Francois Rabelais "Celebration of the Worldly Life"

Rabelais(c. 1495 - 1553) - French humanist, retired Benedictine monk, and a physician

Passage from Rabelais' book Gargantua and Pantagruel, in which he depicts a life at a fictional monastery that is directed by free will.

1. full length novel
2. uses satire and irony to capture attention of wide audience - proposes a more secular way of life and confidence in human nature
3. wants to make his readers think, rather then tell them whats right
4. attacks traditional monasticism as life-denying and sees worldly pleasure as a legitimate need and aim of human nature
5. Mix of Christianity and Reason - In the novel, the protagonist asks his son to try to understand both scripture and philosophy

Freedom

• In his perfect monastery, there is one rule: "Do What You Will"
• life was regulated by free will and pleasure
• Rabelais believed people who are free, well-born, and well-bred, and easy in honest company have a natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice called honour
• He explains corruptness as misusing the gift of honour to "strive after thing forbidden and covet what is denied us"

Betterment of Education

• he stresses the importance of music, geometry, arithmetic, and being multilingual
• with heavy emphasis on the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, he preaches it is "disgraceful for a man to call himself a scholar" without knowledge of at least one of them
• finds the philosophers Plato(Greek) and Cicero(Latin) the most influential
• believes that education will become increasingly available to all people - education can and will be used as a means of climbing social ladder