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Francois Rabelais |
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Satirist, physician, and humanist, born 1494 in Chinon, France. After a period with a Franciscan order, he studied medicine at Montpellier, and became a physician at Lyon. Here he began the sequence of books for which he is remembered, beginning with the comic and satirical Pantagruel and Gargantua, published under his pseudonym, and both highly successful, though condemned by the Church for their unorthodox ideas and mockery of religious practices. In 1546 he published his Tiers Livre under his own name. It was again condemned, and he fled to Metz, where for a while he practised medicine. He later published a Quart Livre, and there is a Cinquiesme Livre, published after his death, whose authorship is uncertain. His influence on literature, notably in Britain, has been widespread. |