Francois Rabelais, French writer, satirist, humanist, doctor and monk, 1777. Born at Chinon in Touraine, Rabelais (c1495-1553) is best remembered as the author of the romance La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel (The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel) which appeared in four volumes between 1532 and 1552. A fifth work appeared posthumously in 1554 but is of doubtful authenticity. These four comic novels tell the story of the giants Gargantua and Pantagruel. The style is coarse, ribald and exuberant, and the use of language imaginative. The English language owes two adjectives to Rabelais: Gargantuan, of tremendous size or volume, huge appetites; Rabelaisian, coarse, robust, bawdy humour; extravagent caricature. This representation shows his portrait surrounded by ivy, in antiquity sacred to Bacchus and his Satyrs, a reference to excess and satire. On the pillar is a jester's bauble of a carved jester's head and a bladder on a stick.
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