Approaches to Teaching the Works of François Rabelais

The works of François Rabelais―Gargantua, Pantagruel, the Tiers livre, and the Quart livre―embody the Renaissance spirit of discovery and are crucial to the development of early modern prose and to the birth of the novel. Rabelais's exuberant satire deals not only with the major cultural and intellectual issues of his time but also with issues of interest to students today.

This volume, in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching World Literature, suggests the materials that can be used in teaching Rabelais: editions, translations, criticism, Web sites, music, artwork, and films. Thirty-four essays present strategies for the classroom, discussing the classical and biblical allusions; the context of humanism and evangelical reform; various themes (giants, monsters, war); both feminism and masculinity as vexing subjects; Rabelais's erudition; and the challenges of teaching his inventive language, his ambiguity, and his scatology.

Todd W. Reeser is associate professor of French at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture and Masculinities in Theory. Floyd Gray is professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Le style de Montaigne, Rabelais et l'écriture, Gender, Rhetoric, and Print Culture in French Renaissance Writing, and La renaissance des mots