United States or Curaçao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In 1840 there appeared in the Bibliotheque Charpentier the Rabelais in a single duodecimo volume, begun by Charles Labiche, and, after his death, completed by M. Paul Lacroix, whose share is the larger. The text is that of L'Aulnaye; the short footnotes, with all their brevity, contain useful explanations of difficult words.
Aretino put his name to all he wrote, and openly gloried in his notorious 'Ragionamenti. His literary talent, his clear and sparkling style, his varied observation of men and things, would have made him a considerable writer under any circumstances, destitute as he was of the power of conceiving a genuine work of art, such as a true dramatic comedy; and to the coarsest as well as the most refined malice he added a grotesque wit so brilliant that in some cases it does not fall short of that of Rabelais.
I am not certain that they might not have changed with the times and come frankly and positively, as some urged them to do, had it not been for Rabelais' failure towards the end of the Boer war.
The truth is, that the only complete description of the point of view is to be found in the book itself; it is too wide and variegated for any other habitation. Yet, if it would be vain to attempt an accurate and exhaustive account of Rabelais' philosophy, the main outlines of that philosophy are nevertheless visible enough.
Goethe, Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Ariosto, were none of them high-born men; several of them low-born; who only rose to the society of high-horn men because they were themselves innately high-bred, polished, complete, without exaggerations, affectations, deformities, weaknesses of mind and taste, whatever may have been their weaknesses on certain points of morals.
An exuberance of grotesque fancy and a recklessness of exaggeration were his dominant notes. His earlier work, up to and including the Rabelais, is not really funny to many minds it is even painful but it is unmistakably caricature of a dashing, savage sort. To our mind it remains his best work, and that by which he is most likely to live.
He did often descend to buffooneries and to almost obscene sayings, and these things have had their influence upon France, and have contributed to make the French people what they are to-day a nation of professed Catholics, but really a nation of infidels and atheists. But Rabelais was more than a wit. He was a public benefactor.
He first worked for the Journal Pour Rire, but then he undertook to illustrate the work of Rabelais, the great satirist, whose text just suited Dore's pencil. After Rabelais he illustrated Balzac, also the "Wandering Jew," "Don Quixote," and Dante's "Divine Comedy." He undertook to do things which he could not do well, simply for the money there was in the commissions.
In the eighteenth century they were unheard-of daring; they were mere dreams. Long before that time the immortal satirist Rabelais, and, after him, Michael Montaigne, had already divined the truth, had pointed out serious defects in education, and the way to reform. No one followed out their suggestions, or even gave them a hearing. Routine went on its way.
Say rather that our Government allowed us that liberty; for I assure you our priests were by no means pleased with it at least, they were not in my time. Rabelais.
Word Of The Day