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Pantagruel's Genealogy and the Redemptive Design of Rabelais's Pantagruel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Edwin M. Duval
Edwin M. Duval*
Affiliation:
University of California Santa Barbara
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Abstract

Pantagruel is composed according to an overarching typological design that lends to the work both coherence and a profound meaning. Pantagruel's genealogy and other biblical elements in the first chapter establish Rabelais's hero as a type of Christ whose specific messianic mission is to reverse the effects of Cain's murder of Abel. The telos toward which the entire work moves is the climactic duel in which Pantagruel fulfills his promise by killing Loup Garou, a type of Cain, and bringing peace to the besieged Amaurotes. Pantagruel is thus a Christian humanist epic of redemption in which the original crime of brother against brother (Cain's fratricide) is obliterated, and the evangelical reign of brotherly love (Christ's caritas) is restored.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 99 , Issue 2 , March 1984 , pp. 162 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1984

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