"Turkish Dogs": Rabelais, Erasmus, and the Rhetoric of Alterity Author(s): Timothy Hampton Source: Representations, No.

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TIMOTHY

HAMPTON

"Turkish Dogs": Rabelais, Erasmus, and the Rhetoric of Alterity

I
ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS encounters in Renaissance literature of occurs in chapter9 of Rabelais'sfirst book, thePantagruel 1532. While strolling outside the walls of Paris withhis friendsone day, the young giant Pantagruel meetsa raggedlydressed but handsome stranger. The stranger's name, we later learn, is Panurge, suggestingthe Greek word panourgos, which means "crafty."' Pantagruelasks Panurge the same questions thatare alwaysasked of handsome in "Who are you?" "Where do you come from?""Where are strangers literature: you going?" "What are you seeking?""What is your name?" Panurge responds, however,in thirteendifferent languages, ranging from Spanish and Italian to such lesser known idioms as Lanternese and Utopian, until the two characters realize that theyare both native speakers of French. At this point Pantagruel informsthe strangerthathe has already taken a likingto him, offershim food and drink,and theybecome fastfriends. On its most basic level thisfamous encountermay be seen to dramatize the recuperationof multiplicity unity. by Panurge is a figureof Babel. His linguistic offeran emblem of both the scattering meaning and the fragof pyrotechnics thatcharacterizelife in the fallen world. Yet it is prementationof community that ciselythisfragmentation is repaired,at least momentarily, the close of the by scene. For thekindly transcendsthechaos Pantagruel's acceptanceof thestranger representedbyPanurge'slinguistic profusionand replaces need withcommunity. is The key element in thiscommunity the notion of charity, which makes communicationpossible.It is onlyafterPanurge'sdesperate need forfood and shelter have been recognizedthrougha gestureof charity (thatis, in extralinguistic terms; Pantagruel'slove precedes the discoveryof a common language) that dialogue can occur. Commentatorshave stressedthe importancefor the scene of Paul's letterto the Corinthians(13. 1), in whichthe apostle proclaims,"If I speak in first the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, am a noisygong or a I it clanging cymbal."In thisformulation is Christiancharitythat overcomes the in confusion of tongues to create a community which the superficialmarks of

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between human beings are erased. The letterkillsand separates; the difference accepts and heals.2 spiritof charity Pantagruel'sgesturemay be read as a markerof ideology.Modern students in of of the texthave taken the thematics charity thisscene as evidence of Rabethat lais's close relationshipto the Erasmian humanismand Pauline Christianity life on theirinfluence NorthernEuropean intellectual during the began to assert Since the 1942 publicationof Lucien century. two decades of the sixteenth first au siecle:La Religionde de Le Febvre'sfamous study, Probleme l'incroyance seizieme thatsaw Rabelais as some sort put Rabelais,whicheffectively an end to traditions come to criticsand historianshave increasingly both literary of protolibertine, humanismas an ideological matrixforreading stresstheimportanceof Christian duplicity, of to Rabelais. Panurge repeatedlyshowshimself be a figure disruption, and subsequentgood natured Yet generosity cowardice,and cruelty. Pantagruel's Pauline politicaland moral ideals seem to illustrate tolerancetowardthe stranger The scene suggestsa particularattitudetoward the of charityand community. the other thatboth illustrates preceptsof humanistmoral philosophyand conto tributes theimage of Rabelais as pious Erasmian in thewake of Febvre'swork.3 of What concernsme in the pages below is the fragility the humanistframein to informRabelais'stext.I am interested the pressureexerted workthatseems in on the relationshipbetweenlanguage and community Rabelais when the text moves beyond the European ambitof Christianhumanism,withits ideal fraternityof pious tipplers,to representan encounterwithan other much less easy to neutralizethan thewilyPanurge (who,afterall, isjust anotherFrenchman).This otheris the OttomanEmpire,whose presenceon theeasternedge of Europe was during a source of politicalpanic and moral confusionforChristianintellectuals The problem of how humanismconfrontsan alien the early sixteenthcentury. culture is of centralimportancefor a reading of Rabelais. For though his texts theyare at the same timecharseem to endorse ideals of community, frequently violence against anyone who is not a male acterized by scenes of extraordinary Christian. Criticsdisagree on the extent to which Rabelais's text participatesin and strategies,and moral prereproduces the rhetoricalconventions,interpretive ceptsof humanism.Generallytheyargue eitherthatRabelais is a good humanist or moral "message" to convey, thathis books are about the dissemwitha specific of inationof meaningand hence theimpossibility moral messages. I shall suggest of is collapsed when one considersRabelais's representation thatthisdichotomy encounters.What emerges fromsuch encountersis less an articucross-cultural lation of Rabelais's concerns than a perspectiveon the uneasy alliance between By prose fictionand humanismin the face of alterity. focusingon the ways in encounters, I which the rhetoricof humanism is threatenedby cross-cultural and strategies betweenhumanistrhetorical hope to shed lighton therelationship

of and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais,

59

on narrative, politicalideals, on the one hand, and emergingformsof fictional the other.4 When I read the famousencounterbetweenPantagrueland Panurge as the I of demonstration a moral message,of a kind of precept about friendship, am for the moment)guidelinesset up by Renaissance humanists following(at least The mostinfluthemselves.Moral allegoryis centralto humanisthermeneutics. advocate of the type of interpretationI have just ential sixteenth-century advanced was Rabelais'sfriendand mentorErasmus. In whatis probablythemost studjiof 1516, on of programmatic his many writings education, the De ratione Erasmus stipulatesthateverytextis to be read four times-once for its general sense; once withattentionto grammarand vocabulary;once withan eye to its in rhetoricalfigures;and, finally, order to seek a moral example that mightbe applied to daily life,"forexample, the storyof Pylades and Orestes to show the excellence of friendship;thatof Tantalus, the curse of avarice."5According to are Erasmus,moralallegoriesor lessonsof comportment to be soughtin all texts, or whethersacred or profane,literary historical. Yet what is never quite articulatedin the Erasmian model of reading is how are themorallessonsthatthereader is to drawfromtexts to be applied to specific, to contingentformsof action-most specifically, politicalaction. From the time studywas and literary the Italian humanists, goal of rhetorical of the quattrocento execution of the promotionof virtuousand prudentpublic action,the effective Erasmus seeks to As statecraft. the northernheir to thatpedagogical tradition, of interests the Italians witha Christianpietybased in New blend the rhetorical to Yet Erasmus's very moralismand commitment Pauline Testamentmorality. politics. runs up againstthe harsh realitiesof sixteenth-century ideals constantly It is not enough, in reading Erasmus, simplyto suggest that his moralisticdisor course envisionsa purelypsychological spiritual(thatis, internal)response to the text. For friendshipin Erasmus is political as well as personal. The male of friendship say,Pyladesand Orestes(recalled in the relationship Pantagruel of, and Panurge) seems to be a principalmodel in Erasmus both forthe demonstraErasmus opens and forpoliticalrelationships.6 tion of charity among Christians the his most influential book, the Adagia,witha series of adages on friendship, first whichis the proverb"Between friendsall is in common." He glosses this of maxim by drawinga parallel between politicsand friendship.And he contrasts avarice (figuredabove by to it the disruptivepowerof possessionand, ultimately, both whichdestroys Tantalus; Erasmus'spairingof examples is rarelyarbitrary), generally:"Plato ... the exchange betweenfriendsand the politicalcommunity saysthata statewould be happy and blessed in whichthesewords'mine' and 'not how Christiansdislikethis mine' were never to be heard. But it is extraordinary common ownershipof Plato's,how in facttheycast stonesat it,althoughnothing was ever said bya pagan philosopherwhichcomes closer to the mind of Christ."7 depends on a speand politics, however, friendship, The conjunctionof charity, 60
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cificconjunction of personalities.For if Erasmus defines political harmony in he betweenfriends, also pointsout, both in the termsof charitablerelationships thatfriendship generallyspringsup studii, verynext adage and in the De ratione who resembleeach other: "The deepest formof love coincides between people esse similitudinis summae autemamorem with the deepest resemblance" (Summum humanistmerging thattheChristian And comitem).8 itis in thispraiseof similitude of politicsand moral philosophybegins to run into problems. For it offersno among likes. action in a worldnotcharacterizedbyfriendship termsfordefining between humanistideology In what followsI want to explore the confrontation ratherthan similarity. and the violenceof a worldcharacterizedbydifference

