‘Gargantua and Pantagruel’ (
AKA ‘The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel’) is a series of five novels written by François Rabelais in the sixteenth century. It tells the story of the adventures of two giants in a satirical prose laced with irony and sarcasm.
No one is safe. Rabelais criticized the Catholic Church, the political establishment, the common people, and philosophers among others. The series is considered a classic of Renaissance literature. It gave the French language hundreds of new words and has been analyzed for its satirical structure by many critics. Although the style is not one modern readers are familiar with, it is part of the classic canon of French literature.