Figurative system of the novel gargantua and pantagruel. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel" - analysis

You who read this book, know

That you will not be delighted with her,

But do not force yourself to blush -

You will not find any evil or poison in it.

Don't take it as a guide

- Perhaps only in the realm of the funny

(I can't think of anything else.)

I see that grief is threatening you,

So let laughter, not tears, praise my tale

Laughter is more characteristic of people than anything else.

The most brilliant of drunkards, and you, the most refined of veneers (for to you, and to no one else, are my writings dedicated)! Alcibiades in Plato's dialogue, entitled "Feast", praising his mentor Socrates, the undisputed prince of philosophers, among other things says that he looks like Silenus. Sileni were once called chests of the kind that we now find in pharmacists' shops: all sorts of cheerful and playful images are drawn on top - in the genus of harpies, satyrs, geese with a bridle, hares with horns, ducks under a pack, goats with wings, deer in team - and other such pictures invented to excite laughter in people (such was Silenus, the teacher of the good Bacchus). But inside these chests, subtle drugs were preserved: mint, ambergris, amom, musk, civet; powders from precious stones and other things. So, they say, Socrates was like that, because, looking from the outside and judging by his appearance, you would not give an onion for him - he was so ugly in body and so ridiculous in manners: his nose is sharp, the look of a bull, the face of a fool; simple in habits; in coarse clothes; poor in property; unlucky in women; incapable of any service; always laughing, always drinking like everyone else; always mocking, always hiding his divine knowledge. But open this casket - and you will find inside a heavenly, invaluable drug: understanding more than human, amazing virtues, invincible courage, incomparable sobriety, steadfast contentment, perfect confidence, incredible contempt for everything, because of which people care so much, run, work, swim and fight.

What do you think this preface and preface lead to? And to the fact that you, my good students and other idlers, reading the cheerful headings of some books of our composition, such as: "Gargantua", "Pantagruel", "Fespent", "On the virtues of codpieces", "Peas in bacon" with commentary, etc., judge too lightly that these books only deal with absurdities, stupidities and funny stories, because by outward signs (that is, by the title), without looking for what will happen next, you usually start to laugh and make fun. But it is not appropriate to judge human creations with such frivolity.

After all, you yourself say that a dress does not make a monk, and that even though one is in a monastic dress, and least of all a monk, another is in a Spanish cloak, but in his courage he is far from a Spaniard. That is why one should open the book and carefully weigh what is inferred in it. Then you will know that the potion, the content in it, is of a completely different quality than the casket promised - that is, that the objects treated in it are not at all as stupid as the title claims.

And even if you find things that are literally amusing, quite corresponding to the name, you still don’t need to dwell on this, as with the singing of sirens, but interpret in a higher sense what you consider to be said in heartfelt joy.

Have you ever uncorked a bottle? Hell! Recall the pleasure you got from doing so.

Have you ever seen a dog find a brain bone? This, as Plato said (see book 2 “On the State”), is the most philosophical animal in the world. If you have seen, you could notice with what reverence she guards her, with what care she guards, with what heat she holds her, how carefully she bites, with what love she gnaws, how carefully she sucks. What makes her do it? What does she expect from her efforts? What good is she waiting for? Nothing but a bit of a brain. It is true that this drop is sweeter than much else, for the brain is food perfectly prepared by nature, as Galen says (see ch. III, "Natural Capability," and XI, "Used Frequently.").

Following the example of this dog, you need to be wise in order to be able to sniff out, feel and appreciate these beautiful books of high taste, you need to be easy in pursuit, bold in attack, then, carefully reading and constantly thinking, break the bone, suck out the brain substance from there - then there is what I mean by these Pythagorean symbols - in the sure hope of becoming more prudent and stronger through reading; for in it you will find a pleasure of a special kind and a more secret teaching, which will reveal to you the highest mysteries and terrible mysteries - both in regard to our religion, and in the field of politics and economics.

Do you believe that Homer, who once wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, thought about those allegories that Plutarch, Heraclitus, Ponticus, Eustatius and Fornutus found there, and that the Policeman stole from them?

If you believe, then you do not come a foot or a cubit closer to my opinion, according to which Homer thought as little about these allegories as Ovid did about the sacraments of the gospel in his Metamorphoses, that Brother Luben, a true sycophant, would have tried to prove , if I met boobies like myself, or, as the saying goes, I would find the lid on the boiler.

If you don't believe me, is there any reason why you shouldn't do the same with these hilarious new stories, even though I didn't think about it any more than you, who probably know how to drink like me, while dictating them? For in composing this noble book, I did not lose and did not use any other time than that which is due for the reception of my meal, that is, food and drink. This is the best time to write about such high matters and deep teachings as Homer, the model of all philologists, and Ennius, the father of Latin poets, could do, as Horace testifies to this, although some ignoramus said that his poems smelled more of wine than oil.

Some ragamuffin says the same about my books; well, to hell with it! The smell of wine—how much tastier, merrier, and more valuable, more tender and heavenly than the smell of oil! And I will also be proud when they say about me that I spent more on wine than on oil, just as Demosthenes was proud when they said about him that he spent more on oil than on wine. I am only honor and glory if they say about me that I am a good friend and drinking companion; and with such fame, I am always a welcome guest in any good company of pantagruelists. Demosthenes was reproached by one nitpicker that his speeches smelled like the apron of a dirty oil merchant. However, I ask you to interpret my actions and speeches in the best way for them, have respect for my raw brain, which feeds you with these sweet trifles, and, as much as you can, maintain my cheerful mood.

So, have fun, friends, have fun reading - for the body to enjoy and the kidneys to benefit! Just listen, loafers - do not forget to drink for me, and it will not be up to me.