II Not long afterhis famous meetingwithPantagruel,in chapter 14 of of editionof Rabelais'sbook, Panurge recountsthe story his escape the definitive of the Turks. In addressing the encounter between Christian from the hands prisonersand TurkishcaptorsRabelais evokesa major politicalcrisisof the 1520s. preceding For during thisperiod (and most especiallyduring the years directly the Ottoman Empire, under the command of the compositionof Pantagruel), Suleiman the Great and thedaringcorsairBarbarossa,posed a constantthreatto of and stability ChristianEurope. Suleiman'snavyruled the Mediterthe security ranean, and his armytwiceinvaded Hungary to attackVienna itself.Thus, the but handsome strangerPanurge maybe Pantagruel'sChristianhumanistfantasy, others,thereal strangers theTurksfromwhomPanurgeescapes are thehistorical whom Early Modern Europe musteitherconquer,flee,or appropriate. The menace of a Turkishinvasionof Europe raised moral and politicalquesintellectuals thatwere at least as complex as the questionsforsixteenth-century tions raised later by the much more widely studied encounter with the New of topicof humanistWorld.The morality a war againstthe Turkswas a favorite Opinion varied on the decades of the century. duringthe first influencedwriters question,fromtheclaimthattheTurksmustbe wiped out througha newcrusade, to the notion that theywere a scourge sent by God to teach ChristianEurope about its own sins. Luther, to take but one example, moved between these Theses 1518 that the of of extremes,suggestingin his Explanations theNinety-Five Turks were heaven-sentand should not be resisted.He then reversedhimselfin a 1529 treatiseon the Turkishquestion, when he claimed that war against the Ottomans might be morally acceptable if it were led by the Holy Roman Emperor.9 towardtheOttoman in It is,however, theworkof Erasmus thatthisambiguity threattakesitsmostcomplex form.'0Erasmusargues his positionon thequestion of the Turkishthreatin a varietyof texts,fromthe adage "Dulce bellum inexof and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais, 61

pertis"(War is sweetto thosewho have not triedit)of 1515, throughtheEducation oftheChristian Princeof 1516, the Complaint Peaceof 1517, to a treatiseentitled of De belloTurcico (On the Turkishwar), publishedin 1530-only a fewyearsbefore Rabelais'sPantagruel. Throughout his writings Erasmus criticizes both those who want to massacrethe Turksand thosewho say thatthe Turks are a divine plague and should not be resisted.His general position,whichhe repeatsin virtually the to is but only same language fromtreatise treatise, thatthe Turksmaybe fought, as a last resort.The real problem raised by the Ottoman invasions,he says at betweencivilizations thanthe spiritualfragmenseveralpoints,is less theconflict When the princesof Europe squabble tationand disarrayof Christendomitself. among themselves,he wonders, how can theyever hope either to conquer or convertthe Turks? For though the rulersof Europe call themselvesChristians, but Christiancharity. theybehave towardeach other withanything They seem driven by the avarice of Tantalus instead of by the friendshipof Orestes and Pylades. The successes of the Ottoman armies should offera warningto Christendom to set itshouse in order both morallyand politically. Otherwise,suggests somber moment,the Christiansmay degenerate into Erasmus in a particularly Turks before theycan make the Turks into Christians." In fact,so great is the lustforpoweramong Christian princesthattheyare beginningto look verymuch 2 like the enemy,and "itis as Turks thatwe are fighting Turks."' As theselastanxious warnings suggest,Erasmus'sown depictionof the Turks It is somewhatcontradictory. is marked by a vacillationon the question of what and morally, themfromChristians.His exactlyit is that,politically distinguishes to whileavoidingthe suggestionthatChrisattempt defuse anti-Turkish hysteria, tians should allow themselvesto be martyred, leads him to paint a curiously alien and strangely familiar.For if,on the hybridTurk-a Turk at once totally one hand, the Turks are to be seen as barbarian images, as figuresinto which decadent Christiansmightdegenerate unless theymend theirways,the Turks be different fromChristians, commust consistently posited as threateningly as pletelyother,as definedbymarksof culturaldifference thatcan neverbe effaced. This is the tacktakenbyErasmus in manyof his mostmoralistic where moments, the he pulls no punches in vilifying Turks. Thus, for example, in the De bello he warriorand a gutless Turcico, presentsa Turk who is at once a bloodthirsty obscurae the voluptuary."Barbarians, of obscure origin" (gens barbara, originis), and enamoured of Turks,says Erasmus,are a people without virtue,effeminate wealth (gens esteffoeminata he luxu). "They owe theirvictories," warns, "to our vices."Yet at the same time he insistsupon the terriblecrueltyand monstrosity that of (immanitas) has markedTurkishtreatment Christiancaptives."' This portrayalof a Turk at once cruel and decadent is, of course, already a cliche. Yet Erasmus goes beyond these conventionswhen he attemptsto appropriate and humanize the Turkishother.For if Erasmus'srhetorical distancingof the Turks makes possible moralisticwarningsthat Europe must be spiritually 62
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renewed, his desire to resistthe bellicose posturingof those who would seek an image. He says in the immediate holy war leads him to offera much different "thosepeople whom that,because of theirpiety, adage "Dulce bellum inexpertis" and we call Turksare to a greatextenthalf-Christian, probablynearer trueChrishe Turcico echoes thisastonthan mostof our own people."'4 In theDe bello tianity ishingphrase. He admonishesthosewho call theTurksdogs. Then he praises the of to Turks' pious commitment theirreligionand calls them "first all men, then 5 semichristianos). ... deinde (primum homines, half-Christians" The Turks operate in Erasmus's discourse as both the other and the same. negative makesthemimagesof barbarismand decadence thatoffer Their alterity examples to Christianrulers.Yet theirpietyturnsthem into positiveexamples, and theirhumanitymakes them figureswho need to be convertedand shown instead of massacred. "If we want to lead the Turks to the Christianrelicharity 6 be gion,"saysErasmus,"let us first Christians."' Erasmus'swaveringdescriptionsuggeststhe pressureplaced on the rhetoric of moderationat a particularmomentof politicalhysteria.Yet it also points to as of the limitations Christianhumanismitself, it seeks to preach a doctrineof to of charity, the acceptance of theother,whileat the same timetrying ground its of work in the politicaland spiritualunification a ChristianEurope threatened bystrangersfar more menacingthan Panurge. Erasmus'srhetoricstrainsunder to the burden of trying accept othernesswhileupholding absolute truth.'7 a Erasmus articulates contradicIf the "universal"or "European" intellectual toryattitudetowardthe Turks,the situationis even more complex for Rabelais, as a Frenchmanwritingunder the dominion of Francis I. For Francis'spolicy towardTurkishambitionsin the Westwas curious indeed. If Suleiman became a major playerin the politicalmaneuveringbetween Charles V and Francis I for the domination of Europe, it was largelythroughhis special relationshipwith Francis,who liked to be known as the "defender of the Christianfaith."Soon afterthe defeat in 1519 of Francis'sbid to be Holy Roman Emperor,the French ruler enlistedSuleiman as an ally against his rival Charles. In fact,even during in his imprisonment Spain in 1525 Franciscontinued to make diplomaticoverHis encourturesto the Turkishleader in the formof a seriesof personal letters. of agement and his affirmation his support for Turkishinterestsare generally behind the sultan'ssecond invasionof Hungary.At the acknowledgedas factors Battle of Mohacs, in 1527, thousands of Christiantroops were massacred by encounterwiththe Turkishforces.This disasterwas themajor European military Turks until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Yet even afterMohacs Francis conoverturesto the sultan. In response to Francis'sunusual diptinued his friendly lomatic policies, hundreds of pamphlets by authors from all over Europe to appeared, denouncing him as a traitor Christendom.He of course denied the charge,sinceone of the tenetsof Frenchpropaganda was thatFrancismightlead a new crusade to freethe Holy Land. Yet even as the Turks threatenedthe gates of and Rabelais, Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity 63

