| Informed by the works of Lazare Sainean, Jean Plattard, Jean Paris, Francois Rigolot, M. A. Screech, Mikail Bahktine, Mireille Huchon and many other scholars who have dedicated their critical mind to Francois Rabelais, my research owes to Roland Barthes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Anthony Lodge and Julia Kristeva the evaluation of the complex relationship between language and its literary form, as well as a linguistic assessment of the role of literature and the writer in the evolution of a language. Analyzing Rabelais's first two books as Erich Auerbach did in 1950 and using Sainean's work on the writer's lexicon, I decided to go further than the hypothesis proposed by Floyd Gray in 1974 that the very subject of the book is the language itself. My research investigates the inner structure of the text, from morphological specificities to the semantics of the narrative, and highlights new evidence of a deliberate attempt from Rabelais to 'illustrate' the French vernacular, glorify its potential and proudly participate in a highly politicized debate: the elaboration of a unified and unifying national language.;While the first chapter dwells on the social, cultural, political and religious changes that occurred in the 16th century, it also shows the different ways Rabelais tackles the issue of language, in his life as well as in his books. This chapter focuses on the narrative structure of the first two books, Pantagruel and Gargantua, highlighting the inner forces which shape the text and its language, while embedding that perspective in a long tradition of critics who have dedicated their life to the scrutiny of Rabelais' works. Nevertheless, it is not until the second chapter that the specificities of Rabelais' genius become obvious to the reader, as we proceed to the morphological, syntactical and lexical particularities that make Rabelais the most prolific word coiner of the century, and probably one of the most influential writers in the history of the French language. The third and last chapter tackles this claim and investigates the place, status and innovative traits of Rabelais' work on language, while studying the importance of his books and his paradoxical language in the evolution of the French language.;This research aims to show that the movement in Rabelais's work, whether it be festive or incongruous as Mikail Bahktine and Francois Rigolot have illustrated, is a self-fulfillment of the language, perpetually creating and destroying itself in search for identity and meaning. Thus my work lies at a crossroads: the one between linguistics and literature. |
