How Gargantua and Pantagruel drew on The Golden Ass
A documented line of influence: François Rabelais demonstrably engaged Apuleius’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Golden Ass
Apuleius · c. 170
Ancient RomeThe influenced
Gargantua and Pantagruel
François Rabelais · 1532
RenaissanceRelevance
6/10
On Gargantua and Pantagruel’s page
- Gargantua and Pantagruel descends from the ancient comic novel, and Apuleius is one of its named forebears
- The Golden Ass's grotesque, episodic, magic-soaked storytelling is the lineage Rabelais inherits — read it to see where his appetite for the lewd and the fantastical comes from
On The Golden Ass’s page
- Apuleius's bawdy, shape-shifting, episodic Golden Ass is a recognized ancestor of Rabelais's comic sprawl
- Scholars name Rabelais a direct heir to the ancient comic-novel tradition — Apuleius alongside Lucian — feeding the lewd-and-fantastical register the giants run on