Rabelaisienne, Resembling or suggestive of Rabelais

(about 1490-1553), a celebrated French humorist and conteur, one of the most eminent of French writers, but whose work is marred by great coarseness of expression. His réputation rests on his two novels, Pantagruel and Gargantua, a connected séries appearing in four parts (1533-1552), and a fif th one, posthumous (1564) . The work is a génial satire on contemporary institutions, and one of the world's masterpieces of humor and grotesque invention. For the force of the adjective rabelaisienne, cf. 1. 3, la mine sensuelle et réjouie, as a popular qualification of the author's style and spirit.