Consisting of five books, this masterpiece is Rabelais' magnum opus. It chronicles different events in the life of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. Using his learned wit and biting satire as a facade, Rabelais discusses several serious issues. The apparent humour and brilliant use of language offers pure reading pleasure. Entertaining and profound!

After the all-powerful wizard Susnam Evyndd is defeated during battle with an evil clan of sorcerers, the world is plunged into darkness. If the spell is not quickly reversed, all plants will die off from lack of sun, until everything & everyone-is destroyed. Yet Evyndd's death sets off his last & greatest spell, transforming his household pets into humans. With Evyndd's instructions, the group sets out to return light to the world...but pursuing the missing light promises to be difficult & dangerous & carries no guarantee of success.

With his birth itself a monumental exploit in itself, it is clear that the giant Pantagruel is destined to great things, and the novel that bears his name chronicles his the remarkable life of the exuberant youth: from his voracious reading habits to his escapades with the knave Panurge and his prowess in battle. The second work in this volume deals with the history of his father Gargantua, whose biography is equally if not more outlandish and larger than life.But these bawdy and boisterous tales, with their fixation on food and faeces, are not just entertaining yarns, as Francois Rabelais, one of the foremost humanists of the sixteenth century, parodies medieval learning, lambasts the established church authority and develops his own ideal visions for the ordering of society.

This classic work by the Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) examines popular humor and folk culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the essential texts of a theorist who is rapidly becoming a major reference in contemporary thought, Rabelais and His World is essential reading for anyone interested in problems of language and text and in cultural interpretation.

"A Companion to François Rabelais offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of the works of François Rabelais, one of the most influential writers of the Western literary tradition. A monk, medical doctor, translator and editor, Rabelais embodies the ideals of Renaissance humanism. His genre-bending fiction combines vast erudition, comic verve, and critical observations of all spheres of contemporary life that are relevant to this day. Two sections of this volume situate Rabelais's work in the larger social, political, and literary context of his time. A third section gives concise interpretations of each of the five books of the Pantagrueline Chronicles. The contributors are eminent scholars of early modern literature, many of whom write in English for the first time"--

This coloring book is unlike any you've seen before. The artwork was drawn in the 1500s! Now in the public domain, these images depict intriguing and grotesque creatures. Some are mostly human, but many are not. There are fish-people, bog creatures, and inanimate objects given life. Many of the creatures are quite well-endowed, and there is indeed a phallic theme running through the figures. This coloring book is not for children!

"Gargantua - The Fifth Book" from Fran�ois Rabelais. French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar (1494-1553).