of Vienna in March of 1532-just a fewmonthsbefore the autumn publication of the Pantagruel-Francissent an ambassador named Antonio Rincon to discourage Suleiman frominvadingCentral Europe (whichwould have threatened Frenchinterests Germany)and to encourage him to attackItaly (whichwould in have weakened Charles V and permittedFrancis to invade the peninsula as a saviorand champion of Christendom).'8 Thus Francis'sTurkishpolicyseems to waverin waysthatare strangely analogous to Erasmus'smoralistic pronouncements.Both the deeds of the self-styled humanistkingand the words of the mostinfluential Christianhumanistthinker are markedbythe anxiousnessthatseems to characterizeEuropean responses to the Ottoman threat.Rabelais's narrative,as we shall see, will both explore this anxietyand displace the termsby whichit expresses itselfin humanistwriting.

III Panurge'saccountof his escape fromtheTurksis markedbya number it features.For one thing, is one of theveryrare momentsanywhere of interesting in Rabelais in which someone other than the narrator recounts a story.The is nature of thisstory, however, puzzling. On the one hand, Panurge introduces to himself Pantagruelbysayingthathe hasjust had adventures"more marvelous than Ulysses"(201).19His evocationof the classicalhero most famous forhis lies suggeststhatwe are in the realm of pure fabrication. Yet,on the other hand, he repeatedlyclaims thatthe tale he tellsis absolutelytrue (je ne vousen mentiray de mot;289). And he takes pains to root the storyin the world of contemporary Rabelaisian book (or anywherein politics.For thisis the onlymomentin thisfirst the is linked to an Rabelais, I believe) in whichan eventinside narrative explicitly of world is pinned down to an episode of event outside it, in which the fictional political history. Panurge says he was captured "during the ill-fatedattack on en Mytilene"(201; quandon alla a Metelin la maleheure[270]). This is a reference to a bungled French attackin 1502 against the cityof Mytileneon the Isle of Lesbos. Nearly ten thousand Frenchmenperished there. Thus Panurge's story (which,we should recall, comes at the beginningof his Rabelaisian career and has before his general untrustworthiness been demonstrated)seems to lie someIt where betweenfiction and history.20 recallsthe topos of Odyssean adventures, yet it juxtaposes that topos with a specificincident in a political crisis of vital located on an island importanceto European identity-an incidentconveniently midwaybetweenEast and West. this This ambiguity, tensionbetweenself-conscious and historical mendacity event,recallsyetanotherissue addressed byErasmus in his discussionsof interof pretation.When he promotestheextraction morallessonsfromtextsErasmus betweenfiction, versionsof histormakes no distinction and history, fictionalized 64
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ical events (like, for instance,Xenophon's life of Cyrus): "If the audience takes because people believethem;iftheytake them theseas true,theywillbe effective since theyare the productionsof wise and revered authors,they as inventions, for willbe effective theveryreason thattheywere put out bymen whose authority cliche gave what theywrotethe forceof precept."The tensionbetween literary makes theRabelaisianscene an exemplary politics and the"real"of contemporary instance for thinkingabout how humanism bumps up against the political
world.2'

Since the details of Panurge's escape will be importantin what follows,I recount the episode here. As the scene opens, the Turks have tied Panurge to a spit,placed him under armed guard, and are roastinghim over a fire.Around theyplan to eat his waisttheyhave wrapped stripsof bacon, since, presumably, thathis body would have made "bad him and, as Panurge says,he was so skinny Recognizingthat his predicamentclearlyrecalls meat" withoutsome flavoring. of the martyrdom St. Lawrence,Panurge praysfordeliverance.Sure enough, the of guard suddenlyfallsasleep-either throughthe intervention God or Mercury (who put Argus to sleep). Whilehe is sleepingPanurge is able to seize twoburning whichimmediately one stickonto a pile of straw, withhis teeth.He throws sticks ignites,and the other into the lap of the guard-thereby scorchinghis genitals. The guard leaps up, runs toward his captive, and begins to untie him. He is stopped, however,when the pasha or masterof the house appears and immediatelyputs the negligentsoldier to death, presumablyfor having fallen asleep at the guard. By thistime the firehas begun to consume the entirehouse. Seeing that the situationis desperate, the pasha decides to commit suicide. Panurge to offers help him,in exchange forhis purse. When themasteragrees to thisoffer of help Panurge tieshim up, hangs him fromthe spit(thus exactlyreversingthe roles of a momentearlier),runs him through,and leaves him to toast. Now the firehas begun to consume the city(though Panurge says"don'task how"). As he streets, Panurge meets a group of fleeingtownsruns throughthe smoke-filled him food, cool himoffbydousing himwithwaterand thenoffer people, who first mostof which he refuses.Withthe citynow completelyin flames,he meets two otherrefugees,a "villainouslittle Turk,witha hump on his chest"(217), who tries to chew on the stripsof bacon thatstilladorn his waist(Panurge slaps him away) and a courtesan who offersto give him an aphrodisiac-until she sees that his penis,like thatof the guard, has been scorchedin the fireand now,saysPanurge, cityand pauses only hangs no lower than his knees. Panurge escapes the flaming to briefly look back fromthe hilltopabove-a gesturethathe compares to Lot's wifelooking back on Sodom and Gomorrah,as if the parallel were not already he obvious. He is so happy at seeing the conflagration, says,thathe almost"shits with joy." Yet,he is quick to add, his laughteris punished byGod. For he notices thathe is being pursued bya pack of dogs fleeingthe fire.To save himselffrom of being devoured, thewilyPanurgeuntiesthesavorystrips bacon thatstilladorn of and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais, 65

