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Gargantua

Gargantua can be a challenge to read in French at this stage in your university career. Please do make use of the an English translation in the first instance, looking at the French alongside it.

English translations:

Gargantua and Pantagruel, translated by M. Screech (London and New York: Penguin, 2006) Available in library. Best up-to-date translation

Gargantua and Pantagruel, translated by Urquhart and Motteux (Derby: The Moray Press, 1894). 19th century edition of a 1653 translation of the text, reproduced in facsimile with some wonderful illustrations by Gustave Doré: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1200

Useful websites

The Renaissance in Print: https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/renaissance-in-print

Reading Rabelais: hints for reading 16th C French: https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/renaissance-in-print/literaryworks/rabelais5

Cotgrave's French- English dictionary (this is an early 17th-century bilingual dictionary with a very useable search facility)

 

Gargantua 1

LECTURE: Introductions:
  • Rabelais, Renaissance and Reform
  • Ways of reading the text

LECTURE SLIDES (Powerpoint Presentation)

SEMINAR WORKSHEET (Word Document)

Gargantua 2

LECTURE: Rabelais the polemicist: religion and reform; satire and censorship(Powerpoint Presentation)

SEMINAR (Word Document)

ERASMUS EXTRACT : The Praise of Folly (PDF Document)

A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY: REFORMATION

Gargantua 3

LECTURE: War and peace: politics, society and gender. Please download this lecture to get the slide show that accompanies it.

Download


SEMINAR (Word Document)

PREPARING YOUR PRESENTATION ADVICE SHEET (Word Document)

PRESENTATION TOPICS:

  • The court of François 1er: art, architecture and leisure
  • The court of François 1er: women at court (Powerpoint Presentation)
  • L’Affaire des Placards
  • Rabelais, Erasmus and the Just War