I refer you to the great Chronicle of Pantagruel for an acquaintance with the origin and antiquity of the clan from which our Gargantua descended. From it you will learn more at length how the first giants were born in this world and how in a straight line Pantagruel's father, Gargantua, descended from them; you will not be angry if I now deviate from this story, although it is such that the more often it is remembered, the more your graces will like it. This is confirmed by the authority of Plato in the Philebus and Gorgias, and also by Flaccus, who says that there are things (such, no doubt, mine) that are the more delightful the more often they are repeated.

Francois Rabelais (1494 - 1553) - the largest representative of French humanism.

Born in the vicinity of Chinon, in the family of a wealthy landowner and lawyer. He studied medicine, was in the service of Francis I for 2 years. He entered the service of the royal office, received 2 parishes. Died in Paris.

Gargantua and Pantagruel. The impetus for the creation of the novel was the publication in 1532 in Lyon of the anonymous folk book The Great and Invaluable Chronicles of the Great and Huge Giant Gargantua. The success of the book, which parodied medieval chivalric romances, led Rabelais to use this form to convey deeper content. In the same year, he published as its continuation the book Terrible and Terrible Deeds and Feats of the Glorious Pantagruel, King of the Dipsodes, Son of the Great Giant Gargantua.

This work, signed with the pseudonym Alcofribas Nazier and then compiling the second book of the entire novel, went through a number of editions in a short time and caused several forgeries.

In 1534, under the same pseudonym, Rabelais published the beginning of the story under the title "The Tale of the Terrible Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel", which constituted the first book of the entire novel.

"The third book of the heroic deeds and sayings of the good Pantagruel" was published in 1546 with the designation of the author's true name. It differs significantly from the previous two books. The satire in the third book became of necessity more restrained and covered.

The first brief edition of the Fourth Book of the Heroic Deeds and Speeches of Pantagruel (1548) is ideologically restrained.

9 years after the death of Rabelais, under his name, the book "Sounding Island" was published, and after another 2 years - the complete "Fifth Book".

Sources. In addition to the folk book about the giant Gargantua, Rabelais served as a model for the rich grotesque and satirical poetry that developed in Italy. Even closer to Rabelais is Teofilo Folengo, who influenced him, author of the poem Baldus (1517), which contained a sharp satire on the mores of his time. However, the main source of Rabelais was folk art, live folklore tradition, which permeates his entire novel, as well as the works of the French medieval literature. Rabelais drew a lot of motives and satirical features of his novel from the fablio, the second part of the Romance of the Rose, from Villon, but even more - from ritual song imagery, from folk tales, anecdotes, proverbs and jokes of his time. He was greatly helped by his acquaintance with ancient science and philosophy. The novel by Rabelais is full of serious or semi-joking quotations from them, parallels, examples.

Main problems.

1. The problem of education (Rabelais maliciously ridicules the old system of education, any scholasticism. His pedagogical ideas are most clearly expressed in the picture of the education of Gargantua, who had 2 teachers. The first, the pedant Tubal Holofernes, knew only one teaching method - cramming. Another teacher named Ponokrat - "the power of labor" - made sure that the boy meaningfully assimilated knowledge.).

2. The problem of war and peace (Rabelais expressively depicts feudal wars).

3. The problem of the ruler.

4. The problem of the people.

The idle talk and quackery of the scholastics are ridiculed by Rabelais in all forms and aspects. Exposing all the baseness and stupidity of medieval institutions and concepts, Rabelais opposes them with a new, humanistic worldview.

Rabelais puts forward the principle of uniform, harmonious development of mental and physical properties man, and the latter he considers primary. Earth, flesh, matter for him are the foundations of all things. The key to all science and to all morality for Rabelais is a return to nature. The rehabilitation of the flesh is such an important task for Rabelais that he deliberately sharpens it. Love appears in the understanding of Rabelais as a simple physiological need.

Bakhtin on the novel.

Rabelais wrote his book for more than twenty years, publishing it in parts. It reflected the evolution of humanistic thought, the illusions and disappointments of the noble champions of the enlightenment of the people, their hopes and dreams, victories and defeats. Before you passes the whole history of French humanism in the first half of the century in all its glory, in all its grandeur.

In the first two books (1532-1534) Rabelais is young, as the entire humanist movement in France is young. Everything about them sounds great. The skies are clear here. Here, the giant kings easily and freely deal with the enemies of all mankind. Here everything is dominated by faith in the victory of the reasonable and good in people's lives.

1) History of creation.

The impetus for writing the book was the publication in 1532 in Lyon of an anonymous folk book “Great and invaluable chronicles about the great and huge Gargantua”. In the same 1532, Rabelais published as its supplement the book Terrible and Terrifying Acts and Feats of the Glorious Gargantua. It was signed with the pseudonym Alcofribas Nazier. Then she compiled the 2nd book of the entire novel. In it, R. adheres to the folk scheme of the novel: the childhood of the hero, youthful wanderings and exploits, etc. Along with Pantagruel, another hero of the epic, Panurge, comes forward. In 1534, R. - under the same pseudonym, the beginning of a story that was supposed to replace the folk book, entitled "The Tale of the Terrible Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel." Little remains of the folk book: gigantic dimensions, a ride on a giant mare, the theft of the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral. The third book - in 1546 under the real name. In 1547 all three books were condemned by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne.

The first brief edition of “4 Books of Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Pantagruel” was published in 1548, expanded in 52. 9 years after R.’s death, a book entitled “Sounding Island” was published under his name, and two more years later - under his own name. name is the complete fifth book. In all likelihood, this is a rough sketch of R., processed by one of his students or friends.