his waistand throwsthem to the hounds. They stop to gobble up the meat and he escapes, havingin thebargainbeen cured bythe fireof his sciatica,a common And he adds thatby throwing bacon to the dogs (a gesthe of symptom syphilis. ture to whichwe shall returnat some lengthin a moment),he found a remedy for toothache,or "le mal des dens." When his listenerPantagruelwonders why he should still have toothache,when he has been cured of all other ailments including his sciatica,Panurge points out that the teethin question are not his own but belong to the dogs who wanted to bite him: "Can teeth give you any greaterpain than when dogs have you by the legs?" (217). "Vive la roustisserie," he shouts,and withthis joke the episode ends. of evokesconvenBy recountingthestory his own escape, Panurge inevitably and historiographical accounts of similarescapes from tions of travelliterature aliens thatwere popular during the period.22And the representation terrifying raises issues about naming,about inevitably of whatis alien or otherin narrative is This conjunctionof alterity the labels withwhichthe unfamiliar made familiar. and namingplaces us in the realmof rhetoric-that is, of rhetoricas the studyof linkbetweenthe is To tropes.23 name thatwhichis different to createan arbitrary unknownobject and knownlanguage. To speak of the otheris to produce a scenames somethingin the world that is not its nario in which a familiarsignifier enacts the logic thatunderlies the proThis scenario,in effect, normal referent. of the construction tropes. To speak of the other is to make duction of figures, metaphors. between sets FromitsverybeginningPanurge'sstory in reliefthisrelationship Its lines are marked by three moments at which the rhetoricand alterity. first other is named. As he introduceshis tale Panurge assures Pantagruel thatwhat about the Turks is thattheydrinkwaterinstead of wine: "My lord is noteworthy not ... these devilishTurks are veryunfortunate to drinka drop of wine" (214). Thus at the momentthattheyare introducedthe Turks are named witha cliche, as devils. A momentlater,as he begins the story, Panurge offers figuraldescriptionsof both himselfand his captors: "The rascallyTurks had put me on a spit, m'avoient en broche larde tout all larded like a rabbit"(214; Les paillardsTurcqs mys here as "rascally," un translated comme connil [289]). The adjectiveor noun paillard, of to refers,throughthe logic of metonymy, someone who sleeps on a mattress strawor paillasse.The termconnotes sexual license. A sentence later,Panurge names his captors a thirdtime,as he prays to God to deliver him: "Lord God, which these help me! Lord God, save me! Lord God, release me of thistorment on treacherousdogs are inflicting me forholding fastto Thy law!" (214). Thus at the veryoutsetof the storythe Turks are defined bythreeepithets: dogs." These metaphors Turks";"treacherous "devilishTurks";"rascally [paillard] may be dead metaphors,but Rabelais brings them to life again. For it is these The firethatdestroysthe cityis ignitedwhen termsthatgenerate the narrative. Panurge's guard, the "paillard Turcq" who keeps watch over him, falls asleep. 66
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connection between the And it is Panurge himselfwho makes the metonymic one onto not "paillard"and his "paillasse"bythrowing one but twoburningsticks, the guard and the otheronto the nearbypile of straw("under a camp bed, which stood near the fireplace,and on which was the strawmattress[paillasse]of my movementis then continued in the friend,the Roaster"; 215). This metonymic and fromthe straw progressof the fire:"Immediatelythe firecaught the straw, as caught the bed, and fromthe bed the floor...." Similarly, soon as the firehas taken hold, the masterof the house, one of the "devilishTurks,"returnshome, findsthe house in flames,and calls upon devils to come to his rescue: "He gave himselfover to all the devils, naming Grilgoth,Astaroth,Rappallus, and GriPanurge, bouillis,each nine times"(215). This ceremonyof devilworshipterrifies who has heard that devils love to eat bacon and fears that theywill go for the stripsaround his waist("thesedevilsare fond of bacon"; 216). He calls on God to drive themaway.When no devilsappear the masterof the house realizes thatall is lost and resolvesto killhimself. Panurge's metaphorical description of the Finally,and most fantastically, is simplyliteralizedin the last passages of the episode, dogs" Turks as "traitorous chased bya pack as the prisonerlooks back on theburningcityand findshimself of hounds. The "Turkishdogs," as theyare called in the famous cliche used by turninto real dogs. everyonein the period fromErasmus to Luther to Petrarch, who describeshimselfearlyon as "greased up like a rabbit,"keeps his Panurge, prey of the hunt. In this own formbut runs fromthe pack like the frightened paranoia Frenchmenare metaphoricalrabbitsrunviolentscene of anti-Turkish ning fromreal infideldogs.24 The point here is that the action of the episode is dominated by three narthe rativemoments(the fire, suicideof the pasha, and theappearance of the pack by of dogs), each of whichis motivated one of the metaphorsused by Panurge to describe the Turks at the outset.Moreover,the movementfromone trope to the of a next offers kind of gradual intensification the capacityof rhetoricalfigures betweenthe "paillard"and his "pailthe First, connection to spilloverintoreality. when he throwsone burning stickonto the lasse" is made by Panurge himself, devilish pasha seeks straw and one onto the guard. Next, the metaphorically frommetaphorto literalizawe directly vainlyto invoke real devils. Finally, shift tion when the dogs miraculouslyappear at the close of the episode. NotwithstandingPanurge's repeated claims that he is tellingnothingbut the truth,the of structure the episode is in factproduced out of itsown figures.Narnarrative rative becomes the process wherebythe dead metaphors used to describe the otherare revivified.25 reversesthe relationshipbetween words and This process of remotivation Figures-that is, metaphors,metonymies, between language and reality. things, of ornamentlanguage as "flowers speech." Tropes and similes-no longermerely or itself, at least Rabelais's versionof the world-historical history here produce of and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais, 67

