one At first reading, this novel tells stories that are funny and amusing, and some places are even vulgar. Although the rich ideological content has been away from us for 500 years, there is still no lack of inspiration and education. The name of the author Rabelais is not unfamiliar among Chinese readers, but because there is no translation of the whole book published in the past, there may not be many people who have actually read this novel.It is the first time in our country that this world famous book is presented in front of readers in its entirety. Rabelais is one of the representatives of the French Renaissance movement in the sixteenth century.He was born in 1493 (some say 1494) in Schnon in the Touraine Province in central France. His father was a lawyer and owned a farm, so it is presumed that he lived a wealthy life.Rabelais lived a free and carefree life in his father's farm in his childhood.The beautiful and quiet rural scenery and the simple and honest rural customs are deeply imprinted in his heart, making him unforgettable all his life.This can be proved in the strong local flavor of his novels.It's a pity that the good times didn't last long. When he was a teenager, he was sent to a missionary school to receive lifeless religious education, and later entered a Franciscan monastery as a monk.Practicing in a high-walled and deep courtyard is incompatible with his lively and cheerful personality, and at this time he has begun to come into contact with humanism, so he was finally persecuted because he despised theological classics and was obsessed with pagan ancient culture, and finally had to turn around. To the Benedictine Abbey of de Mai.This was the first blow that Rabelais suffered in pursuit of new ideas. It undoubtedly planted the seeds of hatred of the church in the young Rabelais' heart, and further stimulated his yearning for the ideal of humanism.

St. Benedictine is a denomination that pays more attention to academics, and the dean of the De Mai Monastery is also an enlightened bishop who loves classical literature and art, so Rabelais's humanism thought has gained the soil to grow freely.Later, he left the monastery and made a trip around half of France as a lay monk.On the way, he inspected courts and university education in various places. He was heartbroken by the dark inside story of the feudal legal system and the destruction of human nature by scholastic education.This long-distance trip gave Rabelais a deeper understanding of French society. For his future writing, it was not only a brewing of ideas, but also a preparation of creative materials.

Perhaps because medicine and humanism are also based on the idea of ​​"people-oriented", Rabelais fell in love with medicine in his thirties. He went to the University of Montpellier to study medicine. Interestingly, He received his graduation diploma in just two months. According to this, some people inferred that he had long been interested in medicine and had acquired a considerable amount of medical knowledge. His medical training not only made him feel the absurdity of religious superstition, but also made him His creative works have prepared a rich source of knowledge, providing a vast space for his imagination and endless humor to run freely. On the surface, he is telling endless jokes, but in fact he sticks to the theories of physiology, anatomy, medicine, etc. Pseudo-medicine based on witchcraft, superstition, and prejudice has all been severely flogged incidentally.

Later, he went to Lyon to practice medicine and settled there for several years, and it was then that he composed the first two volumes.The profession of doctor enables him to get in touch with all walks of life extensively.With keen insight and a deep sense of humor, this brilliant doctor saw every ulcer and ulcer in French society, and finally he was no longer satisfied with being a doctor who treated human diseases, but wanted to be a doctor at the same time. A doctor who heals society's ills.In August 1532, a strange novel suddenly appeared in a bookstore in Lyon. It was called "Legend of the Grand Guay", and the author was signed by Alcofribas Nasier.The novel was sold out immediately.It turned out that Nacière was none other than Rabelais who was determined to reform.In this novel, he almost desecrates all the majestic and sacred things in the society with his irreverent attitude. The liberation of his mind, the boldness of his exposure, the sharpness of his language, and his sarcasm are unprecedented.In order to avoid the sharp edge of the church's despotic power, Rabelais dismantled the letters of his name and recombined them to create such a strange word as his pseudonym.A year later, he continued to use this pseudonym to publish the second volume of the novel, "Gao Kang Da".These two novels shook the whole society like an earthquake.On the one hand, it was welcomed by the urban bourgeoisie and the people at the bottom of society. According to Rabelais himself, the sales volume in two months exceeded the sales volume of the Bible in nine years; on the other hand, it was extremely hated by the church and aristocratic society. Soon, the Paris court declared the two novels banned.In 1535, King François I of France changed the balance policy between the old and new religions, completely leaning towards Catholicism and openly suppressing Protestants.Of course, all progressive ideas against the Catholic Church were not spared, and the political situation suddenly became dangerous.With his dexterity and the protection of his friends in the church, Rabelais finally escaped the butcher's knife of the evil forces.