The basis was: the grotesque-satirical poetry of Italy, Lucian, the mystery of how Proserpine presented 4 devils to Lucifer (including Pantagruel, who causes thirst), fablios, farces.

2) Main themes and images.

In book 1 - Gargantua - a kind, peace-loving giant king. In general, there are three such handsome men in the novel: Grangousier, Gargantua and Pantagruel. 3 thematic centers: - education of Gargantua. Contrasting medieval and renaissance education. But even in such a serious matter - the setting for a parody game (an exaggeration of the diligence that humanist educators demand.

War with Picrohol. The opposition of Picrochole and Gargantua is the opposition of the medieval and humanistic ruler.

Thelema monastery. This is, firstly, the opposition of the medieval monastery, + the utopia of the new world. Brother Jean is a product of the monastery walls and at the same time their mocking denial. The motto of the monastery - "Do what you want" - is in opposition to the monastic charter. This motto rallied people. People there are terribly educated: they know 5-6 languages, they can compose poems in them. In short, read this passage yourself and retell it.

In book 2: Pantagruel is a kind giant, a kind fellow, a glutton and a drinker. The motive of the thirst that accompanies the birth of P. is the thirst for knowledge and the ordinary thirst. The parallel of drinking and science runs throughout the book. A serious episode is G.'s letter to P. This is a manifesto of the Renaissance. It contains an apology for the sciences, an apology for the movement of history.

Bakhtin believes that book 3 is an organic continuation of the first two. All proportions change in it: the whole action is 30 days, Pantagruel is of normal size.

There are more serious things in 5 books, the folk-carnival basis is weakened. I didn't say anything about 4. Islands in 4-5 books. Most often they symbolize social institutions, values. There is no main character, all travelers. Pantagruel is exalted, Panurge is lowered. In 3 books, Panurge evokes sympathy by challenging the old rigid society. And 4-5 is not everywhere. In those episodes that appeared in 48, he is the same, and in those that in 52 he is emphatically cowardly (for example, the episode with the storm, Sausages). This, apparently, is due to the fact that Panurge and Pantagruel are different poles of the Divine nature. Pantagruel is an ideal person, Panurge is real. But writers are disappointed in real person=> decrease in the image of Panurge.

The novel ends with the fact that the Bottle said: "Trink", i.e. drink (in general and from the source of wisdom). Thus, it was a voyage to the truth. True, there is no final truth. In general, the journey reproduces the voyage of Jacques Cartier in the North. America.

3) Journalistic topicality.

The drought at the time of the birth of Pantagruel: it really was in 1532. The episode where Panurge buys indulgences and at the same time corrects his financial affairs: in 32, an extraordinary papal jubilee was held, and those churches that P. bypassed really got the right to sell indulgences.

Book. II Ch. 5 - an episode with a sculpture by Geoffroy de Lusignac. The names of persons, the names of localities, events, the angry appearance of the sculpture are genuine, everything is closely connected with the life of Rabelais himself. In 1524-27, he served as secretary to the Bishop and Abbe Mayese and often traveled from Mayese to Poitiers and back (P.'s route).

4) "G and P" as a carnivalized work.

Carnival as a set of celebrations of the carnival type is a syncretic spectacular form of a ritual character. The carnival expresses the people's truth about the world. This is life upside down. All members are here.

Features of the carnival attitude:

Here hierarchical relations are canceled => free familiar rel. between people => eccentricity (behavior that is unthinkable outside the carnival, which allows the hidden sides of the human personality to open up) => caranval misalliances (family. Relationships apply to absolutely everything. Everything that was disconnected approaches: the sacred with the profane, the high with the low etc.) → carnival profanity (carnival blasphemy, obscenities associated with the productive power of the earth and body, parodies of sacred texts and sayings).

The main carnival action is the jester crowning and dethroning the king. At the heart of this rite is the core of the carnival worldview - the pathos of change and change, death and renewal. Crowning-debunking is permeated with carnival categories: fam. Contact (debunking), misalliance (slave-king), profanity (playing with symbols supreme power). Beatings and abuse are not of a domestic and private nature, but are symbolic actions aimed at ridiculing the “king”.

In this system of images, the king is a jester. He is popularly elected, then publicly ridiculed, scolded and beaten. He dies and then is reborn. Therefore, swearing is answered by praise. Swearing-debunking, as the truth about the old power, about the dying world, organically enters the Rabelaisian system of images, combined here with carnival beatings with dressing up. The beating is as ambivalent as the curse that turns into praise. The beaten is decorated, the beating itself is of a cheerful nature, it is introduced and ends with laughter.

In short, the same thing, but simpler. Swearing and beatings are ambivalent (double) in nature. Everything that is beaten and scolded is old, it must be destroyed (like a Shrovetide effigy during the carnival). But when it dies, it gives birth to something new. Therefore, beatings are of a cheerful nature, and praise follows after scolding. Carnival is a celebration of the all-destroying and all-reviving time.

Now to specific examples. The debunking of King Picrochole - all elements of the traditional system of images (debunking, dressing, beating). In the same carnival spirit, the debunking of Anarch (he is dressed up, made a seller of green sauce, and his wife beats him). The beatings of the scavengers in the house of Mr. Boche: the scavengers make up a carnival couple - a thin little one and a long thin one. They are beaten, but allegedly they are beaten at a wedding → a cheerful character. The third one is also decorated with ribbons, like at a carnival. Litigation Island: Residents make money by allowing themselves to be beaten for money. Brother Jean beats one red-faced (clown face) quarrel, gives him money, and he jumps up happy, “as if he were a king or even two kings.” Those. the old king killed and the new one revived.

