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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In the treatment of classical authors and works used or borrowed upon by Rabelais, Cicero's share has not been fully studied, or, if studied, not properly emphasized. Plattard in his study of Rabelais maintains that “Bien que Gargantua recommande à Pantagruel, étudiant à Paris de former son style latin ‘à l'imitation de celui de Cicéron,’ Rabelais ne semble pas avoir beaucoup pratiqué lui-même les œuvres de Cicéron.” In the Lefranc edition of Rabelais' works, the same unawareness is evident although there are, besides quite a few direct mentions of Cicero in the text, many notations indicating possible references to him. These, however, are presumed to have been taken mostly from Erasmus. But on this point there is no complete accord. That Rabelais borrowed generously and frequently there can be no question. It is the purpose of this paper to show the borrowings made by him from Cicero's De Oratore and the Orator.
1 L'œuvre de Rabelais: Sources, invention et composition (Paris: H. Champion, 1910).
2 Ibid., p. 187.
3 Cf. Hermann Schoenfeld, “Die Beziehung der Satire Rabelais' zu Erasmus' Encomium Moriae und Colloquia.” PMLA, viii (1893), 1–76; L. Delaruelle, “Ce que Rabelais doit à Erasme et à Budé,” RHL, xi (1904), 220–262; L. Sainean, “Les sources modernes du roman de Rabelais. I. L'humanisme,” RER, x (1912), 375–384; W. F. Smith, “Rabelais et Erasme.” RER, vi (1908), 215–264; 375–378. Cf. also Pierre Villey, Les grands écrivains du XVIe siècle. Rabelais et Marot, (Paris: H. Champion, 1923), p. 212: “Tel fait, telle idée que Rabelais est allée chercher chez un ancien n'aurait peut-être pas pour lui la signification qu'on y attache sans Erasme qui avant lui l'a commenté, l'a vulgarisé, en a fait voir la portée ….”
4 It is true that some of the ideas expressed in the De Oratore and Orator have also been advanced by Cicero in other of his works and that his Brutus and the Optimo Genere Oratorum also repeat similar notions but in none of the latter has Cicero so insistently grouped and expressed as cogent a body of ideas as in the two books first mentioned.
5 For a good account of this controversy see Richard Copley, Etienne Volet (London: Macmillan and Co., 1899), pp. 195–228. Cf. also Remigio Sabbadini, Storia del Ciceronianismo (Torino: Loescher, 1885), pp. 50–74; Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (London: George Allen and Co.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1914), pp. 253–254; Desiderius Erasmus, Ciceronianus or A Dialogue on the Best Style of Speaking. Translated by Izora Scott (New York: Columbia University, 1908). Columbia University “Contributions to Education.” Series No. 20. Ed. Paul Monroe.
6 The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, p. 253.
7 See especially Pierre Villey, Les sources et l'évolution des Essais de Montaigne, 2 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1908), i, 98–104. Louis Delaruelle, Guillaume Budé. Les origines, les débuts, les idées maîtresses (Paris: H. Champion, 1907), who shows particularly well the persistence of Cicero's works in the humanistic preoccupations of the Renaissance and more specifically, of course, in Budé. Pierre de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l'humanisme, 2 vols. (Paris: H. Champion, 1907). i, 213–268. Georg Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, 2 vols. (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1893). Especially the second volume. Henri Busson, Les sources et développement du rationalisme dans la littérature française de la Renaissance (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1922), pp. 16–23.
8 Richard McKeon, “Rhetoric in the Middle Ages,” Speculum, xvii (1942), 4.
9 After describing his studies of rhetoric [De Orat., i, xxxi–ii] he adds: Quam ego si nihil dicam adiuuare, mentiar [De Oral., i, xxxii]. But all of De Oratore invalidates this concession.
10 De Orat., i, xxxii. For the citations from Cicero I have used the edition of the Œuvres complètes de Cicéron, ed. D. Nisard, S vols. (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1881). All the works on oratory are found in Volume i. I have also made use of the critical edition by Edmond Courbaud, De Oratore. Liber primus (Paris: Hachette, 1905), later reprinted with only a few of the critical notations in the series of the Collection des Universités de France (Paris: Société d'édition “Les belles lettres,” 1922).
11 De Oral., i, xii.
12 De Orat., ii, xix; iii, xx.
13 De Orat., ii, iii.
14 De Orat., i, lv. Cf. also De Orat., i, v; i, xlvi: “Non enim causidicum nescio quem ñeque clamatorem aut rabulam hoc sermone nostro conquirimos ….”
