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graphic to the point of ludicrousness, was exactly suited to his tem–
perament and his purpose, and no one ever got so much out of it as
he. This filiation was pointed out, for the benefit of those to whom
it had not earlier been obvious, by E. Gilson in his fine essay
«Rab–
elais franciscain"
(in
Les Idees et les lettres,
Paris, 1932, pp. 197 ff.) ;
we shall return to this question of style, too, later.
The passage which we have been discussing is a comparatively
simple one. The interplay of locales, themes, and stylistic levels is
comparatively easy to observe, and its analysis demands no elaborate
research. Other passages are far more complex-those, for example, in
which Rabelais gives full vent to his erudition, his countless allusions
to contemporary events and persons, and his hurricane word-forma–
tions. Our analysis has permitted us, with little effort, to recognize an
essential principle of his manner of seeing and comprehending the
world: the principle of the promiscuous intermingling of the categories
of event, experience, and erudition, as well as of dimensions and
styles. Examples, both from the work as a whole and from sections of
it, can be multiplied at will. Abel Lefranc has shown that the events
of Book I, especially the war against Picrochole, take place on the few
square miles of the region which lies around La Deviniere, an estate
belonging to Rabelais' father's family; and even to one who does not
or did not know this in detail, the place names and certain homely
local happenings indicate a provincial and circumscribed setting.
At the same time armies of hundreds of thousands appear, and giants,
in whose hair cannon-balls stick like lice, take part in the battles; arms
and victuals are enumerated in quantities which a great kingdom
could not have brought together in those days; the number of soldiers
alone who enter the vineyard of the monastery of Seuille and are
there cut down by Frere Jean is given as 13,622, women and small
children not included. The theme of gigantic dimensions serves Rab–
elais for perspectivistic effects of contrast, which upset the reader's
balance in an insidiously humorous way; he is perpetually flung back
and forth between provincially piquant and homely forms of existence,
gigantic and grotesquely extra-normal events, and Utopian-humani–
tarian ideas; he is never permitted to come to rest on a familiar level
of events. The forcefully realistic or obscene elements, too, are made
to seethe like an intellectual whirlpool by the tempo of the presenta–
tion and the ceaseless succession of allusions; the storms of laughter