An episode with the defense of the monastery garden: the soldiers are killed, but they are cut with knives, which are used to peel nuts, i.e. they are not soldiers, but puppets.

These episodes are unmeasured, I will tell you about one more. Panurge wants to marry, but is afraid that his wife will cuckold him and beat him, i.e. he is afraid to repeat the fate of the old king and the old year. Woman from the bunk. t.z. - the womb, hostile to everything old. Panurge is afraid of the movement of life.

Grotesque body. It is never finished, it is always creating itself and other bodies. It is not closed in space. Therefore, the main parts of the grotesque body: nose, mouth, butt, stomach and phallus (in short, all the bulges or depressions. And in the stomach, new life). Through these organs, the body makes contact with the outside world. And the heroes eat there all the time, too, because through a feast a connection with the world is established for the whole world.

Chronotope. Correspondence of quality and space and time: there should be a lot of good, so the characters are big and live long. The good is endowed with the power for spatio-temporal expansion. And all bad things must die. This is a deliberate opposition to the disproportion of the feudal-church worldview, where values ​​are hostile to spatio-temporal reality as vain, sinful, where the big is symbolized by the small, the strong by the weak, the eternal by the moment.

Questions of philosophy and politics, religion and morality - that's what you should look for here. This is the main thing. Rabelais thought about social vices and how to fix the world, how to make a person happy. All this is very grandiose. That is why his book became a common heritage.

Michelet called it an encyclopedia. It is truly an encyclopedia of the social, political and cultural life of France. XVI century. It is, therefore, a historical document by which we judge what happened in the country four centuries ago. But at the same time, it is also a political, philosophical, aesthetic, moral "treatise" that can shape our mind, make us human in the high sense of the word. The author rightly assures us on the very first page: "... you can be absolutely sure that you will become more courageous and smarter from this experience."

25. Hesiod: "Cosmogony" (probably still "Theogony"), "Works and Days".

The most significant work of Hesiod is the poem “Works and Days”, written in the form of exhortations addressed to the poet’s brother Perse, who is suing Hesiod for inheritance and whom Hesiod convinces not to hope for an unjust court of bribed “kings” and to correct his shaken state with hard work . The worsening position of the peasantry forms a pessimistic attitude towards modernity in Hesiod. A variety of material of moral rules and economic instructions was introduced into the poem, it is richly equipped with folklore: proverbs, sayings, parables, fables, myths.

The second part of the poem systematically describes the work of a farmer and a navigator, as well as signs associated with various days of the month.

Another poem by Hesiod, Theogony, is an attempt to bring the contradictory epic tales about the gods into a system and tie the gods into a single genealogical tree, starting from the eternal Chaos, Gaia and Eros and ending with Zeus, the organizer of the current world order, and his descendants.

The tribal community quickly decomposed, and if Homer was the eve of class society, then Hesiod already reflects the orientation of a person within class society.

Hesiod-writer of 8-7 centuries BC The didacticism of his writings is caused by the needs of the time, the end of the epic era, when heroic ideals dried up in their bright immediacy and turned into teaching, instruction, morality. In a class society, people were united by this or that attitude towards work. People thought about their ideals, but because while purely commercial and industrial relations have not yet matured and the old domestic relations have not died, the consciousness of people has turned the latter into morality, a system of teachings, instructions. Class society divided people into haves and have-nots. Hesiod is the singer of the ruined population, not profiting from the collapse of the ancient community. Hence the abundance of gloomy colors.

“Works and Days” was written as an admonition to brother Pers, who, through unjust judges, took away from Hesiod the land that belonged to him, but later went bankrupt. The poem is an example of a didactic epic that develops several themes. The first theme is built around preaching the truth, with interjections about Prometheus and the myth of the five ages. The second is devoted to field work, agricultural implements, livestock, clothing, food, and other attributes of everyday life. The poem is interspersed with various instructions that depict the image of a peasant who knows how and when to arrange his affairs profitably, sharp-witted, far-sighted and prudent. Hesiod also wants to be rich, because. "The eyes of the rich are bold." The morality of Hesiod always comes down to divine authorities and does not go beyond the arrangement of economic affairs. Hesiod is very conservative and very narrow in his mental horizon. Hesiod's style is the opposite of luxury, verbosity and breadth of the Homeric epic. It impresses with its dryness and brevity. In general, the style is epic with all its hallmarks(hexameter, standard expressions, Ionian). But the epic is not heroic, but didactic, an even epic narrative is interrupted by the drama of mythological episodes unknown to Homer, and the language is full of common expressions, traditional formulas of oracles and quite prosaic morality. The morality is so strong and intense that it gives a very boring and monotonous impression. But Hesiod is observant and sometimes draws very vivid pictures. ancient life. He also has features of some poetry, but poetry is full of moral and economic instructions.

On the example of his work, one can observe social shifts and contradictions. Hesiod's poems amaze with an abundance of various kinds of contradictions, which, however, do not prevent us from perceiving his epic as a kind of organic whole. Hesiod, after the onset of the slave system, on the one hand, is a poor man, on the other hand, his ideals are connected with enrichment, either in the old or in the new sense. His assessment of life is full of pessimism, but at the same time, labor optimism, hopes that, thanks to constant activity, happy life. Nature for him is primarily a source of benefits, but Hesiod is a great lover of her beauties. In general, Hesiod was the first historically real poet ancient greece, reflected the turbulent era of the collapse of the tribal community.

"Theogony" of Hesiod and the genealogical approach to the explanation of reality.

The heroic epic, created by the Ionians of Asia Minor, reflected the worldview shifts that took place in the advanced part of the Greek world in the era of the decomposition of the late tribal system. Another variety epic creativity is a didactic (instructive) epic.

