Note 12 — I GARGANTUA IN HIS CHILDHOOD[12]

From Book I, Chapter XI, of "The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel." The basis of all English translations of Rabelais is the work begun by Sir Thomas Urquhart and completed by Peter A. Motteux. Urquhart was a Scotchman, who was born in 1611 and died in 1660. Motteux was a Frenchman, who settled in England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and was the author of several plays. This translation has been called "one of the most perfect that ever man accomplished." Other and later versions have usually been based on Urquhart and Motteux, but have been expurgated, as is the case with the passages given here. An earlier version of "Pantagruel," published in London in 1620, was ascribed to "Democritus Pseudomantio."

Rabelais, by common, consent, has a place among the greatest prose writers of the world. In his knowledge of human nature and his literary excellence, he is often ranked as inferior only to Shakespeare. As an exponent of the sentiments and atmosphere of his own time, we find in him what is found only in a few of the world's greatest writers. That he has not been more widely read in modern times, is attributed chiefly to the extraordinary coarseness of language which he constantly introduces into his pages. This coarseness is, in fact, so pervasive that expurgation is made extremely difficult to any one who would preserve some fair remnant of the original.