{"product_id":"comic-enlightenment-rabelais-and-english-literature-paperback","title":"Comic Enlightenment: Rabelais and English Literature - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eNicholas McDowell\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow the seventeenth-century translations of notoriously obscene tales by Rabelais shaped some of the great works of eighteenth-century English fiction\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFrançois Rabelais's \u003ci\u003eGargantua and Pantagruel\u003c\/i\u003e--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 \u003ci\u003eGargantua and Pantagruel\u003c\/i\u003e 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 \u003ci\u003eComic Enlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e, 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eChallenging 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 \u003ci\u003eA Tale of a Tub\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eGulliver's Travels\u003c\/i\u003e and Laurence Sterne's \u003ci\u003eTristram Shandy\u003c\/i\u003e. 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.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNicholas McDowell\u003c\/b\u003e is professor of early modern literature and thought at the University of Exeter. He is the author of \u003ci\u003ePoet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton \u003c\/i\u003e(Princeton), winner of the Milton Society of America's James Holly Hanford Award, and the coeditor of \u003ci\u003eThe Oxford Handbook of English Prose, 1640-1714.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 400\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.89 x 9.21 x 6.14 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 11, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53878580773171,"sku":"9780691285849","price":64.53,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/Qs0F2izpYZ9780691285849.webp?v=1787199770","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/comic-enlightenment-rabelais-and-english-literature-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}