Even so, in the second half of his life, the feudal dynasty and the church did not relax their persecution against him. Rabelais did not give in, he fought tenaciously and skillfully against the dark forces.In 1535, he temporarily left Lyon and traveled to Rome three times with friends in the church.With the help of his friends, he obtained the pope's dispensation to continue practicing medicine as a lay priest, and once again went to the University of Montpellier to study medicine and obtained the titles of master and doctor.His life was temporarily secured.Cowards and mediocre people can live comfortably in a peaceful and well-off life, but the ideological vitality and fighting enthusiasm of great thinkers are like fire rushing deep in the depths, which are bound to burst out. Rabelais is witty with all kinds of evil forces At the same time, he picked up his pen and started writing the third volume.After many efforts he obtained the King's dispensation, and, as a safeguard, he added a poem dedicated to the Queen at the front of the book, and by this legal guise he signed for the first time his real name.Although the novel has a gentle and docile appearance, the flames of criticism are still fiercely ejected between the lines, so the theologians first made an uproar and clamored, and finally the Paris Parliament ruled that the novel was listed as a banned book.The publisher and Rabelais' good friend Eddie Aim was burned to death and his body was displayed in public. Rabelais had to flee to Metz, which was under the rule of the Germanic Empire at that time.It was not until a few years later that King Henry II of France had a son, and someone asked Rabelais to write a congratulatory poem. Therefore, "the emperor's grace is mighty", he was allowed to return to the motherland.

In his later years, Rabelais was forced by his livelihood and had to return to the religious world after living an unrestrained and laissez-faire secular life for a long time, serving as the priest of two small churches.However, although he is fettered in the red tape of religion, he still looks forward to the ideal of the future society with his heart, and his enthusiasm for humanism has not diminished due to aging.He died on April 9, 1553, shortly after leaving the priesthood. two Like all Renaissance giants, Rabelais was a learned scholar, especially in medicine.He was a well-known doctor at that time, with superb medical skills; he translated many medical treatises from ancient Greece, and also wrote medical books.However, the reason why his name can be passed down to this day is mainly due to his novels.As a doctor, Rabelais has long been forgotten, but as a humanist writer, Rabelais will always be remembered by later generations.

There are five volumes in the whole book. The first published "Pang Da Guai" is the second volume of the whole book, and the later published "Gao Kang Da" is the first volume.The author first wrote the son's legend, then went back to tell the father's story, and only restored the chronological order when the book was completed, so there is such a reversal.Only four volumes of the novel were published during the author's lifetime. Nine years after his death, that is, in 1562, someone sorted out and published sixteen chapters of his posthumous work, which was the fifth volume of the novel, entitled "Zhongming Island".It took another two years before the first publication of the five-volume "Gao Kang Da He Da Gu E" was published.

Although the novel's story is peculiar, it has a solid foundation in reality, so readers can clearly feel the beating of the pulse of the times through the bizarre plot.We all know that in the sixteenth century Europe experienced a huge and far-reaching bourgeois ideological revolution—the Renaissance. While exposing and criticizing the corruption and darkness of the feudal society and its pillar, the Catholic Church, the bourgeoisie put forward a new ideological system that serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, that is, humanism, against the theocracy theory of the church.The basic idea of ​​humanism is "human beings are the foundation of all things".Starting from this point, humanism advocates respect for nature and human rights, the free development of individuality, and opposes the Catholic Church's use of theocracy to strangle human nature; it advocates hedonism, and opposes asceticism; it advocates science, and opposes superstition.When Rabelais was born, it was the age when the French Renaissance was brewing. By the 1930s when he entered his creation, the Renaissance had become a prairie fire in France.At this time, Rabelais was already a mature humanist. He bravely devoted himself to the struggle against feudalism and church, and adopted an uncompromising critical attitude towards the dark social reality.He poured all his thoughts and theories into his pen, and enthusiastically promoted humanism in the form of literature and art, making his novels have an undeniable spirit of realism and progressive significance.

The dark reality of French feudal society is exposed and violently attacked in many ways.The author's criticism is first directed at the Catholic Church.The characters in the church he described are either cowards who keep silent when the invaders do evil and can only read scriptures and pray, or "terrible birds of prey" who do evil and oppress the people. They really mocked the entire Catholic Church, including the Pope. Fan.The novel exposes the unreasonable phenomenon that the nobles and upper-class monks live a life of extravagance, while the peasants are squeezed to the last drop of blood and sweat like "grape juice".Because Rabelais knew the inside story of many feudal courts, he accused the corruption of the feudal legal system with great indignation.He compared judges who pretend to be fair to "cats in fur robes", and satirized them for being greedy and stupid, knowing nothing about hearing cases, and only extorting bribes.What is especially commendable is that the criticism of the novel directly points to the "sacred" feudal law itself.Feudal laws are vividly compared to "spider webs" that bully the weak, and those "gadflies", that is, feudal nobles and upper-level monks, no matter how many evils they do, they will always get away with it.The author angrily points out, through the mouth of a character in the book, that under such a legal system, everything is turned upside down. is their motto."

