Francois Rabelais. French Renaissance writer | English

All of his life, he balanced between a fire and a block. For these actions, most men would have been at least excommunicated. The mask of a jolly cure, a mocker, a cynic, and a lover of telling fibs hides the image of one of the Renaissance titans, an outstanding scientist, physician, philologist, naturalist, and finally, a great writer, François Rabelais. François Rabelais was born in 1494 in Chinon, a small French town. François lost his mother very early. At the age of nine, he was sent to a Franciscan monastery. The boy mastered Latin and began to learn Greek, but the Franciscans considered this language heretical and confiscated his Greek books. He was able to continue studying languages, natural history, and medicine only after soliciting more liberal Benedictines. But Rabelais retained his hostility towards the clergy throughout his entire life. He used to say, nowadays only one-eyed, lame, hunchbacked, ugly, clumsy, insane, weak-minded, bewitched and injured women, and snotty, low-born, daft, unnecessary men go to monasteries and nunneries. However, in spite of his dislike for God's servants, François became a monk himself at the age of 25. But he didn't change either his views or his way of life. To counterbalance the scholastic slogan, Remember Death, he suggested the optimistic slogan, Remember Life. Rabelais soon after left the monastery forever, and three years later, he passed his exam and became a Bachelor of Medicine at the Montpelier Medical School. To get scanty earnings, he worked as a physician at a local hospital in Lyons, where there were up to 200 people in a ward at a time, and sometimes multiple patients would lay on just one bed. Rabelais didn't stop his scientific studies. He publicly dissected the body of a man who was hung, studied botany and archaeology. By that time, François Rabelais had left his monistic vows by living with a widow and fathering two children. In the 16th century, funny stories about kind and jolly giants were popular all over Europe. Rabelais' pen turned primitive folk tales into a philosophical novel called Horrific and Frightening Deeds and Feats of the Most Famous Pentegrule. In 1532, Rabelais published his book under the pen name Alcôfribasnassier, an anagram of his real name. The novel became the work of Rabelais' whole life, like Faust for Goethe and the Divine Comedy for Dante. In two years, the second part of Rabelais' book came out. It told about the adventures of Pentegrule's father, a giant named Gargantua. There are both scabrous things and lofty ideas in this humorous and paradoxical novel. The book is full of caustic remarks about self-interested priests, mercenary judges, philosophers, the Pope and even the king himself. The first and second parts of Rabelais' great novel, Gargantua and Pentegrule, were banned by the French Inquisition. Fearing that the Inquisition would persecute him, Rabelais decided to escape to Italy. He was there as the personal physician of Bishop Jean du Belay. In the Vatican, he got the absolution from Pope Paul III and soon he became a doctor of medicine. After this, Rabelais wasn't a fugitive monk any longer. He turned into a respectable physician. He managed to get a royal license to print his books in France. But the protection of high-ranking people didn't save him from the all-seeing eye of the Inquisition. Rabelais' books were still burnt in the squares. After a 12-year silence, Rabelais published the third part of Gargantua and Pentegrule, where Panur comes to the proscenium, a big rogue and great man of wisdom. People began to call Rabelais' books Pentegrulistic Tales. The writer determined this term as follows, live in joy, be healthy, drink, and enjoy yourself. Rabelais had to hide from the Inquisition once again, but he was able to send the unfinished manuscript of the fourth book to his publisher in Lyons. The book was banned not only by the Church, but also by the Parliament. Rabelais answered his revelers, You can tell me, Honorable Author, you are not a smart man if you want us to read these amusing fibs and nonsense, and I will answer you, you are smart enough to enjoy them. Rabelais again fled to Italy in the retinue of the same bishop, Jean du Belay. The legend says that when Pope Paul III asked what the position of the French ambassador would like, Rabelais answered, Excommunicate me. Why, the Pope wondered. Because it will save me from the fire, said the author of Pentegrul. Thanks to his powerful patrons, in 1551 Rabelais became bishop in Moudon and quietly finished the fourth book of his novel, Gargantua and Pentegrul. It was so popular that the contemporary said, This book has been published more than the Bible. But the great writer Francois Rabelais didn't finish the fifth book of his novel. He died in Paris from a heart attack. The contemporaries joked, It's funny now in the underworld. Rabelais will make everyone laugh there. European literary critics put Francois Rabelais in the same class as Shakespeare. And the writer's contemporary, Pierre Boulogne, a usual provincial physician, said, Posterity will say that he was a jester and a buffoon. They will be wrong. Being a very clever man, he ridiculed mankind and the people's reckless whims and futility of their hopes.