Les Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel (review)

Abstract

MLR, ioi.i, 2006 243 tradition and the tensions and anxiety to which Cynicism often gives rise, it does pro? vide a series of provocative 'lectures cyniques' of major Renaissance texts. These consist in reading a contrario, giving meaning to the apparently meaningless, as in Le Tiers Livre, or in viewing attacks on credulity as being in defence of true faith, as in Cymbalum mundi. This book will therefore be of interest to all those who are concerned with what is reminiscent of ancient Cynicism in the French Renaissance, which will by definition be most specialists. Oxford Brookes University Hugh Roberts Les Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel. Introduction by Michel Jeanneret; postface by Frederic Elsig. Geneva: Droz. 2004. 200pp. SwF24.6o;?i5.o7. ISBN 2600 -00533-1. First published in 1565, this work is a collection of 120 engravings, which the original, anonymous introduction attributed to Rabelais. They show various bizarre creatures: forexample, human beings with animal features, such as the face of an owl (no. 11); or human beings hybridized with material objects, such as a man with a lute for a torso (no. 96). Their very oddity and their lack of captions make these engravings difficult to interpret. The guidance offered by Michel Jeanneret and Frederic Elsig is all the more welcome. Elsig's approach is through history of art. He dismisses the attribution of the engravings to Rabelais and, following modern opinion, ascribes them to one Francois Desprez, known to have worked in Paris between 1565 and 1580. Elsig places the Songes in the tradition of 'droleries', whimsical drawings which often appeared in the margins of medieval manuscripts from northern France and the Low Countries, and which entered high art with Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. ('Droleries', as he underlines, are distinct from Renaissance grotesques inspired by ancient Roman murals.) He sees the Songes as a pattern-bookfor craftsmen, although, as he himself remarks, no example has been found of any figure taken directly from the book (pp. 192-93). For Elsig, the interest of the work is that, however modest its quality, it helps exemplify the 'culture visuelle' of the era (p. 196). Jeanneret, too, notes the art-historical interest of the work, but emphasizes that it reflects the con? temporary fascination with monsters. And, while ruling out direct involvement of Rabelais in the Songes , he sees in them a Rabelaisian ability to disarm the monstrous by laughter: 'Si les Songes doivent quelque chose a Rabelais [. . .] c'est peut-etre cela: danser sur la crete de l'abime, rire a la face du monstre' (p. 47). Jeanneret and Elsig thus adopt somewhat divergent perspectives. Given the nature of the book, however, such divergence is illuminating and healthy. On balance, the Songes hold perhaps only peripheral interest formost literary spe? cialists. But, be that as it may, gratitude is still due to Jeanneret and Elsig for their scholarship and open-mindedness, and also to the publisher formaking readily avail? able yet another little-known work. North Shields Ian R. Morrison Clement Marot et les metamorphoses de Vauteur a I'aube de la Renaissance. By Flo? rian Preisig. (Cahiers d'Humanismeet Renaissance, 71) Geneva: Droz. 2004. 192 pp. SwF 49.10; ?33.29. ISBN 2-600-00919-1. The project of this book is to chart the changes in notions of authorship brought about by Marot in his works. The firstchapter concentrates on his predecessors, the ...