to encounterbetween the European Panurge and the great civilization the east. his label-a dog, a lusty Panurge the Turk becomes For the proto-Orientalist both rheTropological naming functions a sleeper in the straw, devil worshipper. to to torically, freeze or capture the other in figurallanguage, and ideologically, notionof the Turks.26 constructed produce a particularculturally Yet this scene of rhetoricalviolence, withits anxious representationof the other,buttsup against a much more benign model of the relationshipbetween This is the fear of strangers. language and alterity-a model intended to diffuse charitableattitudeevoked in the encounterof Panurge and Pantagruel.Rhetorical freezing of the other in language stands in tension with the Christian The theme differences. thattranscendssuperficial humanistnotion of a charity makesitsappearance afterthesuicideof thedevilishmasterand before of charity the encounterwiththedogs, when Panurge meetsthe group of townspeoplecarryingpails of waterto put out the fire.When theysee him,"half roasted,"as he and threwall theirwaterover me, whichwas says,"theytook pityon me naturally and did me a great deal of good" (217). When these the jolliest refreshment, the Moslem refugeesoffer ChristianPanurge food and watertheyare, much like on the Good Samaritanof Luke 10, takingpity"naturally" a strangerin needYet the closest thatinfidelscan come to somethinglike Christiancharity.27 Panurge responds to thisgiftof food and drinkwithingratitude:"But I hardlyate, for theyofferedme nothingbut water to drink,as is theircustom" (217). Panurge's response to the kindnessof the Turks (a kindnessofferedwithmuch less it hesitation, should be noted,thanwhatwe saw in thefamousencounterbetween of Panurge and PantagruelwithwhichI began) is simplyto note the insufficiency whichis waterinsteadof wine. theirgift, This ingratitudearticulatesa moral message of the type promoted in the abstinence evoked earlier.The externalsignof difference, Erasmianhermeneutic from wine, blinds Panurge to the generositydemonstratedby the "devilish," of "canine" Turks. The crucialissue here is not the theologicallimitations pagan rather than true Christiancharity)but Panurge's generosity(mere pagan pity, failure to recognize it and respond with charityof his own.28Here, as in the letterto the Corinencounter between Panurge and Pantagruel,St. Paul's first in a thiansoffers useful gloss thatstressesthe crucial role of charity encounters withone's neighbors.For it is the apostle who admonishes his readers: "If I give I but to my away all I have, and if I deliver body be burned, have not charity, gain notrecognize the nothing"(1 Cor. 13.3; my emphasis). Not only does Panurge joy of generosity thosewho help him,but he almostshitswith at his own destrucmaylook a lot like Moreover,ifErasmus worriesthatChristians tionof theircity. of Turks, Rabelais underscores the difficulty telling Turk from Christian by makingthe guard and the pasha doubles of Panurge. Both Turk and Christian are scorched and tied up. Clearly,the scene evokes the centralpoliticaland moral dilemma addressed 68
REPRESENTATIONS

in the debates over the Turkishquestion during the 1520s-whether one should be martyredby the invaders,or whetherone should burn theircities. Yet the Pauline subtextsuggestsa moral dimensionto Panurge's relationshipto his own flesh.For though Panurge sees the parallel between his situationand the death which his prototypeaccepted. His of St. Lawrence, he refuses the martyrdom being burned, instead of tobe burned. desire, in fact,is to deliver his body from Panurge is alert enough to recognize that his situationparallels St. Lawrence's at death on the grill,but he refusesto accept martyrdom the hand of the infidel. Indeed, he turnsthe situationto his materialadvantage byrelievingthe pasha of his purse-though, as if in echo of Paul's precept about givingaway what one owns, he informsPantagruel that the purse has vanished like the snows of yesteryear. The question of the flesh-importantthroughoutthe scene-is emphasized recalls the storyof the wife in the finalmoment.For Panurge's allegoricalflight of Lot, who, in Genesis 19.26, looks back against God's commandmenton the burningcitiesof Sodom and Gomorrah and is turned into a pillar of salt. The biblicalscene is a conventionallocus fordiscussionsof the problematicnature of late The mostinfluential medievalbiblical moralphilosophy. thefleshin Christian glossator,Pierre Bersuire, reads the storyof Lot's wifeas an allegoryabout the sinfulsoul's reluctanceto sever itselffromthe flesh(symbolizedby the citiesof the plain) in order to ascend to the mountainof contemplation.29 betweenreading However,given the humanistemphasis on the relationship and ethics discussed earlier,we should not be surprised to find that Panurge's on distortion, a mistakeof interpretation. moral erroris based on a hermeneutic whichkills,as the spirit is In a Pauline contextcarnality associatedwiththe letter, immoral attachmentto his own fleshis paralleled, in the gives life. Panurge's that by sphere of interpretation, a literal-mindedness ignoresthe spiritof charity and distinguishesTurks from Christiansaccording to such superficialsigns as whethertheydrink water or wine. Panurge recognizes only literaldifferences betweenChristiansand Turks but failsto see the deeper linkdefinedbycharity, and by Christ'scommandmentto love one's neighbor.To stressthismoral point, literalizedand the verymetaphorthatPanurge uses to describethe Turksis itself obsessed. This carnality returnsto attackthe fleshwithwhichhe is so powerfully explains the strangeappearance of the "villainouslittleTurk" and the courtesan near the end of the scene. They offertwo versionsof what one can do withthe flesh-eat it or seduce it. then,can be linked to a failure to read, Panurge's blindness to generosity, the withinthe allegoricalspiritof New Testamentcharity, signsproduced by the literalism signaled byPanurge's other.And it is in thecontextof the hermeneutic thatone can see the ambivalent importanceof his initialdescriptionof fleshliness sentenceof his story, Panurge calls theTurks theTurks.For when,in theveryfirst because theydrinkonlywater,he saysmore than he knows.In New unfortunate of and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais, 69

betweendrinkingwaterand drinkingwine sigTestamenttermsthe distinction betweenlivingunder Old Testamentlaw and New nals the theologicaldistinction betweenreading literally distinction Testamentgrace, as well as the hermeneutic Thus Panurge's lament thatthe Turks drink no wine is and reading spiritually. reallya lament that theylive under the law,ratherthan under the umbrella of is grace. The catch,however, thatin order to see thisallegoricalmessage hidden thatis, in Panurge's descriptionof the Turks,one mustread his words figurally, which kills.It is this the letter, whichgives life,instead of in termsof the spirit, Panliteralistic thatthe fleshly, however, veryallegoricalmode of interpretation, of For him,the misfortune the Turks is precisely urge is incapable of practicing. thattheydrinkonlywaterand not wine. and literally