15 Pantagruel, x. The citations from Rabelais are according to the critical edition of Abel Lefranc et al., Œuvres de François Rabelais, 4 vols. (Paris: H. and E. Champion, 1913–1931) which contains only the Gargantua, Pantagruel and the Tiers Livre. For the Quart Livre and the Cinquiesme Livre I have used the edition of Jacques Boulenger, Rabelais: Œuvres Complètes (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade [NRF], 1934). The roman numerals indicate the chapter and the arabic numerals the page in which the quotations are to be found.
16 Edmond Courbaud, Œuvres de Cicéron. De Oratore, liber primus (Paris: Hachette, 1905), p. 95 note 8: “Le grand principe du de Oratore est d'opposer la nature à la science scolastique et aux procédés artificiels des rhéteurs.”
17 Parts, at least, of Cicero's ideas and points of view are derived from his reading. He is indebted to Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus; to Aristotle's Rhetoric; to Socrates Against the Sophists and Antidosis and the pupils of the last mentioned authors. Professor John E. Sandys in his critical edition of the Orator (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1885) has this to say:
“The comprehensive scheme for the orator's education, which as sketched in par. 113–121, embraces law and history, as well as philosophy, with its subdivisions of dialectic, ethic and ‘physics,‘ is doubtless derived in part from Greek sources; but in part it is new, and, in any case, it is the earliest encyclopaedic scheme of education which we now possess in the latin language” (p. lxvii).
It is also certain that many Latin authors after Cicero, notably Quintilian, have repeated and developed Cicero's ideas on the orator, his education and his manner of being. But this writer believes that in no one before or after Cicero can we find brought together such a unified and concentrated presentation. As will be shown throughout this paper the motif of the'“nomine ingenuo liberaliterque educato dignum” and the encyclopaedic knowledge which is predominant in Cicero's De Oratore is clearly echoed in Rabelais. Cicero did not have Theleme in mind, but Cicero's “omnium bonarum artium doctores” (De Oral., xxxiv) is not too far removed from the “gens liberes, bien nez, bien instruicts” of Rabelais (Gargantua, lvii, 430).
18 W. H. Woodward, Desiderius Erasmus. Concerning the Aim and Method of Education (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1904), pp. 120–121. “The first place amongst classical writers was undoubtedly given by the humanists to the orators and the writers upon rhetoric. This is closely connected with the position accorded to oratory in the society of the Renaissance …. As an educational instrument Roman and Greek oratory was deserving of close study and imitation. But we may doubt whether it would have received the enthusiastic regard which all humanists accorded to it but for two facts, the space filled by his Orations amongst the extant works of Cicero, and the accident that the one practical and systematic treatise upon Education left from antiquity treats of the education of the Orator.
19 Cf. Pierre Villey, op. cit., p. 212: “… le caractère de litéralité de nombreux emprunts au XVIe siècle ne doit pas nous cacher les emprunts plus discrets. Il y a lieu de tenir compte de la nature des emprunts—idées ou faits—des habitudes individuelles de chaque écrivain … de l‘âge aussi des modèles—car des textes contemporains ne sont point entourés de la même vénération que les anciens, ni par suite toujours utilisés de la même manière. Pour ces motifs encore la précision dans la recherche des sources ne doit pas nous interdire dans leur interprétation le recours aux hypothèses légitimes que notre pauvre science conjecturale ne peut répudier sans se renoncer.” This passage was written after the consideration of Rabelais’ debt to Erasmus. Villey is not too sure that Rabelais owes much to Erasmus.
20 De Orat., i, v.
21 De Orat., i, xxxi.
22 Gargantua, lvii, 430. In the note which is appended in chapter xxix, the letter of Grandgousier to his son, as explanation of the adjective “libere”—a favorite adjective of Rabelais—Sainean, the author of the note, adds: “Il (libere) est à sa place ici dans ce morceau d'allure ciceronienne,” which indeed it is.
