Abstract

In the thirteenth chapter of Gargantua (1534), François Rabelais outlines how the young Gargantua showed his extraordinary intelligence by inventing the perfect way to wipe one’s bottom. Gargantua tested 54 bumwipes from hats to cats, and ended with the perfect means: a well‐plumed goose. This chapter has seemed almost too vulgar to be approached by critics and scholars. François Rigolot is among the few to treat this chapter in exclusivity, yet his reading remains imprecise. How are we ever going to honor the author’s instructions to “weigh carefully” the interior of what we read if we concede that the exterior is too vulgar? In this paper, I argue that this is a chapter on the consumption and production of writing itself: the intellectual production of the human being (epitomized by writing) is equalized with the production of his body (epitomized by defecating). To arrive at this conclusion, one must solve the central riddle of this chapter: Why was the goose chosen? This simple (yet neglected) question brings us to a more complete comprehension of one of Rabelais’s favorite themes: the mixing of the spiritual and the corporeal.

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