IV
The episode of Panurge'sescape fromtheTurksis markedbya conflict In betweenrhetoricand alterity. models of the relationship betweentwodistinct of the first these models language is magical. The figurethatdefinesthe other is miraculouslyliteralized,as the metaphoricaldog becomes a real dog, and the word becomes flesh.This model worksto keep the other at bay,so to speak, to the dehumanize him.At thesame time,however, centralimportanceof thetheme Panurge relates and literal-mindedness. emphasizesPanurge'scarnality of charity focusingon such marksof difto the otheraccording to the fleshand the letter, ferenceas the drinkingof wine instead of water-in complete blindness to the between the humanismclaimsshould inform relationship thatChristian morality selfand other.Rhetoricdehumanizesand distancestheother,whilethe Christian humanistideal of charityaccepts him througha hermeneuticbased on figural and of reading. Erasmus'sdouble representation the Turks as both threatening fabricof the scene, whichsets in the veryrhetorical is half-Christian dramatized trope and moral preceptat odds withone another. However, there is more at issue here than a simple demonstrationof how The unfoldingof encounterswiththeotherdisruptclichesabout humanistpiety. scene poses the question of how the kind of rhetoricalsubversionof moral the allegorythat we have just seen informsthe relationshipbetween ideology and with the wife of Lot, as well as in his failure to narrative.In his identification Panurge is placed at odds withdivine and extend charity, recognize generosity law. He stands as a negative exemplar, as a model of how not to treat one's makes the connectionbetweenthe appearance of the neighbor.Panurge himself thathe has erred. Unlike dogs and divineomnipotence.He realizes,afterthefact, a the wifeof Lot, however,he saves himselfby throwing piece of bacon. This is him fromthe to liberating the action thattakes Panurge fromhistory literature,

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struggle against the Turks and bringing him to the famous world-historical meetingwithPantagruel. gesture.On one level it simplyliteralizesa overdetermined It is a powerfully proverb."To throwone's lard to the dogs" (jetter sixteenth-century well-known meant to waste one's resources,to spend one's money impruson lardaux chiens) dently-as Panurge seems to have done by using up the contentsof the purse given him by the pasha. On another level,it is a cliche of emblematicliterature, recallingconventionaldepictionsin bestiaries(and going back to Pliny) of the figureof the beaver,who bitesoffhis own genitalsand throwsthem to pursuing allegorized as an emblem of peacemaking.30 hunters-a gestureconventionally is of This motif castration centralto the scene. For as he fleesthe pack of Turkish dogs, Panurge runs to save his veryflesh.And no reader of Rabelais has much membersPanurge mostwantsto protect. out troublefiguring whichof his fleshly Indeed, the fact that the Turkishcourtesan has found Panurge to be impotent suggeststhat a temporarycastrationhas already occurred, through scorching. castratedfleshthatis in danger of being Yet ifPanurge fleesto save a temporarily castratedbydogs, he mustuse his witsto save himself.Temporally, permanently demonstrathe the scene predates the meetingwithPantagruel,so virtually first tionwe get anywherein Rabelais of Panurge's celebratedpanourgiaor craftiness dogs the piece of bacon that hangs is his gesture of throwingto the castrating fromhis midsection. suggestively The curious connectionbetween divine punishmentand castrationmerits close considerationbecause of the place of Panurge's gesturewithinthe episode Let itself. us recallagain the sequence of events.Panurge calls theTurksdogs. He At fails to recognize their generosity. the top of the hill he looks back on the and laughs at theirdisaster.Yet God punishes him, as he himself flamingcity realizes, by sending a pack of dogs to chase him. Now, the obvious Christian would be a moral transdivinepunishment humanistresponse to thisidentifiable into literalism a formation, conversionthatwould turnviciousnessinto charity, whichis called forby the text'sideology and But thismoral rebirth, spirituality. take place on the hilltop,is denied Panurge by the scene's verynarwhichshould rative movement.For by the time Panurge realizes his moral error the Turks of whom he needs to embrace are no longerTurks-in Erasmus'swords,"first all They are dogs. By making the double logic of men and then semi-Christians." acceptingthe Turks Erasmian discourseunfoldthrougha seriesof events,byfirst dehumanizingthem(theyare dogs) at the moment (theyare generous) and then RabethatPanurge realizes thathe has erred bynot recognizingtheirgenerosity, charged response to the politically of lais foreclosesthe possibility anyimmediate, world In patentmoralmessage thathe is offering. thiswayhe emptiesthefictional of the tough moral dilemmas implied in the politicalcontextthat the scene so the obviouslyevokes. By transforming Turks into dogs the rhetoricof the text

of and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais,

requires but never of the possible demonstration a moral message of charity makes be thatany charity actuallyshown; the moral message is inscribedin the text,but of not on the body of the subject Panurge. The response to the limitations the whichmakes it positself, turnsout to be narrative humanistrhetoricof alterity sible bothto kill and to flee the Turks, yet,unlike Erasmus, Luther, and even advocates nothing. Francishimself, Writingof the process wherebyliteratureoffersaestheticsolutions to real historicalstruggles,FredricJameson notes that "the literarywork or cultural time,bringsinto being thatsituationto whichit is object,as though for the first also, at one and the same time,a reaction. It articulatesits own situationand of textualizesit."'" Panurge's encounterwiththe Turks shows up the limitations Christianhumanismby drivinga wedge, so to speak, between the two terms.It between the rhetoricalprotectionenlisted by a threatshows the confrontation offered of on ened Christendom, the one hand, and the morality reconciliation humanism,on the other. On the level of its moral message, the Rabelaisian by episode repeats the double visionof the Ottoman offeredby Erasmus's writings on the Turkishquestion. Rabelais, too, makes the Turks both like Christiansand in Yet and terrifying. the contradiction the Erasunlike them,both sympathetic which sets that mian schema is resolved in Rabelais by the aestheticobject itself, form.32 double attitudetowardthe otherintonarrative

V of If the timing Panurge'sfailedconversionopens a particulartension this betweenthe preceptivediscourseof humanismand narrative, tensionin turn statusof Rabelais's own text,as a "culraises problemsabout the epistemological tural object" (to recall Jameson's term) located somewhere in the middle (like and moral phiof Lesbos itself)betweenthe genericconventions historiography losophy.These problemsemergewhenwe considerthe statusof thebacon. Here, important dimensionof Rabelais'stextis centrally or again, the rhetorical figural of to the representation the encounterwiththe other.The piece of bacon is the about the other at workin the scenesiteat whichthe two models forthinking distancing the Turks through naming and accepting them through charityof and literalism, thedog-eat-rabbit overlap. Panurge'sbodyis thesiteof carnality world in which the only relationshipto the other is eithercannibalismor lustTurk" or the courtesan.Yet Panurge'swilysolutionto his predicament the "little bringsus in a roundaboutwayback fromthe literalto the figural.At the close of death-that is, to be eaten the scene Panurge's dilemma is eitherto die a fleshly by the literalizedmetaphoricaldogs thatare chasing him-or to embrace them of the overlooking literaldifference theirfleshand religion of in the spirit charity, His and recognizingtheirhumanity. responseis to seek a midpointbetweenflesh