While exposing the darkness of society, the author passionately praised the ideal of humanism from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie. Most of the basic issues of humanism are illustrated through various artistic images in the novel. In this sense, this novel It can be said to be an encyclopedia of artistic humanism. Starting from the basic viewpoints of "human nature" and "human rights", the novel fully praises human physique, human strength and human wisdom, and fully affirms the value of human existence.Man takes the place of God and appears in the novel as a vitality full of pride and happiness.The giant image is the embodiment of this vitality.They are physically fit, forthright, intelligent, and knowledgeable.They are in control of their own destiny, neither need to pray for the blessing of the gods, nor need to worry about the punishment from heaven.It should be admitted that the novel's praise of people and humanity has a universal character to a certain extent, which goes beyond the narrow scope of the bourgeois class and reflects the common desire of mankind.Of course, the "people" praised by the novel are still nothing but the personified bourgeoisie in terms of their social essence.Since the second half of the fifteenth century, the capitalist economy has developed rapidly.With the growth of economic power, the self-consciousness of the bourgeoisie has been continuously strengthened, and it is full of ambitions and is active in all social fields.It is full of fantasies about the future and displays growing confidence in its own power.It believes that it will be an eternal existence, and the whole world will change according to its will.This self-centered class consciousness and vigorous and optimistic class emotions constitute the common character traits of the main characters (such as the giant father and son, Brother John).The character of Banuzhi is especially mentioned here, because he not only has this common character trait, but also shows a unique personality, and this personality is more distinct. He illustrates the class color of the characters in the novel.This character has two characteristics, one is adventurous and enterprising, and the other is resourceful to the point of cunning.The author spends a lot of pen and ink to describe this character, although he occasionally teases slightly, but the keynote is praise and praise, calling him "the best child in the world".It can be seen that the quality of ideal characters in the minds of humanists like Rabelais is consistent with the inherent class nature of the bourgeoisie, and its core is "profit" and "money".A sentence by Banurge captures the psychology of the entire bourgeoisie:

