Difficile est saturam non scribere: L'herméneutique de la satire rabelaisienne (review)

This formidably erudite tome is very obviously a French dissertation. It is divided into two parts, each containing two chapters, and the introduction makes clear that the emphasis will be on the evolution of Rabelaisian satire.

Part 1, on origins and contexts, offers another Latin quotation, this time from Quintilian. Chapter 1 discusses the sources of Renaissance satire with particular stress on Lucian, Roman satire, and a few Renaissance authors: Tahureau, Des Périers, Montaigne, and Béroalde de Verville. Nothing strikingly new here, except the suggested connection, a little far-fetched I think, between Rabelais's "grosses mesles" and the word mélanges (52). Chapter 2 analyzes at length three literary genres closely related to Rabelais: farce, sottie, and coq-à-l'âne, plausibly claiming that farce and satire have common culinary origins: satura could mean "a dish of mixed ingredients," according to the OLD. The coq-à-l'âne discussion leads to a long passage (over twenty pages) on Marot, whose relevance is not as clear to me as to Professor Renner.

The second part, which repeats the Latin of the title, is on the characteristics of Rabelais's satire. Chapter 3 deals with the essential concepts of his satire, its political and humanist contexts, the changing role of narrators and of Panurge as fool, and the importance of Menippean paradox: Renner's points seem to me quite valid, but again there is little new here. Chapter 4 focuses on allegory, with stress on Frère Jean, the Erasmian banquet of the Tiers Livre, the Chicanous, the Andouilles, and Gaster —Renner's parallel between Gaster and the Papimanes is convincing.

The conclusion attempts to define satire, with mixed results. No one is likely to quarrel with its qualities of "mélange" and "varietas" (347), but the division of satire into erudite and popular, and the analysis of Menippean satire, strike me as forced. Renner is clearly an abîme de science, familiar not just with much Renaissance literature but with many other literary figures from Lucian to Furetière, and I shall recommend the book with enthusiasm to graduate students, but it does not seem to me to offer strikingly new insights on Rabelaisian satire.

My dissatisfaction is increased by some minor points. Many of Renner's authorities seem even to me a little dated: Frye and Kernan on satire, Bakhtin (mentioned favorably several times), Larmat and Gustave Cohen (whose farce-dating has been firmly debunked by Jelle Koopmans). Where is Paul Smith on the Quart Livre, or Jean Céard on the legal questions? Most annoyingly, nearly every page has from two to six footnotes, much of whose material should have been in the text. They are often very informative: to give one instance among dozens, footnote 1 introduces a very relevant comparison between Rabelais and the Cymbalum mundi (211), which could fruitfully have been explored in the text, especially if some of the less-relevant passages of text had been shortened or omitted. I understand that dissertations may need large numbers of footnotes, but do books? And (a very minor point indeed) has the decline of the French language really produced the verbs closer for fermer (18, 32), and assume for présume (137)?

This is not intended to be a negative review: the book is packed with interesting information, and nonspecialists will find it fascinating. I would just like Professor Renner to write a book that, as well as being erudite and instructive, would be a pleasure to read.