Panurge’s quest and the Sixteenth-Century idea of the labyrinth

• Autores: Hozumi Orii
• Localización: Studi francesi, ISSN 0039-2944, Nº. 177, 2015, págs. 450-464
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Rabelais’s Tiers Livre is sometimes described as a labyrinth of signs. Is it, then, based on the idea of the labyrinth? If, as some researchers assert, this narrative has a concentric structure, then it is similar in form to the traditional church labyrinth. However, an important difference exists in that church labyrinths suggest Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, whereas Panurge, the antihero of the Tiers Livre, neither descends into the underworld nor combats the Devil, but is instead seduced by him. This paper contends that Rabelais, on the basis of the concept of the labyrinth, has substituted hell with earthly life and Christ, the combatant hero, with a cowardly antihero. To confirm this hypothesis, this paper analyses the representations of the underworld, the Devil and the sword in Rabelais’s narrative fiction. In parallel, it investigates the influence of Erasmus’ Enchiridion, focusing on its view of this life as a labyrinth, and contrasts Panurge’s words and actions with the Erasmian ideal of the Christian soldier. Finally, it proposes a new interpretation of the praise of the herb Pantagruelion, comparing Rabelais’s description of the plant with the flight of Daedalus from the Cretan labyrinth and with the resurrection of Christ from the underworld.

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