his wit it is among the books that belong to the literature not of a country but of the world six rossar and the pleiad meanwhile a veritable flood of poetry was pouring over france we know some 200 french poets in the reigns of francis and his sons and these were no vapid mourners in an unheating wilderness they were warriors in a literary battle form versus content ronsar versus rabelais that determined the character of french literature till the revolution a complex ecstasy inspired them they longed to rival the greeks and romans in purity of style and perfection of form and the italian sonneteers in grace of speech and imagery nevertheless they were resolved to write not in latin like the scholars who were instructing and exciting them but in their native french and at the same time they proposed to mello and refine that still rough tongue by teaching it words phrases constructions and ideas judiciously pilfered from the classics the episodic formlessness of robert's romance made it in their eyes a crude vessel of clay hastily turned by hand unpainted and unglazed they would add to this earthly vitality the discipline of form carefully designed and a feeling rationally controlled the classical crusade began in the liau of rabelais himself maurice sev spent part of his life locating as he thought the tomb of petrox laura then composed 446 stanzas to his own desired delhi and in the melancholy delicacy of his verse he cleared a path for rossar his ablest competitor in lyon was a woman louise la bay who in full armor fought like another joan at perpigno and then cooled into marriage with a rope maker who winked in kindly garlic fashion at her subsidiary amours she read greek latin italian and spanish played the loot alluringly kept a salon for her rivals and her lovers and wrote some of the earliest and finest sonnets in the french language we might judge her fame from her funeral in 1566 which said a chronicler was a triumph she was carried through the city with her face uncovered and her head crowned with a floral wreath death could do nothing to disfigure her and the people of leon covered her grave with flowers and tears through these leonese poets the petrarchan style and mood passed up to paris and entered the pleiad the very word was a classic echo for in the alexandria of the third century before christ a galaxy of seven poets had likewise been named from the constellation that commemorated the seven mythological daughters of atlas and pleoni rossar brightest star in the french pleiad rarely used that term and his models were an acrion and horus rather than alexandrian theocritis or calemicus it was in 1548 at an inunture end that he met joachim de bele and conspired with him to make french poetry classical they won to their enterprise four other young poets antoine de baif remy bello etienne jodel and pontus de tiard and they were joined also by the scholar john dora whose lectures on greek literature at the college de france and the college de cocorei fired them with enthusiasm for the lyric singers of ancient greece they called themselves la bregad and vowed to rescue the french muse from the coarse hands of jean-damong and rabelais the loose measures of beyond marrow they turned their noses from the riotous language and privy wisdom of gargantua and pantic rule they found no classic restraint in those jumbled verbs and adjectives those coprophilic ecstasies no feeling for beauty of form in woman nature or art a hostile critic seeing them seven dubbed them la plead their victory turned the word into a flag of fame in 1549 dubai proclaimed the linguistic program of the brigade in a default illustration francoise by default he meant that the french language could be enabled to express all that the classic tongues had uttered by illustration he meant that french could take on new lustre could brighten and polish itself by putting aside the rough speech of prevalent french prose and the ballad rondelle virulay forms of french poesy and purify and enrich itself by importing classical terms and studying classical forms as in an acrion theocritus virgil horus and petrarch for to the pleiad petrarch was already a classic and the sonnet was the most perfect of all literary forms pierre de rossard realized in his verse the ideals that dubale voiced in splendid prose he came of a recently ennobled family his father was metro dotel to francis the first and for some time pierre lived at the brilliant court he was successfully paged to the dopha francis then to the madeleine who married james the fifth of scotland then equilier or squire to the future henry ii he looked forward to military exploits but at 16 he began to grow death he sheathed his sword and brandished a pen he fell in with virgil by accident and saw in him a perfection of form and speech as yet unknown in france dora led him on from latin to greek and taught him to read an acrion escalus pinder aristophanes o master cried the youth why have you hidden these riches from me so long 24 he met to belay thereafter he divided his time devotedly among song woman and wine his odes of 1550 completed the lyric revolt they frankly imitated horus but they introduced the ode into french poetry and stood on their own feet in purity of language elegance of phrase precision of form two years later in the 183 sonnets of his amur he took petrarch as his model and achieved a grace and refinement never surpassed in french poetry he wrote to be sung and many of his poems were put to music during his lifetime some by famous composers like jean carr and gudimel he offered to the women he courted the old invitation to make play while beauty shines but even on that ancient theme he struck an original note as when he warned one prudent lass that she would someday regret having lost the opportunity of being seduced by so renowned a bard in prose translation when you shall be very old see to that evening beside the fire chatting and sowing by candlelight you will recite my poems and marveling will say blazent my name when i was fair then no one of your helpers though have lulled to sleep by the murmur of their looms but hearing these words will rouse themselves at the sound of my name blessing your fate to have such deathless praise i shall be then beneath the earth a phantom without bones i shall be taking my repose beneath the shade of myrtle trees you an old woman bent before your heart will then regret my love and your proud disdain live now believe me wait not for tomorrow gather the roses of life that bloom today the exaltation of style suited well the court of catherine de medici who had brought to france an italian retinue bearing petrarch in their books the new poet hard of hearing but proud of carriage with marshall figure golden hair and beard and the face of praxitilis's hermes became a favorite of catherine henry ii mary stuart even of elizabeth of england who was his 17th cousin sent him a diamond ring the greco-roman mythology of the play odd was welcomed when the poets talked of olympus the court acknowledged the compliment henry became jupiter catherine juno dion diana and the sculpture of goujon confirmed the comparison when henry died charles ix continued to befriend ronsaar not quite a good result for the young monarch wanted an epic about france to match the aeneid i can give death wrote the royal simpleton but you can give immortality bonsar began a franciad but found his muse too short of breath for so long a run soon he gave up the pretense and returned to lyrics and love he passed peacefully into old age protected from the noise of the world safely conservative in politics and religion revered by younger minstrels and respected by all but death it came in 1585 he was buried a tour but paris gave him an olympian funeral in which all the notables of the capital marched to hear a bishop in tone and horizon funeral the poets who called him prince produced many volumes of verse delicate but dead most of them like the master were pagans with their ease professed catholic orthodoxy and scorned the moralistic huguenots however poor these poets might be in pocket they were aristocrats in pride sometimes in blood and they wrote for a circle that had the leisure to relish form probably returned their hostility by ridiculing their pedentry their servile imitation of greek and roman meters phrases and epithets their thin echoes of ancient themes and petrarchan conceits and laments in that conflict between naturalism and classicism the fate of french literature was decided the poets and tragic dramatists of france would choose the straight and narrow path of perfect structure and chiseled grace the prose writers would aim to please by force of substance alone hence french poetry before the revolution is untranslatable the bars of form cannot be shattered and then be refashioned in an alien mold in 19th century france the two streams met the half-truths merged content married form and french prose became supreme

Channel: Rocky C

Views: 6,784

Rating: 4.7333331 out of 5

Keywords: Will Durant, Rabelais

Id: crb0pCcOTHA

Length: 45min 42sec (2742 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 27 2019