23 Although one would be hard put to find a proper definition of the term as Rabelais uses it. Perhaps Littré's definition comes closest to its probable meaning. “Libéralité: Disposition d'esprit digne d'un homme libre; émancipation de l'esprit hors de ses préjugés.” In this sense, the term “liberes” may be considered as fitting within Cicero's conception of his perfect orator. Cf. also E. Courbaud, op. cit., p. 67: “Libero délimite ce que l'obligation aurait de trop d'étendu et d'infini: ”connaître du moins ce qu'il importe à un homme bien né de savoir,“ s'être donc donné une éducation d'homme du monde, c.à.d. une éducation générale—par opposition à l'éducation du savant ou de l'érudit.”
24 De Orot., i, ivi.
25 Pantagruel, viii, 101.
26 De Orai., i, viii.
27 Cicero attached great importance to his De Oratore. Its composition took place during his exile in the year 55 and had occupied him for a long period. Cf. Ad Attic., iv, 13: “De libris oratoriis factum est a me diligenter. Diu multumque in manibus fuerunt.” Also Ad Attic, xiii, 19: “Sunt etiam de Oratore nostri tres, mihi vehementer probati.” (These indications are pointed out by Courbaud, op. cit.). One may with justice infer that Cicero intended De Oratore to be a significant reflection of his mature thought. Cf. De Orat., i, ii: Vis enim, ut mihi saepe dixisti, quoniam quae pueris aut adulescentulis nobis ex commentariolis nostris inchoata ac rudia exciderunt, uix hac aetate digna, et hoc usu, quem ex causis, quas diximus, tot tantisque consecuti sumus, aliquid isdem de rebus politius a nobis perfectiusque proferri.“
28 Jean Plattard, L'œuvre de Rabelais: Sources, inventions et composition (Paris: H. Champion, 1910), p. 85.
29 De Orot., i, xxxiv. Cf. also: De Orai., i, iii, iv, v, vi, xi, xv, xxi, xlix; ii, xvi; iii, xx, xxi, xxiii. The first book is, of course, the capital one for the subject treated here. But cf. also: Orator, xv, xxxii, xxxiv. All these references will be again mentioned and cited when needed. The citations one to four within the text which follows are portions from the extensive passage from Cicero cited above (De Oral., i, xxxiv).
30 De Orat., i, v.
31 Pantagruel, viii, 98. Cf. also, Pantagruel, viii, 105, 107 and Gargantua, xxiii, 218, 219, 220–221, “Et si bien et entierement retint en sa memoire les choses dictes, que pour lors n'estoit medicin qui en sceust à la moytié tant comme il faisoit.” Et passim.
32 Plattard, op. cit., p. 83. In the Introduction to the Lefranc edition (Gargantua, p. xcix) he repeats with somewhat greater emphasis this point of view.
33 I am not contending, of course, that Cicero's views on memory were original with him. The usefulness of memory is too obvious a topic. Aristotle himself had already written a treatise upon it. Cf. Aristotle, De Sensu and De Memoria. Text and translation by G. R. T. Rose (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1906). But this work is rather technical in nature and does not hint at the application which Cicero makes of it. There are, naturally, many other mentions of the usefulness of memory both in classical writers and sixteenth century writers, but in neither case does one find the emphasis placed upon it by Cicero and echoed by Rabelais. It is just one more point, among others, in which the two meet.
34 Gargantua, pp. xciv–xcv.
35 Pantagruel, viii, 108. Other passages of the same nature are in Pantagruel, x, 123: “(Pantagruel) voulut un jour essayer son sçavoir. De faict, par tous les carrefours de la ville mist conclusions en nombre de 9764 en tout sçavoir, touchant en ycelles les plus fors doubtes qui feussent en toutes sciences. Et premierement, en la rue du Feurre tint contre tous les regens, artiens et orateurs …” [In a note (No. 6) appended to the word “orateurs,” Plattard says: “Aucune catégorie d‘étudiants ne portent ce titre. R. désigne sans doute par ce nom ceux qui, par leur situation, étaient amenés à prendre la parole au nom de la gent scholatique.” It is interesting to note Rabelais’ use of the word “orateur” whether it was in usage or not. Cf. also his use of that word in Gargantua, xvii, 164]. Also Pantagruel, x, 127; xviii, 210 and Gargantua, xxiv, 239.
36 Pantagruel, viii, 108, note 91 (Plattard). While public debate was an established custom in medieval times, it is perhaps well to point out that Rabelais' distaste for things medieval may have prejudiced him against public debate had he not found such practice so definitely advocated by Cicero.
