Abstract
The Quart livre is Rabelais's Inferno. To project his vision of universal catastrophe, Rabelais borrowed from all the voyage literature he knew, from Homer through Cartier, but he drew most from two Old Testament myths. Like the story of Jonah, the Quart livre is a voyage down the digestive tract into the sick belly of the whale, of self, of the world—a voyage forecast in Chapter xxxii of the Pantagruel, where Alcofribas enters the giant's mouth, and in Chapter xxxiii, where he descends into Pantagruel's belly to cure him. Rabelais transforms Jonah's story into an account of death and regeneration. He also confers medical value on the story of Moses, who healed the world with the Word of God. As a writer-physician, Rabelais is also a “logotherapist,” and his characters strive to emulate Moses' achievement. They too seek the therapeutic word, “le mot de la dive Bouteille.”
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