Description
Gargantua is born into a long line of eminent giants, and his birth - through his mother's ear, after an overindulgence in tripes - recalls the fabled nativities of the gods of old. Such an auspicious beginning can only herald an equally auspicious life, and it is a life we are led through in remarkable detail, from his early show of genius, by the invention of the best of all possible arse-wipes, through his wide-ranging education, to his adult life and adventures.
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As a companion volume to Pantagruel, this new edition of Gargantua continues Rabelais' acclaimed fantasy of a mythical family of giants. Gargantua introduces Pantagruel's father'another wondrous giant. As he tells Gargantua's life story from his birth and education to his later life, Rabelais uses the events of the giant's life to parody medieval and classical learning, mock traditional ecclesiastical authority, and proffer his own thoughts on humanism and society. Marked with the same warm humor, obsession with food, and scatological wit of Pantagruel, Gargantua is a further striking burlesque on Rabelais' contemporaries and a glorious outpouring of Renaissance plenitude.
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