Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book I
' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book I' Summary
Pantagruel
The full modern English title for the work commonly known as Pantagruel is The Horrible and Terrifying Deeds and Words of the Very Renowned Pantagruel King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua and in French, Les horribles et épouvantables faits et prouesses du très renommé Pantagruel Roi des Dipsodes, fils du Grand Géant Gargantua. The original title of the work was Pantagruel roy des dipsodes restitué à son naturel avec ses faictz et prouesses espoventables. Although most modern editions of Rabelais' work place Pantagruel as the second volume of a series, it was actually published first, around 1532 under the pen name "Alcofribas Nasier", an anagram of François Rabelais.
Inspired by an anonymous book, The Great Chronicles of the Great and Enormous Giant Gargantua (in French, Les Grandes Chroniques du Grand et Enorme Géant Gargantua), Pantagruel is offered as a book of the same sort.
The narrative begins with the origin of giants; Pantagruel's particular genealogy; and his birth. His childhood is briefly covered, before his father sends him away to the universities. He acquires a great reputation. On receiving a letter with news that his father has been translated to Fairyland by Morgan le Fay; and that the Dipsodes, hearing of it, have invaded his land, and are besieging a city: Pantagruel and his companions depart.
Through subterfuge, might, and urine, the besieged city is relieved, and residents invited to invade the Dipsodes, who mostly surrender to Pantagruel as he and his army visit their towns. During a downpour, Pantagruel shelters his army with his tongue, and the narrator travels into Pantagruel's mouth. He returns some months later, and learns that the hostilities are over.
Book Details
Author
Francois Rabelais
France
François Rabelais was a French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He is primarily known as a writer of satire, of the grotesque, and of bawdy jokes and...
More on Francois RabelaisDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The Iliad for Boys and Girls by Alfred J. Church
Echoing Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, Church offers a simplified rendering of the classic siege of Troy, as he retells the story which is regarded as o...
Histoires ou Contes du temps passé avec des moralités by Charles Perrault
Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités or Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Stories or Tales from Past Times, with Morals or Mother Goose Tales...
The Dead Alive by Wilkie Collins
The Dead Alive written by Wilkie Collins in the 1870s is on the real-life wrongful conviction of Stephen and Jesse Boorn that happened in 1819 in the...
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 1 by Samuel Richardson
It tells the tragic story of a young woman, Clarissa Harlowe, whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family. The Harlowes are a recentl...
Ethelred Preston; or, The Adventures of a Newcomer by Francis J. Finn, S.J.
The story follows the adventures of Ethelred Preston, a young boy who is sent to a Catholic boarding school after the death of his father. Ethelred st...
A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant
A Woman's Life is a captivating novel by Guy de Maupassant that chronicles the life of Jeanne, a young woman born into a wealthy Norman family. From h...
The Boy Scouts Through the Big Timber by St. George Henry Rathborne
Deep in the heart of the Pacific Northwest, where the towering pines reach for the sky and the rivers run wild, the Silver Fox Patrol of Boy Scouts em...
The House of the Wolfings by William Morris
The House of the Wolfings is a romantically reconstructed portrait of the lives of the Germanic Gothic tribes, written in an archaic style and incorpo...
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlof
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (orig. Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige; literally Nils Holgersson's wonderful journey across Sweden) is...
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz by Anonymous
It is an allegoric romance (story) divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, like Genesis, and recounts how Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go t...
Reviews for Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book I
No reviews posted or approved, yet...