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and spirit,between the literaland the figural,by throwingthe dogs a piece of as tropologically well flesh.It is a piece of fleshwhose meaningis overdetermined It as topologically. is twicea replacementfor the penis; it is a penis throughthe it physically, is a piece of bacon. Literally, logic of both metaphorand metonymy. or Yet it is a figuralpenis, a substitute fetishobject related to the real thingby to proximity it-they both hang fromthe midsection. virtueof its metonymical expresin It is also, however, itsFrenchname, a "lardon."And Rabelais'sfavorite le sion to describe sexual intercourseis frotter lard. Thus the punning logic of metaphor makes the penis a "lardon" and the "lardon" a penis. This overdeterminationresolvesthe tensionbetweena rhetoricthatworksthroughthe literalization of metaphorsand a hermeneuticsthatshuns the letterand the fleshfor penis both physically the figureand the spirit.The piece of bacon is a substitute metaphor.33 and a linguistic a and linguistically, physicalmetonymy central to the moral message of the epiBut this tropological"resolution," itself. of distortion-a distortion history sode, depends upon another rhetorical at For the various layersof signification work in the depiction of the bacon all the operate within contextof the mostobvious and outrageousironyin Panurge's This is the factthatTurks do not eat bacon, whichis forbiddenthem for story. Turksonlyeat bacon religiousreasons. Only dogs eat bacon-or, more precisely, when theyhave been turnedinto dogs. On the level of the evidentialtruththat event,claims to tell,the "lardons"cannot Panurge, as witnessto a real historical possiblybe eaten by Turks-even though Panurge is clearlyabout to be cannior balized. Eitherthe bacon is an absolute fiction the Turks mustbe made dogs if essentialto the scene, since he is to escape.34Yet the stripsof bacon are absolutely the entire castrationfantasyfrom which the Christianhumanist moral about takes its power depends on the pun thatlinks"lardons"to penises. Thus charity the the mostobvious literalmarkof culturaldifference, piece of bacon, becomes, when figuredas a penis,the verysign thatmakes possiblea moral message about which,on a sameobject the risksof being uncharitableto one's neighbor.The very literallevel,separates human beings,produces,when it has become a metaphor, a fable about unitingthem.35 onlyworkswhen the Turks'actual culturaldifferThis moral fable,however, of has in ence (manifested dietaryprohibition) been overcomebythe effacement a Both Panurge and the Turks need something, kind of dietary theirhumanity. supplement,to help them ingest theirfood. For the Turks it is the bacon that adorns Panurge's inediblyskinnybody; for Panurge it is the wine that washes down the refugees'prandial gift.Yet whereas the wine can be ingested even by bad Christianreaders like Panurge who ignore its figuralmeaning, the bacon a cannot be ingestedbyTurks.The bacon is an absolute signof difference, literal between Its mark of cultural alterity. presence underscores the moral contrast interpretation Panurge'sliteralistic and the Turks'literalism. Panurge'sliteralism The Turks' as of the wine is defined negatively, the mark of willfulfleshliness. of and Erasmus, theRhetoric Alterity Rabelais, 73

obedience to dietarylaws,on the other hand, is the verysign of their literalistic piety-a pietythatmakes them,in Erasmus'swords,spiritualenough to be "halfChristian."To neutralize a Turkish literalismthat is both admirable and stubto bornlyresistant ChristiantheologyRabelais must eitherchange the bacon or change the Turks. He chooses the latteroption and makes theminto dogs. The paradoxical statusof the bacon takes us fromthe level of tropes to the level of narrative form, and makes it possible to articulate the relationship between Rabelais's fictionalnarrativeand the humanistmoral philosophy that seems to informit in so manyways.A humanistmoral lesson is demonstratedby a scene that is produced out of tropologicalviolence. Yet what is produced by when setinto narrativeform,the troping(in thiscase dogs) in turnmakesvisible, whichhas to be saved bytheincongruous morality, of and fragility limits humanist bacon. A Christianhumanistreading of the textas moral allegory-the typeof reading thatI setin motionwithmyinitialevocationof the meetingof Pantagruel and Panurge-is both absolutelyessentialto the scene and subvertedby its rheThis impossiblerelationshipbetween precept and trope may toricalcomplexity. of in turnbe seen as the effect the text'scurious epistemologicalstatus.The epiand moral sode of the escape from the Turks wavers between historiography of Mytilene) (the evocation of the invasion philosophy,between mere "history" locates the scene in the and pure fantasy(the bacon). Panurge simultaneously informshis listenersthatthe eventand blithely of aftermath a specifichistorical sole piece of evidence fromhis Turkishencounter,the pasha's purse, has van"realism" These two poles, historiographical ished like the snows of yesteryear. cannot coexist; yet they must, if the episode is to make its moral and fiction, point.36 The encounterwitha non-European culturethus becomes the site for both and of an explorationof the limitations humanistallegoricalinterpretation a tenThe consequences of thisconjunction(to move and fiction. sion betweenhistory now to an even larger context)may be seen in the veryplacement of Panurge's For both Panurge's prayerfor deliverance and his storywithinthe Pantagruel. are blindnesstowardTurkishgenerosity recalled at the end of the book, in Panof tagruel'sprayerfordivinehelp and subsequentcharitabletreatment hisenemy exemplarPantagruelredeems,in the finalchapters, Anarche. Yetifthe "positive" between the the moral errors of the "negative"Panurge, the crucial difference instance,an episode two scenes lies in the radical contrastbetween,in the first a eventand itspoliticalcontext thatevokes,howeverparodically, "real" historical and, in the second instance,a purelyallegoricalbattlebetween a good Christian If of named personification anarchy.37 humanist ruler and the transparently and fiction can provide the materialfor moral Erasmus claims thatboth history allegory,the escape from the Turks points up the rhetoricalcontradictionsin Christian humanism's attempt to allegorize the contemporarynon-Christian thenforsakethatdangerous geographother.The finalchaptersof thePantagruel 74
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ical and rhetorical territory takingrefugein a farsaferformof allegorywhose by moral meaning is unmistakable. exclusiveelements,an ambigThis paradoxical combination twomutually of the contingentrealitiesof contemporaryhistory, uous "realism"that confronts on the one hand, and abstractmoral lessons,on the other,lends Rabelais's work The factthatthePantagruel been read both has itsunique place in literary history. as France,and figurally, literally, a "true"depictionof lifein sixteenth-century as an edifyingtale, suggeststhe extentto which its own rhetoricalcontradictions The paradoxical relationshipof contemporary history influenceits reception.38 the associationof humanismand narrative that and moralpreceptinforms fragile will Later sixteenth-century narratives employdiverse Rabelais'stextexemplifies. to the strategies confront tensionbetweenthese poles, fromthe allegoricalcomYet plexitiesof Spenser to the ironyof the Lazarillode Tormes. Panurge's escape from the Turks already marks the point at which the brief alliance between narrativehas reached its Renaissance humanistmoral philosophyand fictional logical end.

