Abstract

Rabelais

The article discusses two books, "Francis Rabelais: The Man and His Work," by Albert Jay Nock and C.R. Wilson and "Fraznçois Rabelais: Man of the Renaissance," by Samuel Putnam. According to authors, Nock and. Wilson seem to lack the necessary qualifications for the criticism of humorist and satirist Francis Rabelais. Their scholarship appears in places to flag. And what is worse, two fundamental defects vitiate their work. They approach their subject in a spirit of unmixed piety, which, one soon realizes, is at best sublimated prudery and they undertake to demonstrate too simple a thesis. It must be indicated in all fairness that their point of view is altogether preferable to the vulgar approach, which regrets the unseemly side of the satirist.