It
is possible to say without hyperbole that Francois Rabelais (circa 1480-1553)
is one of the most enigmatic figures of the Renaissance. He led a peripatetic life. He was monk,
scholar, translator, physician, and father. His written output was impressive: he lectured on Hippocrates and Galen; he worked
on academic treatises; he compiled almanacs (albeit humorous); he authored Pantagruel,
Pantagrueline Prognostication, Gargantua,
and
five additional books under the title Pantagruel. Rabelais’ command of classical languages,
along with his devotion to intellectual pursuits, distinguished him as a man of
learning, but he scarcely fit the stereotype of a dry scholar. Earthy, fanciful, nonsensical and, playfully
obscene, Rabelais enjoyed poking fun at any number of human failings: ignorance, hypocrisy, and superstition. For his efforts, he incurred the displeasure
of the authorities on more than one occasion.
He further risked life and limb by performing a public autopsy. To this day, we cannot separate Rabelais the
physician from his comedic writings, for without understanding his enthusiasm
for pleasure and merriment, we can’t hope to comprehend that the man who wrote Gargantua never deviated from the
position that laughter—even in the face of disease and death—was the best
medicine.
Donald
M. Frame, in his study Francois Rabelais,
provides a fine introduction to the times in which Rabelais lived. New World “discoveries” exposed Europeans to
a world richer and more diverse than previously imagined; the conquest of the
Indies (as the Americas were known) changed people’s lives in dramatic
ways. The Atlantic “abyss,” deemed
navigable, offered Westerners new trade routes and means of colonization. Nonetheless, devices for telling time remained
scarce. Knowledge of arithmetic,
algebra, and science were nebulous. During
Rabelais’s lifetime, the French had yet to adopt to any great extent Arab
numerals. What we refer to as medicine was
then seen as a branch of philosophy—or “humanism” as it was then called. God, miracles, the supernatural all held
sway in human affairs. The Renaissance,
in particular the Incarnation, was meant as a celebration of the divine; it was
not to be diminished by discoveries that contradicted religious belief—at
least, not if one expected to remain out of trouble. Rabelais, given his genius and temperament,
often seemed determined to court trouble.
As the saying goes, and most obviously if we consider his writings, he was
not one to suffer fools—and did so only with the greatest possible glee
imaginable.
In
1530, Rabelais, then a Benedictine monk, left the order to become a secular
priest. His desire to become a physician
appears to have been the motivation, although it is not out of the realm of
possibility that monastic discipline didn’t appeal to him. Medicine, at the time, was based primarily in
the study of Greek texts. After years of
book learning, it took Rabelais a mere six weeks to become a doctor. His lectures gained him considerable
recognition. His aim, however, was to
practice medicine, and in 1532, he was appointed physician at a large hospital
in Lyons. There Rabelais, under
difficult circumstances, tended to the poor and ailing the best he could. The Hippocratic School, based in the theory
of humors (the idea that disease is caused by an imbalance of the four
elements: air, fire, water, and earth), also
popularized by Galen, had become an object of dispute by figures such as Paracelsus;
he was an advocate of alchemy, one of the earliest forms of chemistry, and took
a dim view of Hippocrates. Neither alchemist nor
apothecary, Rabelais was ill-prepared to treat his patients. Laudanum,
credited to Paracelsus, was used for alleviating pain. Rabelais no doubt had access to other medicines. He may also have had a basic knowledge of
cauterization, but the barber surgeon had to be called in for most
operations. In an era in which drugs--requiring specialized knowledge of chemistry--were beginning to replace herbal remedies, Rabelais made an attempt to study alchemy and botanical treatments. He made no memorable contributions. In 1534, exhausted
perhaps by the miserable conditions at the public hospital and the poor pay, he
gave up his post at Lyons to become personal physician to Du Bellay, the bishop
of Paris. He later returned to the
hospital at Lyons.
If Rabelais’s
practical contributions to medical science were scant, his philosophical and
linguistic contributions were, to use his own phrase “gargantuan.” It is one of many words he coined to enrich
the French language (for Rabelais wrote his farcical works in his native
tongue). Derived from the Spanish for “gullet,”
Gargantua’s adventures are recounted in the book that bears his name. He also is the father of Pantagruel (meaning
“to thirst”). The names alone demonstrate Rabelais
fascination with the body and its functions.
The reader can expect lessons on biology, zoology, anatomy, alchemy,
natural law—the list goes on. In the
preface to “Pantagruel,” Rabelais writes:
“I was not born under planet as to lie or assert anything which was not
true… And so, to bring this prologue to
a conclusion: I give myself—body and soul, tripe and innards—to a hundred thousand
punnets [a form of measurement] of fair devils if I tell you one single word of
a lie in this whole story.” With all of
the references to innards, guts, and genitals, readers should expect many of
Rabelais’s characters to have the stuffing beaten out of them; crude, he was,
but neither did he shy away from cruel jokes. At a time when Renaissance painters were busily depicting cherubs,
angels, the infant Jesus, and all manner of art devoted to the splendors of the
Incarnation, Rabelais’s tastes couldn’t have been more different. The ideal held little appeal for him; he was
a great chronicler of the grotesque. The
grotesque too, he seems to tell us, has its truth, its place in the God-given world—and
its own kind of beauty. The wonders of the unseemly and obscene become in Rabelais’s
work a continuous source of laughter.
For Rabelais, and his admiring readers, there is no healthier sound than
a good belly laugh, even in the direst circumstances—and, if we be lucky, that
laughter will be accompanied by hefty quantities of wine.
Sources
“Experimental Therapeutics in
the Renaissance,” editor Stata Norton, http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/304/2/489.full.pdf+html (consulted
on 11/16/2012)
Frame, Donald M., Francois Rabelais,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, NYC 1977.
Rabelais, Francois, Gargantua and
Pantagruel, , trans. and notes M.A. Screech, Penguin Books, New York 2006.
The Rabelais
Encyclopedia, editor Elizabeth Chesney Zegura, Greenwood Press,
Conn., 2004
Kathryn Kopple is the author of Little Velasquez, a novel of fifteenth century Spain.