The language of the Homeric epic writes and ancient poet mainland Greece Hesiod.

The time of Hesiod's life can only be roughly determined: the end of the 8th or the beginning of the 7th century. BC e. He is thus a junior contemporary of the Homeric epic.

Two poems survived from Hesiod: "Theogony" ("The Origin of the Gods") and "Works and Days". In the introduction to the Theogony, Hesiod draws his poetic "dedication".

The poem of Hesiod is at the same time the history of the origin of the world. In the beginning, according to Hesiod, there were Chaos, Earth and Eros, who had power over immortals and mortals. From Chaos and the Earth, other parts of the universe arose in different generations - Erebus (Darkness), light Ether, Sky, Sea, Sun, Moon, etc. The mythological images of Chaos, the Earth of Eros are the forerunners of the philosophical concepts of space, mother and movement. The system of Hesiod's genealogy includes not only those gods who served as the subject of real worship in the Greek cult, but also the personification of those forces that seemed to him to influence people's behavior: Labor, Oblivion, Hunger, etc.

The crown of the story is the victory of Zeus over the Titans and the monsters of the past. Having strengthened his power, Zeus marries Metis, then Themis, who gives birth to him Law, Justice, Peace and the goddesses Moir.

It is characteristic that those descendants of Zeus who entered the system of the Olympic gods and play a huge role in the Homeric epic, such as Apollo or Athena, Hesiod mentions only in passing, in the order of enumeration. Meanwhile, it was precisely around these images in the era of Hesiod that fresh myth-making unfolded, associated with the decomposition of the tribal system and the processes of class formation: the religion of Apollo of Delphi acquired an aristocratic coloring, Athena became the patroness of handicraft democracy.

To the peasant Hesiod, these gods remain alien; Delphic, and in a certain part even Homeric myths seemed to him, probably, to be the “lie” of the singers, against which he warns in the introduction to Theogony.

Boeotia of that time was a rural area, almost isolated from the rest of the Greek world, surrounded on three sides by mountains, and on the fourth - closed by a large marshy lake. Its population consisted of farmers and shepherds, leading a severe struggle for existence. But from ancient times, Boeotia was famous for its legends and wonderful ceramic art, which, according to legend, was promoted by the Muses, the daughters of Zeus, who lived on Helikon and Parnassus. All the work of Hesiod is imbued with motifs of Boeotian folklore. With Hesiod, a shepherd and farmer who later became a rhapsodist, the Muses descend for the first time into everyday life. The poet himself tells how once the Muses approached him, dozing near his herd on Helikon, gave him a staff of laurel, inhaled the gift of sacred songs and ordered him to go teach people. In the story of his initiation into the rhapsodes, Hesiod enters into a controversy with Homer, declaring the story of the heroic deeds of the past a false invention. Although the artistic mastery of the Homeric epic and the Homeric language were inherited by Hesiod, the themes of his works are completely different.

The ancients attributed numerous works to Hesiod. Now he is known as the author of the didactic poem "Works and Days" and a significant part of the poem "Theogony".

"Works and Days" is composed in the form of a lecture to the poet's brother Pers. The story of the brothers' family lawsuit over their father's inheritance is told. After the death of his father, the Persian bribed the judges and took away most of his father's property. But wealth did not suit him. Soon the Persian went bankrupt and began a new lawsuit with his brother. The answer to the unfair claims of the Persians was the poem of Hesiod, consisting of 828 hexameters.

Listen to me with your eye and ear, observe justice in everything.
I, O Persian, tell you honest truth wish...

This outwardly quite plausible story is for Hesiod a pretext for reasoning on common topics. They, in turn, are preceded by a story about two Eris. The first gives rise to healthy competition in labor, the second - to evil enmity and strife. The Persian must turn away from the second Eris and think only of the first, which will teach him to live correctly. The poet then proceeds to talk about right life, the basis of which is labor - the source of life and wealth. The life of people on earth is deteriorating with each new generation. In support of this idea, Hesiod cites two myths - about the first woman Pandora and about five generations. Pandora was created by the gods, rewarded with various gifts, and sent to earth, handing her a tightly closed vessel. Curious Pandora violated the prohibition of the gods and opened the lid of the vessel. Immediately, sickness and misfortune flew out of there and scattered throughout the land. In fear, Pandora slammed the lid, but only one hope survived in the vessel, which the messenger of the gods brought to people. According to the second myth, five generations of people successively succeeded each other. After the golden generation, who did not know the need, labor and old age, came the silver one, whose people were so proud that they did not honor the gods, and Zeus exterminated them. The copper generation was a generation of warriors, "the terrible power of their own hands brought them destruction." The fourth generation of heroes met death under the walls of Thebes and Troy. The iron generation, to which Hesiod ranks himself, has no "respite either by night or by day from labor and grief." Labor is a difficult and inevitable necessity, sent by Zeus as a punishment to people:

The great gods hid sources of food from mortals.

The iron generation will perish if violence triumphs over justice - this is the conclusion of Hesiod. He instructs his brother:

The growing arbitrariness of the nobility, the facts of social injustice lead Hesiod to a pessimistic conclusion about the futility of resisting the strong. An illustration of this situation is the fable of the nightingale in the claws of a hawk, the first literary fable. The poet's reasoning on general topics is replaced by practical advice, following which even a poor person will live honestly, happily and in abundance. The time is indicated favorable for rural work, the time suitable for navigation. Among the practical advice and instructions there are lists of beliefs that complete the poem. Her finale - "Days" - a kind of calendar of happy and unhappy days:

That, like a stepmother, a day, and another time - like a mother to a person.

