Gargantua and Pantagruel

Cycle of four (or five) satirical novels by the French writer François Rabelais, published 1532–64. The novels are written in mock-heroic style and reveal the extent of Rabelais's learning in the fields of medicine, theology, and law. Often bawdy, they satirize a variety of institutions, notably universities and the church: the intensification of these attacks in the third and forth volumes led to their condemnation by the university in Paris.

The first volume written, Gargantua, deals with the birth and childhood of the giant Gargantua, son of Grandgousier; his education in Paris (an opportunity for a satirical attack on the university); and the foundation of the infamous abbey of Thélème, the motto of which is Fay ce que vouldras (‘Do what you will’). The remaining volumes, the Pantagruel books, tell the story of Gargantua's son, a giant of enormous strength and appetite, his friendship with the cunning rogue Panurge, and his conquest of the kingdom of the Dipsodes.

The books are a continuation of a medieval tradition of bawdy stories that employ gross exaggeration and unlikely adventures, though their immediate inspiration was the successful anonymous chapbook Les Grandes et Inestimables Chroniques du grand et énorme géant Gargantua/The Great and Inestimable Chronicles of the Great and Enormous Giant Gargantua (1532).

The full titles of the books are: La Vie inestimable du grand Gargantua, père de Pantagruel/The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel, the first to be written, but published in 1534, two years after Les Horribles et Epouvantables Faits et prouesses du très renommé Pantagruel/The Horrible and Dreadful Deeds and Prowess of the Very Renowned Pantagruel (1532).

Le Tiers Livre des faits et dits héroïques du noble Pantagruel/The Third Book of the Deeds and Words of the Noble Pantagruel and Le Quart Livre de Pantagruel/The Fourth Book appeared in 1546 and 1552.

The Cinquième Livre/Fifth Book (1564), which continues the story of Pantagruel in the style of Rabelais, is of doubtful authenticity.