Francois Rabelais
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The great comic genius of the Renaissance. Gargantua and Pantagruel — sprawling, obscene, learned, and hilarious — is the most extravagant celebration of the human body, appetite, and intellect in Western literature. Behind the scatological jokes lies a humanist vision as serious as Erasmus's.
Key works
- Gargantua and Pantagruel1532-1564— Five books of giants, feasts, and Rabelaisian excess