JRaJbeLai8iem%e, Resembling or suggestive of Rabelais

(about 1490-1553), a celebrated French humorist and contenir, 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 (1533-1553), and a fifth 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 y cf. 1. 3, la mine sensuelle et réjouiey as a popular qualification of the author*s style and spirit.