"No money is the greatest pain." Personality liberation is an important idea put forward.Rabelais hated the strict hierarchy of the feudal society, hated the harsh rule of the feudal system over the people, hated the Catholic Church's stifling of freedom of will, so his idea of ​​individual liberation was largely put forward as a social ideal. This idea conforms to the requirements of bourgeois politics and economy, and is undoubtedly of progressive significance.The liberation of individuality later became not only a cornerstone of the entire bourgeois ideology, but also one of the themes of modern and contemporary bourgeois literature.The British humanist Thomas More wrote a book in which he designed his ideal society. What he presented to readers in the form of art is also a utopian society. The law and foundation of this society is the liberation of individuality.The Teremy Abbey in the novel is the epitome of this utopian society designed by the author.In this monastery, the relationship between people is equal, live in harmony with each other, no one will impose their will on others.There are neither religious rituals that restrict the development of personality, nor rules and regulations that restrict personal freedom. Everyone has the right to fully develop themselves.This kind of complete personality liberation, the author sums it up in one sentence, is the monastery's rules: "Do as one pleases, do as one pleases." The basis of unity and coordination was, of course, nothing more than his naive fantasy. When the bourgeoisie struggles against theocracy, the question of education always comes up as a question of the utmost importance.In the long feudal society of Western Europe, education has always been a tool in the hands of the church. From content to method, it is scholastic and lifeless.Grasping the tedious, boring and empty features of scholastic philosophy and scholastic education, with exaggerated brushstrokes and sharp irony, it strips off its daunting cassocks and robes, and returns its true colors that violate science and human nature.The scholastic philosophers and theologians appearing in the novel are all ridiculous images of narrow-minded, empty-hearted, meaningless and short-sighted.At the very beginning of the novel, the author designed such a plot: Gao Langgujie hired a theologian to be a teacher for Gao Kangda, but in the end he trained a clever Gao Kangda to become a mindless fool.The author uses this plot to illustrate that scholastic education can only lead people to stupidity and make people's inherent excellent qualities disappear.Rabelais's view of education is closely related to his idea of ​​individual emancipation.In terms of its origin, it undoubtedly lies in the bourgeoisie's requirements for free competition and free development; in terms of its own significance, it is obviously a negation of the negative individuality of scholastic education.Later, when Molière’s comedies mocked the scholastic philosophers, they were in the same line in terms of artistic techniques, while Rabelais’s educational thought with the free development of personality as the core was inherited by Rousseau. In the educational novel "Emile", Get the most out of it. There is also a prominent content in the book, which is the desire and pursuit of knowledge.Under the centuries of church rule in the Middle Ages, God's "revelation" replaced all knowledge created by human history.The discovery of ancient Greek and Roman culture was like a breach in a river embankment, and the pursuit of knowledge and science was surging and unstoppable.Knowledge and theocracy are incompatible like fire and water, and the bourgeoisie urgently needs knowledge as a weapon in order to fight against theocracy.At the beginning of the story, after Gao Kangda left the womb, instead of croaking, he shouted in a deafening cry: "Drink, drink, drink!" Obviously, this plot has its symbolic meaning, which is exactly the It is a portrayal of the urgent mood of the emerging bourgeoisie eager for knowledge.At the end of the novel, Panagure, Panurge, and John find the vase together, and the revelation of the vase is: "Drink." The famous French progressive writer France's understanding of this plot is: "Please go to the source of knowledge? .Study human beings and the universe, and understand the laws of the material world and the spiritual world? .Please drink the truth, knowledge, and love." three The novel, especially the novel, as a unique literary genre, established its position in the history of literature, and it is the starting point in France.Of course, in the minds of later generations, the childishness of oral literature is still not lost: Looking at the whole book, the structure is loose, sometimes sloppy, sometimes jumping over a large span, lacking the overall aesthetic feeling; the characterization is still generalized, far from typical.However, the flaws do not conceal the merits, and these flaws in the novel cannot conceal its artistic brilliance. First of all, we have to admire the author's rich imagination.This ever-changing and seemingly inexhaustible imagination is of course inseparable from the inspiration of folklore; the author's profound knowledge undoubtedly gave the imagination wings.However, its main source is the author's broad and deep life foundation.The novel narrates the experiences of three generations of giants in a huge space in the form of legends of gods and monsters, each with its own characteristics and differences; people of different classes and professions in real society, from kings to peasants, from popes to priests, appear in endless streams. In the novel and peculiar stories; thousands of social phenomena and various scenes are vividly expressed.Although it is all-encompassing, it does not feel monotonous and boring to read, and the novel has a certain appeal to readers from the beginning to the end.It is very difficult to do this without profound social experience and meticulous observation experience of life. The artistic success of the novel is not only due to the author's rich imagination, but also the skill of language is also an important reason.Rabelais is proficient in ancient Greek and Latin, but he did not use the language of the ancients as his writing material, but the language of the people, mainly the language of urban merchants, craftsmen and freelancers, as the keynote of the language of his novels.He uses a lot of common sayings, idioms, and slang to make the language of his works lively, easy and fluent, and full of changes.Sometimes he even created new words in his pen, which is unique and hilarious.Especially the dialogue between the characters is often vivid, dramatic and highly appealing.His language is deeply rooted in the soil of real life, so it can sweep away the pretentious style of church literature and noble knight literature, and has an unstoppable momentum like flowing water in a river.The momentum of the language has played a role in fueling the ideological momentum of the work, and to a large extent it has made up for the shortcomings of the loose plot. Rabelais is an outstanding satirist.The combination of the French national sense of humor and insight into reality endows his pen with extraordinary ironic power.His sarcasm includes both sarcasm and scolding; the former is like a humorous painting drawn in line, which makes people laugh, while the latter is like a colorful cartoon, which makes people laugh out loud. Rabelais has a thorough spirit and wants to thoroughly expose the darkness of society. Therefore, he often uses exaggerated brushwork to turn "solemn" into comics, erase the aura circles on the heads of all "gods", expose their ugly true colors, and make readers feel happy. laughter.So the power of Rabelais' satire is due to its revolutionary and militant spirit. No matter in terms of ideological content or artistic techniques, it is obviously the continuation and development of medieval French civil literature.Civic literature is oral literature, which retains the style of oral literature to a considerable extent, so its popularity and folkness make it widely welcomed.The legend about Gao Kangda had been widely circulated in folk tales long before Rabelais wrote it.Rabelais' achievement lies in his skillful adoption of folklore themes, and then mixing his own profound knowledge and rich realistic materials accumulated in his life, combining seriousness with humor, profoundness with mediocrity, and witty Wit, astonishing determination and courage complete the first successful popular novel in France. The reason why Rabelais adopted the form of popular novels was not only because he knew that this genre was deeply loved by urban citizens, but also because he used jokes and storytelling to propagate humanistic ideas in a devious way (that is, to propagate revolution at the time). thoughts), it is easier to escape the persecution of the Church.From here we can also see Rabelais' art of struggle. It occupies an important position in the history of French literature, which is recognized by critics of all ages. Although they have different views on how to understand the social significance of the novel, they all agree on the great artistic power of the work and the indelible contribution Rabelais made to the development of French literature. Luo Peng