Francois Rabelais

In Francois Rabelais: Critical Assessments, Jean Claude Carron brings together a distinguished group of senior scholars who have found themselves at the centre of an ongoing debate about historical contextualisation and interpretive strategies. Throughout the book, the authors address certain recurring themes from a variety of critical points of view. The hermeneutic closure or opening of Rabelais's text, crucial to most recent critical debate, is present throughout. Individual chapters explore such issues as the design and composition of the text, Rabelais as humanist, his antifeminism, his religious position as revealed by biblical or evangelical references, and particular aspects of low early-modern culture. A chapter on Rabelais and Erasmus draws essential differences between the two giants of European humanism.