François Rabelais. - Oeuvres de Maître François Rabelais - 1711

Oeuvres de Maître François Rabelais, publiées sous le titre de Faits et dits du Géant Gargantua et de son fils Pantagruel, avec la Prognostication Pantagruelline, l’Epître du Limosin, la Crême Philosophale, & deux Epîtres à deux Vieilles de moeurs & d’humeurs différentes. Nouvelle édition - à Amsterdam, chez Henri Bordesius, 1711 - (2) ff. , XLVIII pp. , 336 pp. , (2) ff. , (1) ff. , 287 pp. , (1) ff. , (1) ff. , 272 pp. , (2) ff. , (1) ff. , LV pp. , 288 pp. , (2) ff. , (1) ff. , 223 pp. , (1) ff. , (1) ff. , 111 pp. , (16) ff - period full calfskin binding - duodecimo - 10. 5 x 17 cm. Condition: 3 snags on the crowns, a 2 cm split on one joint, strong hinges, some blunt corners, ribbed spines adorned with gilded fleurons and title and volume number labels, a lack of leather on the front cover of volume 3, title printed in red and black, some foxing and browning, brown stains on the eight first leaves of volume 1 and the four first leaves of volume 4, a lack of paper on four endpapers of volume 4, speckled edges, stamp of the “Delaunoy” library. Complete, 6 volumes in 5 books. Work illustrated with 2 portraits, 4 fold-out plates and the in text figure of the bottle. A very lovely complete edition of the works of Rabelais, first critical edition by Jacob Le Duchat (1658-1735, French philologist, son of the Huguenots) and Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728, philologist) . Contained in volume 1: a full-page engraved portrait of Rabelais depicted in his library, an engraved portrait of the author in medallion by W. de Broen, a fold-out map of Chinon, crossed by the Loire, indicating the place of La Devinière, a fold-out engraving of the Dévinière where Rabelais was born, a good mile from Chinon, 1 fold-out engraving representing the Cabaret de la Lamproye (seen from outside Rabelais' room) and finally, a view from inside Rabelais' room. Volume 1 contains : "Faits et Dits du Géant Gargantua", volumes 2, 3, 4 and 5 group together the "Faits et Dits héroïques du bon Pantagruel". As for volume 6, it retraces the Pantagrueline Prognostication, the Epistre du Limousin, the Chresme philosophale, two epistles and an alphabet by the French author as well as tables. The Alphabet aptly uses Rabelaisian terminology, specifying both their Greek or Latin etymology, their meaning and their placement in the text. The text, annotated by Le Duchat (1658-1735) , a philologist of the Protestant faith, remained the obligatory reference for most later editions, even when the latter wished to break away from it. The sixth volume contains a table of contents and a key that explains the meaning of some Rabelaisian locutions. . . and "la dive bouteille". Apart from the mentioned flaws, this copy is in good condition. François Rabelais (also known under the pseudonym Alcofribas Nasier, an anagram of François Rabelais, or under that of Séraphin Calobarsy) was a French Renaissance humanist writer, born at La Devinière in Seuilly, near Chinon (in the former province of Touraine) , in 1483 or 1494 depending on the source, and died in Paris on 9 April 1553. Ecclesiastical and anticlerical, Christian and freethinker, doctor and bon vivant, the multiple facets of his personality sometimes seem contradictory. Caught up in the religious and political turmoil of the Reformation, Rabelais was both sensitive and critical of the major issues of his time. Subsequently, the views on his life and work have evolved according to the times and schools of thought. An admirer of Erasmus, using parody and satire, Rabelais fought for tolerance, peace, Evangelical faith and a return to the knowledge of Greco-Roman Antiquity, beyond the "Gothic darkness" which he considered to be characteristic of the Middle Ages, echoing Plato's theses to counter the excesses of Aristotelianism. He condemned the abuses of princes and men of the Church, and confronted them on the one hand with Evangelical humanist thought, and on the other hand with a popular, bawdy, "humorous" culture, marked by a taste for wine and games, thus manifesting a humble and open Christian faith, far from any ecclesiastical heaviness. His denunciation of the theologians of the Sorbonne and his crude, sometimes obscene expressions, earned him the wrath of the censorship of the religious authorities, especially after the publication of the Tiers Livre. He shared with Protestantism the criticism of scholasticism and monasticism, but the religious reformer John Calvin also attacked him in a very virulent manner. His major works, such as Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534) , which combine chronicles, tales of giants, heroic-comic parody, epics and novels of chivalry, but which also foreshadow the realist, satirical and philosophical novel, are considered to be among the earliest forms of the modern novel.