26. Creativity of Cervantes. "Don Quixote".

Gargantua and Pantagruel is a novel by François Rabelais.

History of creation and publication

The publication of this novel began in 1533 with the second part, which the author publishes under the pseudonym Alcofribas Nazier, which is an anagram of his real name. This part was originally conceived by the writer as a continuation of the popular book “The Great and Invaluable Chronicles of the Great and Huge Giant Gargantua” published shortly before, which in turn was based on a popular legend. In the same year, the composition of Rabelais was condemned by the Sorbonne for "obscenity". In 1534 (according to other sources - in 1535) "The Tale of the Terrible Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel" was published - a book that later became the first part of Rabelais' multi-volume novel. In 1542, a "softened" reprint of both parts of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" prepared by the author appears. The third book, The Heroic Deeds and Sayings of the Good Pantagruel, published in 1546, was published under the own name of François Rabelais, "doctor of medicine", and contained a dedication to Marguerite of Navarre. The book was condemned by Sorbonne theologians as "heresy". Nevertheless, in 1548 and in 1552 the writer published the fourth part of the novel - "The Heroic Deeds and Sayings of the Valiant Pantagruel", which was soon banned for sale and sentenced to be burned by the Paris Parliament. After the death of Rabelais (1553) in 1562, at first in part (16 chapters), and in 1564 the final “Fifth and last book of the heroic deeds and sayings of the good Pantagruel” is completely out of print, which, apparently, was completed according to the author’s notes by one of the associates of the French humanist. Rabelais's book was repeatedly reprinted in France and abroad: during the author's lifetime alone, 11 editions of Gargantua, 19 of Pantagruel and 10 of the Third Book were published.

The work was translated into many languages: in the 16th century - into German (1575), in the 17th century - into English (1693), in the 20th century - into Russian. The full translation of the novel, published in 1966, made by N.M. Lyubimov m. In the XVII-XIX centuries. editions of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" were published with "keys" (that is, with decoding of prototypes of characters), in abbreviations and alterations "for ladies", "for children", etc. The first scientific edition of the writer's works, on which the specially created "Society for the Study of Rabelais" worked, appeared in 1912-1932. Among modern critical publications, one should single out the volume of works by Rabelais, prepared by the famous French specialist G. Demerson, published in 1973.

Meaning of the novel

Already contemporaries of Rabelais perceived the novel very indifferently: they either admired the book or were indignant, moreover, not all of its admirers were humanists, just as not all opponents were scholastics. MM. Bakhtin noted that Rabelais was attacked primarily by the “Agelastians, i.e. people who did not recognize special rights behind humor, ”while the majority fell in love with him. The novel immediately became popular, gave rise to literary imitations, influenced the style satirical works of that time (and not only satirical ones: the language of Rabelais significantly influenced the first translation of the Bible into French, made in 1535 by Olivetan), entering the cultural life of our time: the episode of the public reading of "Gargantua" that has come down to us during the carnival festival in Rouen The year 1541 has a symbolic meaning in this sense. The novel demonstrates an organic synthesis of scientific humanistic culture and folk culture, laughter, which determines the deep originality of Rabelais's work and makes him a unique phenomenon in world literature.

Since the time of A. France, who rightly called "Gargantua and Pantagruel" "the most original of the novels, unlike any other", the opinion has been established that Rabelais did not create a genre school or a special novel tradition, and his work remained apart in the history of world literature . However, the absence of worthy imitators of the menippean novel and direct students does not mean that Rabelais' themes, images, stylistic and proper genre finds have never been used by anyone. On the contrary, already the authors of various “conversations” of the 16th century - Bonaventure Deperrier, Noel du Fayle, Nicolas de Chaulière, and others - were clearly guided by the comic art of Rabelais, and among his later followers are Molière and Swift, O. de Balzac and A. France. Rabelais's book created a special Rabelaisian type of hero: this is, for example, the hero of R. Rolland's novel "Cola Breugnon" or main character satirical dilogy by I. Ilf and E. Petrov Ostap Bender. Some episodes and images of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" became the source of several ballets of the 17th century. ("The Birth of Pantagruel", 1622; "Sausages", "Pantagruelists", 1628; "Rabelais Buffoonery", 1638), comic operas beginning of the 20th century (“Panurge” by Massenet, 1913, “Gargantua” by Mariotte, 1935). In the USSR in the 70s. A. Kalyagin's solo performance based on the book by Rabelais gained great fame.

The originality of the genre

The extraordinary breadth of the genre tradition included in the novel is combined in Rabelais with an equally wide use of the richest language spectrum - not only French, with its dialects, professional and social jargon, but also Latin, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, Greek and other languages. The novel strikes with inventive and free language creation.

The plot of "Gargantua and Pantagruel" demonstrates a variety of genre models. The first two books are a kind of parody stylization of the historiographical genre of the chronicle, biography and Holy Scripture, the next three are a comic travel review, at the same time parodying the “high” epic and stylized as a heroic-comic poem in prose. In addition to the main ones, the work also includes various stylizations-parodies of small genres: fablios, farces, blazons, kokalans, proverbs, anecdotes. Free experimentation with familiar motifs and genres is combined with free play with the scale and proportions of people and objects. The narrator himself appears before the reader as a fair barker, and a court historiographer, and a sage, and a healer: it is not without reason that experts note the consonance of the names Alcofribas and Socrates' interlocutor in the Platonic dialogues of Alcibiades, just as they find here an echo of the names Alibenel, Albenmazer, Avicenna.

