The New Student's Reference Work/Rabelais, François

Rabelais (rȧ′b'-lā′), François, the greatest of French humorists, was born, according to the general statements of biographers, in 1493, but more probably a few years earlier, near Chinon, a small town in Touraine. At the request of his father he became a brother of the Order of St. Francis in the convent of Fontenay-le-Comte about 1519, and devoted himself with the utmost ardor to his hitherto neglected studies. To medicine in particular he seems to have been strongly attracted, and, in addition to Latin and Greek, he is said to have mastered Italian, Spanish, German, Hebrew and Arabic. Charged with heresy on account of his devotion to learning, he left the convent, and later was a monk of the order of St. Benedict, then lecturer in the University at Montpelier and finally canon of Cardinal Bellay's abbey near Paris. He died at Paris, April 9, 1553. Rabelais' great romance, in which are narrated the adventures of Gargantua and Pantagruel, continues to hold its rank as a masterpiece of humor and grotesque invention. In form a sportive and extravagant fiction, it is a pointed criticism of the corrupt society of the period, the follies and vices of which are pictured with marked ingenuity and effect; but, at the same time, on account of its free tone and plainness of speech few books are less suitable for general perusal. Rabelais also ranks among the theoretical reformers of education.