Rabelais's Radical Farce by Hayes E. Bruce

Author:Hayes, E. Bruce.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2010-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

PART 2

Rabelais’s Radical Farce

Chapter 3

Humanist Satirical Farce in Pantagruel and Gargantua

Now our attention turns to the creator of the tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel. As shown in the introduction, Rabelais’s familiarity with and use of farce in his own work are enormous.1 As M. A. Screech has written, “Rabelais’s Chronicles are influenced by the traditional genres of conte and farce, both of which were widely enjoyed right into the sixteenth century.”2 Rabelais’s books are filled with farcical episodes which contain much of the same structuring and many of the same operating mechanisms found in traditional farce. The author’s use of farce in his own work varies considerably, and his adaptations range from the familiar to the wholly unexpected. While some of the farcical episodes found in the Chroniques closely resemble traditional farces, others are so different that only a solid understanding of the mechanics of farce reveals their common link with their dramatic counterpart. By tracing the evolution of Rabelais’s use of farce, this study will provide a greater understanding both of the presence and importance of farce in the author’s tales and of the ways in which Rabelais is able to manipulate and ultimately transcend farce in order to produce something notably different and new.

Basic elements such as characters and setting suggest some initial distinctions between traditional farce and Rabelais’s farce-like creations. In dramatic farce, the characters are almost always anonymous and domestic; character names are typically generic, such as Homme and Femme, or type names, such as Guillaume or Mimin. The farces take place in generic settings and involve only spouses and perhaps a limited number of other characters such as a priest or a merchant. In keeping with these domestic, quotidian portrayals, those who are vilified in the plays do not rise above the level of the mundane. The villains in farce are character types based on clichés such as the greedy bourgeois or the lascivious prelate. Those who are criticized and humiliated exist within the realm of the petit monde. While a lustful priest or a petty nobleman may be excoriated in a farce, higher representatives of dominant societal institutions, such as the pope, the king, or the Sorbonne, are left untouched. Traditional farce is essentially anonymous and deals only with quotidian settings, thus limiting its satirical possibilities.

Rabelais, in contrast, frames his farcical scenes in a much broader context. We discover in Rabelais’s farce-like scenes very public settings where the adversaries represent opposing political and religious views, farces which contain scathing social commentary and critique. This leads to a critical distinction between late medieval farce and Rabelais’s farcical constructions. While traditional farces are essentially conservative in nature, with their emphasis on punishing those who disturb the status quo, Rabelais’s farces are frequently modeled in such a way that they satirize and attack societal norms. In contrast to traditional farce, whose goal is ultimately to debase those guilty of démesure and reassert the primacy of the status quo, the creator of the tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel

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