At the same time, Rabelais speaks in the work not only with the voice of the narrator, his word and laughter sound in the image of the Christian humanist Grangousier, and in Gargantua, and in Pantagruel, and in brother Jean, and in Panurge - characters with whom different readers in different time identified the writer. It is even believed that no matter how fantastic at first glance the story of the childhood of the giant Gargantua, it contains quite definite autobiographical elements. The book also resonates with the real events of that time: for example, the drought of 1532 (the circumstances of the birth of Pantagruel), or the conflict between the communities in the writer's native Devinier - and at the same time the military conflict between Francis I and Charles V (the war with Picrochol). The episode of the formation of Gargantua reflected the pedagogical ideas of the humanists of that time, in the dialogues of Panurge about his marriage - a dispute of the 40s-50s. XVI century about feminine nature and about marriage, in the conflict of papomans with papefigs - clashes between Catholics and Protestants, etc. But the actual themes and problems of the Renaissance, included in the novel, are infinitely broader than these individual parallels. Showing “the learning not of a literalist, but of a thinker” (A. France), Rabelais embraces the entire era with his thought, creating a wise and cheerful encyclopedia of the French Renaissance.

It is curious that the very word "encyclopedia", borrowed from the Greek language, first appeared in Gargantua and Pantagruel. However, the encyclopedism of the novel is of a special kind: it does not so much foreshadow the “limitedly universal” (M. Foucault) and decomposable into headings, united by the conditional, but strict alphabetical order of the encyclopedia of the new time, as it generalizes and raises to a power (but at the same time parodies) the synthetic and the syncretic universalism of medieval "vods" and "sums".

The writing

Name of François Rabelais (c. 1494-1553), great French writer of the Renaissance, is often mentioned in Russian periodicals of the 18th century, and the heroes of his satirical novel - Gargantua, Pantagruel, Panurge - appear as common nouns along with Don Quixote, Falstaff and Gulliver.

In 1790, The Tale of the Glorious Gargantuas, the Most Terrible Giant of all who have been in the world until now, was published in St. Petersburg. Until recently, it was considered a retelling of the novel by Rabelais, but in reality it is a translation of an anonymous popular print story from the beginning of the 17th century, dating back to the same folklore sources, which is the novel. The Tale of the Glorious Gargantuas was reprinted in 1796. It was read by both adults and children, who thus got acquainted with the fabulously folklore fundamental principle of the book of Rabelais. In addition, teachers and mentors of noble children, carefully using the French text of the novel, extracted individual episodes from it for reading and retelling. Just as far from the original were the later transcriptions of some episodes without indicating the name of the author (tales about the exploits of the giant Gargantua).

Until the beginning of the 20th century, tsarist censorship suppressed all attempts to acquaint readers with Gargantua and Pantagruel, banning not just translations, but even articles that set out the content of the novel. For example, the censor Lebedev, motivating in 1874 the ban on the article of the critic Varfolomey Zaitsev, intended for "Notes of the Fatherland", essentially revealed the ideological orientation of Rabelais's satire: "... it should be noted that most of the objects betrayed to Rabelais for public ridicule continue to exist today , somehow: the supreme power, expressed in the person of Sovereigns; religious institutions represented by monastics and priests; wealth, concentrated in the hands of either nobles or in the hands of individuals. And therefore, the acquaintance of the Russian public with the works of even such a historical, so to speak, writer as Rabelais cannot but be considered extremely reprehensible by the editors.

In the struggle against the feudal-church worldview, the leading figures of the Renaissance created a new, secular culture based on the principles of humanism. Heralds of this new culture openly defended human personality and free thought, against feudal prejudices, the cynical pursuit of enrichment and the brutal exploitation of the masses. The laborious life of Rabelais was filled with a relentless struggle for new humanistic ideals, which he defended with all means available to him. An excellent linguist, a connoisseur of ancient antiquities, an outstanding naturalist and renowned physician, Rabelais, relying on science, fought against the obscurantism of churchmen and overthrew the ascetic worldview of the Middle Ages. The main merit of Rabelais is the creation of the five-volume satirical epic "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1532 -1552), to which he devoted more than two decades of his creative life. According to Belinsky, this work "will always have its lively interest, because it is closely connected with the meaning and the significance of an entire historical epoch.

Rabelais himself warns readers in the preface that his book is something more than a simple heap of fabulous adventures: “You need,” he says, “to crack a bone to get to the brain,” that is, to see deep content behind a plot full of wonderful adventures. The deafening laughter of the heroes of the novel, their salty jokes and unbridled "Rabelaisian" fun express the attitude of people who seek to free themselves from the medieval routine and church dogmatism. This healthy, cheerful beginning, which is embodied in the images of Gargantua, Pantagruel and their friends, is opposed by the ugly caricature masks of medieval monarchs and churchmen, scholastics and routiners. Each comic episode contains a philosophical thought and those “subtle drugs” of life wisdom that Rabelais himself suggested looking for in his books.

"Gargantua and Pantagruel" is real encyclopedia humanistic ideas, reflecting all aspects of social life: ‘issues of state structure and politics, philosophy and religion, morality and pedagogy, science and education. For Rabelais, a man with his right to a free, joyful, creative life is located in the center of the world, and that is why the writer is most interested in the problem of educating a new person. In the chapters devoted to Gargantua, Rabelais mercilessly ridicules medieval scholastic pedagogy, opposing to it in the person of Ponocrates a new, humanistic system of education: observation and study of nature and life, combination of theory with practice, visual education, harmonious development of both mental and physical abilities of a person. Throughout the novel, Rabelais acts as a zealous propagandist and brilliant popularizer of natural science knowledge. Herzen noted on this occasion that "Rabelais, who very vividly understood the terrible harm of scholasticism on the development of the mind, made the natural sciences the basis of Gargantua's education."