37 Pantagruel, viii, 108.
38 Pantagruel, xviii, 209; 211.
39 Gargantua, xxiii, 216. Cf. also, Le Quart Livre, xi, 590: “Nous étions bien bonne compaignie de gens studieux, amateurs de pérégrinité et convoyteux de visiter les gens doctes, antiquitéz et singularitéz d'Italie.”
40 Pantagruel, x, 128.
41 Pantagruel, xviii, 210. Cf. also Gargantua, xvii, 163.
42 Pantagruel, xviii, 210. An interesting note is provided by Plattard, commenting on the declamatio: “La declamatio était proprement un exercice oratoire. Pourquoi R. en fait-il un exercice d'argumentation philosophique? Peut-être, se souvient-il que Cicéron devenu philosophe ‘académique,‘ rapporte dans les Tusculanes, i, iv, qu'il vient de traiter des thèses philosophiques de la même manière qu'il déclamait autrefois pour s'exercer au barreau.” For Rabelais, who “ne semble pas avoir beaucoup pratiqué lui-même les œuvres de Cicéron (Plattard, op. cit., p. 187), this is rather good remembering. But Rabelais might also have had in mind—if he remembered Cicero—that in the Orator Cicero himself will have nothing to do with the ”declamatorem aliquem de ludo aut rabulam de foro.“ Again, Rabelais may have had in mind a passage in De Orat., i, xviii, wherein it is said that ”hie enim mos erat patrius Academiae adversari semper omnibus in disputando.“
43 But there is a brief reference at the end of De Orat., i, lxii, when Cicero seems to change his point of view on the question. After Antonius has finished his refutation of Crassus, the latter, somewhat upset by the wit of Antonius, replies briefly: “Operarium nobis quendam, Antoni, oratorem facis, atque haud scio an aliter sentías et utare tua illa mirifica ad refellendum consuetudine, qua tibi nemo umquam praestitit; cuius quidem ipsius facultatis exercitatio oratorum propria est, sed iam in philosophorum consuetudine versatur maximeque eorum, qui de omni re proposita in utramque partem soient copiosissime dicere.”
44 De Orot., i, vi.
45 De Orat., i, xii
46 De Orat., i, xv.
47 De Orat., i, xvi.
48 Orator, xv. Cf. also, De Orat., i, v; xlix; iii, xix, xx.
49 De Orat., i, v.
50 There is a passage in De Orat, ( i, xvii) in which Cicero rues the fact—perhaps somewhat too modestly—that he has not had the opportunity to approach this ideal. “Hic Crassus: Memento, inquit, me non de mea, sed de oratoris facúltate dixisse. Quid enim nos aut didicimus aut scire potuimus, qui ante ad agendum quam ad cognoscendum venimus; quos in foro, quos in ambitione, quos in re publica, quos in amicorum negotiis res ipsa ante confecit quam possemus aliquid de rebus tantis suspicari? Quod si tibi tantum in nobis videtur esse, quibus etiam si ingenium … doctrina certe et otium et hercule etiam Studium illud discendi acerrimum1 defuit: quid censes, si ad alicuius ingenium vel maius illa quae ego non attigi accesserint, qualem illum et quantum oratorem futurum?” This passage, it seems to me, is strongly reminiscent of the tone and content which is found in Gargantua's letter to Pantagruel. “Mais encores que mon feu pere, de bonne memoire, Grandgousier eust adonné tout son estude à ce que je profitasse en toute perfection et sçavoir politique … toutesfoys, comme tu peulx bien entendre, le temps n'estoit tant idoine ne commode es lettres comme est de present, et n'avoys copie de telz precepteurs comme tu as eu” (Pantagruel, viii, 101–102). This citation may be compared with greater justification to the following one from De Orat., i, iv: “Nam posteaquam imperio omnium gentium constituto diuturnitas pacis otium confirmavit, nemo fere laudis cupidus adulescens non sibi ad dicendum studio omni enitendum putavit. Ac primo quidem totius rationis ignari, qui neque exercitationis ullam viam neque aliquod praeceptum artis esse arbitrarentur, tantum quantum ingenio et cogitatione poterant consequebantur; post autem, auditis oratoribus Graecis cognitisque eorum litteris adhibitisque doctoribus, incredibili quodam nostri homines dicendi studio flagraverunt.” Throughout his letter Gargantua is humble about his learning and regretful of his lack of opportunity. “Tant y a que, en l'eage où je suis, j'ay esté contrainct de apprendre les lettres Grecques … mais je n'avoys eu loysir de comprendre en mon jeune eage” [Pantagruel, viii, 104).
