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“L'Isle Medamothi”: Rabelais's Itineraries of Anxiety (Quart livre 2-4)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Alice Fiola Berry
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Abstract

In the Medamothi episode of Rabelais's 1552 Quart livre, the medieval tradition of storytelling represented by Gargantua encounters the classical tradition. This meditation on origins is enacted as a family drama: the son, Pantagruel, attempts to choose between his two “fathers.” Initially, the classical influences have priority. Pantagruel buys tapestries of the life of Achilles, an act representing the son's desire to break from his past with Gargantua by adopting the Greek hero's life. Pantagruel also purchases strange animals that describe the creation of a new and living logos. In the next chapter, Gargantua's envoy arrives to vindicate the native father's rights. Gifts and letters are traded between Gargantua and Pantagruel, an exchange charged with antagonism. The rivalry is resolved, however, for Pantagruel sends back home the classical things he purchased on Medamothi. Two literary pasts nurture Rabelais's books, but, in the end, the author privileges the native tradition.

Type
Cluster on Reader-Response Criticism
Information
PMLA , Volume 106 , Issue 5 , October 1991 , pp. 1040 - 1053
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1991

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