The episodes of the novel in which Rabelais deals with the problem of war and peace fully retain their political relevance. With pamphlet sharpness, the image of the unlucky warrior King Picrochol is drawn, who got it into his head to conquer the whole world and enslave the peoples of all continents. Easily and quickly redraws it geographical map, turning it into a global Pikrohol empire. “I am very afraid,” remarks one of his advisers, “that the whole enterprise looks like a well-known farce about that pot of milk, with which one shoemaker dreamed of getting rich quickly, and when the pot broke, he had no food to dine.” Picrohol's army, and with it his aggressive plans, are shattered at the first collision with the giant Gargangua.

Colossal, surprising even for the era of universal geniuses, which was the Renaissance, Rabelais's erudition comes through in every detail of his work. There is not a single character, not a single episode in the novel that would not go back (although by no means reduced) to a precedent, prototype, source, would not evoke a whole chain of cultural associations. The associative-chaotic principle of reproducing objects and phenomena of the world also reigns in details - for example, in the famous Rabelaisian catalogs (listing numerous games of Gargantua, wipes, etc.), and in overall structure plot with its unpredictably whimsical, "labyrinthine" development and richness of dialogues.

Essentially three recent books The novel tells not just about the journey of pantagruelists to the oracle of the Big Bottle, but about the search for truth, born of an attempt to resolve the dialogue-dispute between Pantagruel and Panurge - "an all-thirsty man", a humanist, but at the same time a drunkard, bearing the name of a folklore devil, and "an all-powerful man" , a craftsman, but also a dodger, leading his lineage from the ancient mythological image plow (trickster). Thus, the dialogue appears in the work not only as a compositional device, but as general principle artistic thinking of the author: he seems to be asking himself and the world endlessly disturbing questions, not getting, or rather, not giving definitively exhaustive answers, but demonstrating the diversity of truth and the multicolor of life. That is why "no one better than Rabelais embodied the spirit of the Renaissance - an era greedy for intellectual pursuits, a time of artistic flourishing, discoveries in all areas" (J. Freville).

The nature and meaning of Rabelais' book "Gargantua and Pantagruel", the analysis of which interests us, is "to write not with tears, but with laughter", amusing readers. Parodying the fair barker and referring to "revered drunks" and "venerable veneers", the author immediately warns readers against "too hasty conclusion that these books deal only with absurdities, tomfoolery and various hilarious stories". Declaring that his work is dominated by “a very special spirit and some kind of teaching, accessible only to the elect, which will reveal to you the greatest mysteries and terrible secrets concerning our religion, as well as politics and economics,” the author immediately renounces an attempt at an allegorical reading novel. In this way, Rabelais mystifies his readers in his own way - he explains his intentions as much as he sets riddles: it is not for nothing that the history of the interpretations of Gargantua and Pantagruel is a bizarre series of the most contrasting judgments. Experts do not agree on anything in the definition of religious views(an atheist and freethinker - A. Lefranc, an orthodox Christian - L. Febvre, a supporter of the reformers - P. Lacroix), neither a political position (an ardent supporter of the king - R. Marichal, a proto-Marxist - A. Lefevre), nor copyright to humanistic ideas and images, including those existing in his own novel(thus, the Abbey of Thelema is considered either as a programmatic episode of the desired democratic utopia, or as a parody of such a utopia, or as a courtly-humanistic utopian image that is generally unusual for Rabelais), nor genre affiliation"Gargantua and Pantagruel" (the book is defined as a novel, menippea, chronicle, satirical review, philosophical pamphlet, comic epic, etc.), nor the roles and functions of the main characters.

There is, perhaps, only one thing that unites them: the obligatory debatable pairing of one's reading of the novel with Bakhtin's concept of the carnival nature of Rabelaisian laughter. The thought of M.M. Bakhtin about the opposition of the poetics of Rabelais's novel to the official, serious literature and culture of the era is quite often interpreted as an underestimation by scientists of the writer's involvement in the high humanistic book tradition, while it is about determining Rabelais's individual, unique place in this tradition - both inside and outside it, above her, in a sense, even opposite her. It is this understanding that explains the paradoxical combination of programming and parody of the famous episodes of Gargantua's humanistic education, the instruction of Pantagruel by his father, the Abbey of Thelema and many others. Extremely important in this aspect is Bakhtin's remark about Rabelais's attitude to one of the most important currents humanistic philosophy of his time: “Rabelais perfectly understood the novelty of the type of seriousness and sublimity that was introduced into the literature and philosophy of the Platonists of his era<...>However, he did not consider her capable of passing through the crucible of laughter without being completely burned in it.

The polemical attitude to the main ideas of M.M. Bakhtin - about the elements of the folk carnival, embodied in "Gargantua and Pantagruel", about the ambivalence (that is, the equality of the two poles of death / birth, aging / renewal, debunking / glorification, etc.) of Rabelaisian laughter, about the cosmic, “becoming”, the physicality of his images that goes beyond its limits and the specifics of grotesque realism - does not negate the fact that the fundamental work of the scientist for the first time brought readers closer to a truly deep understanding of this equally mysterious as unique work, to clarifying the nature of his artistic innovation. It is in the awareness of the ambivalence and universality of Rabelais's laughter that the understanding of special significance his books: after all, “some very essential aspects of the world are accessible only to laughter” (M.M. Bakhtin). Rabelais' laughter is humanistic, truly joyful. Rabelais defines this special attitude, expressed in the term “pantagruelism” invented by the writer, in the prologue to the “Fourth Book” as “a deep and indestructible cheerfulness, before which everything transient is powerless.”