We may note here the use of flagraverunt, which as“enflambé”is a favorite one with Rabelais. Cf. “Pantagruel print nouveau courage et feut enflambé à proffiter plus que jamais, en sorte, que le voyant estudier et proffiter, eussiez diet que tel estoit son esperit entre les livres comme est le feu parmy les brandes, tant il l'avoit infatigable et strident” [Pantagruel, viii, 110]. “Strident” may with justification be associated with “acerrimum” used above.
51 De Orat., i, viii.
52 Pantagruel, viii, 105.
53 Pantagruel, viii, 108.
54 Pantagruel, viii, 108.
55 De Orat., i, iv: “Atque ut omittam Graeciam, que semper eloquentiae princeps esse voluit atque illas omnium doctrinarum inventrices Athenas.”
56 Pantagruel, viii, 106.
57 Pantagruel, viii, 106.
58 Pantagruel, viii, 107.
59 Pantagruel, viii, 106 (note 69). Cf. also J. Burckhardt, op. cit., pp. 257–271 and 285–288, and Emile Egger, Mémoires de littérature ancienne (Paris: E. Thorin, 1862), pp. 316–354.
60 Pantagruel, x, 129.
61 Pantagruel, x, 131.
62 Orator, xxxiv. Cf. also De Orat., i, v; ii, xvi.
63 Pantagruel, viii, 106. Also, Gargantua, xxiii, 217; 221–223; 235.
64 De Orat., i, iii. In antiquity a grammarian was an encyclopedist. Cf. also, De Orot., i, xix; Orator, iv, “Quid dicam de natura rerum, cuius cognitio magnam orationis suppedidat copiam?”; and Orator, xxxiv, “Volo enim prius habeat orator rem, de qua dicat, dignam auribus eruditis, … quem etiam, quo grandior sit et quodam modo excelsior, … ne physicorum quidem esse ignarum solo. Omnia profecto, cum se a caelestibus rebus referet ad humanas, excelsius magnificentiusque dicet et sentiet.” We may note here that physics in Cicero's time included metaphysics and cosmography.
65 Pantagruel, viii, 107. Cf. also Pantagruel, v, 58 “les livres des loix luy sembloyent une belle robe d'or, triumphante et precieuse à merveilles, (but) qui feust brodée de merde: Pantagruel, x, 128–130.
66 “Ici comme plus loin au ch. x, R. révèle son initiation aux sciences juridiques. Il se fait l‘écho de Budé et du cercle des légistes de Fontenay-le-Comte, qui professaient une vive admiration pour le droit civil romain (P).” Pantagruel, viii, 107. For a fuller treatment of Rabelais’ knowledge and predilection for law, cf. J. Plattard, op. cit., pp. 94–126.
67 Orator, xxiv. Cf. also, De Orat., i, v, x, xi.
68 Pantagruel, viii, 101.
69 For Rabelais' immediate predecessors or contemporaries, cf. especially W. H. Woodward, Vittorino da Peltre and Other Humanist Educators (Cambridge: at the University Press, 1897).
70 J. Plattard, op. cit., pp. 81–82. The Cortegiano, one might add, lacks the gravity and scope which we find in Cicero and Rabelais.
71 Il Cortegiano, i, xvi.
72 De Oral., i, xxvi.
73 Jacques Boulenger, op. cit., p. 761.
74 Gargantua, xv, 149.
75 Gargantua, xxxix, 337.
76 Cf. J. Plattard, op. cit., p. 286, and especially pp. 300–303.
77 This writer is preparing a study on these very stylistic devices.
78 The “pastiche” method is discussed by Cicero, De Orat., i, xxxiv, in these terms: “Quibus lectis hos adsequebar ut, cum ea quae legeram Graece, Latine redderem, non solum optimis verbis uterer et tarnen usitatis, sed etiam exprimerem quaedam verba imitando, quae nova nostris essent, dum modo essent idonea.” This method is not entirely unknown to Gargantua: “Mais, encores que celle journée feust passée sans livres et lectures, poinct elle n'estoit passée sans profit, car en beau pré ilz recoloient par cueur quelques plaisans vers de l'Agriculture de Virgile, de Hesiode, du Rusticque de Politian, descripvoient quelques plaisans epigrammes en latin, puis les mettoient par rondeaux et ballades en langue françoyse.” Gargantua, xxiv, 243.
