My Wish Lists Login / Join

Comic Enlightenment

Rabelais and English Literature

By: Nicholas McDowell

Write A Review

Paperback | 11 August 2026

At a Glance

Format
Paperback

Dimensions(cm)
23.3 x 15.7 x 2.6

Paperback

$90.99

or 4 interest-free payments of $22.75 with

Ships in 15 to 25 business days

How the seventeenth-century translations of notoriously obscene tales by Rabelais shaped some of the great works of eighteenth-century English fiction

Francois Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel-loosely related tales of gluttonous, drunken giants and their fantastic adventures-was one of the most notorious works of Renaissance Europe, condemned by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant reformer John Calvin as obscene and irreligious. In Elizabethan and early Stuart England, familiarity with Rabelais signaled membership in a cosmopolitan elite. But it was only with the seventeenth-century translations of Gargantua and Pantagruel by the eccentric Scottish laird Sir Thomas Urquhart and the Huguenot refugee Peter Motteux that Rabelaisian comedy became fully a part of English literature. In Comic Enlightenment, Nicholas McDowell reconstructs the cultural and political contexts of Urquhart and Motteux's work during the Civil Wars and Restoration and shows how this palimpsest of translations, notes and commentary influenced the development of satire and fiction in Britain and an emergent Anglo-Irish literary culture.

Challenging conventional accounts of the origins of the English novel, McDowell offers extensive new interpretations of landmark literary works of the eighteenth century, including Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. McDowell's ambitious and sweeping account shows how the "Rabelaisian" became part of novelistic currency through the long history of translation and imitation of Rabelais's works.

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

Orders over $79.00 qualify for free shipping.

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.