Notes
of Earlier versions of this work have been presented at the University California, and DartmouthCollege. of New YorkUniversity; Berkeley;the University Pittsburgh; for I would liketo thankcolleagues and audiences at thoseinstitutions theirhospitality and fortheirhelpfulcommentsand questions. For theirresponses to various earlier draftsof thisessay I would like to thankTerence Cave, Lesley Kurke,Celeste Langan, Michael Lucey,PatriciaParker,David Quint, FrancoisRigolot,Peter Sahlins, and the I editors of Representations.owe a special debt of gratitudeto studentsin my 1991 Berkeleygraduate seminaron Rabelais, in whose companymanyof these ideas were first explored. frompolitical 1. Panurge'spanourgos embracesa semanticfieldthatsuggestseverything between For prudence to handinessto moral duplicity. discussionsof the relationship the semanticslipperinessof the name and the moral statusof the character(which I and in termsbelow),see JeromeSchwartz, different Irony Ambiguity explore in slightly et (Geneva, Rabelais(Cambridge, 1990), 27-29; FrancoisRigolot,Poetique onomastique (New Haven, 1991), Pantagruel 1977), 103; Edwin M. Duval, TheDesignofRabelais's on and Perspectives 82-83; Raymond C. La Charit6,Recreation, Reflection, Re-creation. Rabelais's Pantagruel (Lexington,Ky., 1980), 85ff.;and Ludwig Schrader,Panurgeund Hermes (Bonn, 1958), 80ff. of 2. For discussionsof the moral implications thisencounter,see Gerard Defaux, "Au Romance Les Deux Chapitres IX de I'dition Nourry," Kentucky coeur du Pantagruel: and 27-30; and Duval, Designof Irony Ambiguity, 21 Quarterly (1974): 59-96; Schwartz, in chap. 4. Terence Cave has discussed Panurge's polyglotism the context Pantagruel, in in of developing Frenchnationalidentity "Panurge,Pathelin,and Other Polyglots," Renaissance Jr., Essays Donald A. Stone, ed. Barbara C. Bowen for Inscriptions: Lapidary C. and Jerry Nash (Lexington,Ky.,1991), 171-82. Rabelais, Erasmus,and the Rhetoricof Alterity

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behind Lucien Febvre'senterpriseis Natalie Davis's 3. A recent account of the history 32 essay "Rabelais Among the Censors (1940s, 1540s),"Representations (1990): 1-32. Febvre'sdiscussionof the relationshipof Erasmus and Rabelais occupies chap. 8 of in his book. For readings thatstressthe crucial role of charity the scene, see Defaux, Rabelais(Paris, 1967); and, mostrecently, A.J. Krailsheimer, "Au coeur du Pantagruel"; Duval, DesignofPantagruel. 4. The best work in the criticaltraditionthat insistson Rabelais's humanism (Duval, du [Lexet le Gerard Defaux, Le Curieux, glorieux, la sagesse monde DesignofPantagruel; ington,Ky.,1982]; and Michael Screech,Rabelais[Ithaca, N.Y., 1979]) has argued that and discernibleChristianmessage. As Screech a Rabelais is aimingto set forth specific writesin a passage cited withapproval by Defaux, "Rabelais seeks, in domain after For domain, absolutecertainty." a cogentdiscussionof the stakesof reading Rabelais's see textas "plural" or "multivoiced," Terence Cave's essay "Reading Rabelais: Variain Texts, Theory/Renaissance ed. PatriciaParkerand tionson theRock of Virtue," Literary David Quint (Baltimore, 1986), 78-95. This criticaldisagreementrecentlybecame public debate in an exchange between Defaux (citing Duval) and Cave, Francois Rigolot,and Michel Jeanneret.See the 1985 and 1986 issues of the Revue d'histoire to A de litt1raire la France. balanced attempt mediatebetweenthe twosides is Schwartz's and interprein and Ideology Rabelais.On the relationshipbetweencommunity Irony Literature in (New and Originality Renaissance tationin Rabelais, see David Quint,Origin see Haven, 1983). On the question of rhetoricand violence generally, the anthology and Leonard Tennenhouse, TheViolence Repof of essaysedited byNancy Armstrong (London, 1989). resentation 66 Works Erasmus, vols. (Toronto, 1974-88), vol. 24, trans. of 5. Erasmus, The Collected Brian McGregor,ed. Craig R. Thompson (1978), 683. and problemsof betweenthe practicalaims of humanistrhetoric 6. On the relationship in Prudence,and Skepticism the Renaissance judgment, see Victoria Kahn, Rhetoric, (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985). On the rhetoricalparadoxes underlyingthe Erasmian hermeRenaisin French Problems Writing the Text: of neutic,see Terence Cave, TheCornucopian sance (Oxford, 1979), 78-124. On the ideological and literaryimplicationsof the ancient models as images of action, Renaissance attemptto appropriate specifically in The of History: Rhetoric Exemplarity Renaissance from see TimothyHampton, Writing Literature (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990). of 7. I cite MargaretMann Phillips'stranslation the Adages,1.1.1-5.100, in the Collected see vol. Works Erasmus, 31 (1982), 30. For discussionsof Erasmian notionsof politics, of Renaissance (London, 1949), chap. Margaret Mann Phillips,Erasmusand theNorthern (Toronto, 1978). On the question of the of 4; and James D. Tracy,ThePolitics Erasmus "Erasmus see of politicalconstitution the Christiancommunity, Otto Schottenloher, Historische 210, Zeitschrift no. 2 (1970): 295-323. On und die Respublica Christiana," Hisin thiscommunity, Hampton, Writingfrom see Erasmus'sdifficulties representing tory, chap. 2. Jean-Claude Margolin'sedition,Opera 8. Erasmus,De ratione 686; theLatin is from studii, 9 omnia, vols. (Amsterdam,1969-83), vol. 1,part2, p. 141. For an extended discussion of and friendship, Erasmus'sinterpretation see betweensimilitude of the relationship of Virgil'ssecond eclogue on thisand the followingpages. All translations Erasmus are mine unless otherwiseindicated. 9. For a briefsummaryof Luther'schangingattitudetowarda Turkishwar,see Robert of Kriegewidder to C. Shultz'sintroduction his and Charles M. Jacobs'stranslation Vom Works vol. (Philadelphia, 1967), 157-59; as well as Heinrich die Tuirken, 46 of Luther's

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For trans.M. H. Bertram(St. Louis, 1958), 16ff. World Thought, of Bornkamm,Luther's towardthe of implications changingRenaissance attitudes backgroundon the literary Turks, see C. A. Patrides,"'The Bloody and Cruell Turke': The Background of a in Renaissance no. 1 (1963): 126-35. For a 10, Renaissance Commonplace,"Studies the discussionof the French attitudein the period, though withspecial attentionto the La see Commonplaces. Noue,Lulater sixteenthcentury, Michael J. Heath, Crusading the and (Geneva, 1986). Against Turks cinge, Rhetoric in of 10. On the attempts humanists particularto deal withthe Turkishthreatsee Heath, Part ofValor: chap. 1; as well as Robert P. Adams, TheBetter Commonplaces, Crusading on 171 and 298ff. More,and Vives Warand Peace (Seattle, 1962), 107ff., ff., Erasmus, ut 11. "Citiusfiat, nos degeneremusin Turcas, quam illiper nos reddanturChristiani";I in christiani the editionof Otto Herding, whichis included in citetheInstitutio principis vol. 4, part 1 of Erasmus'sOperaomnia(Amsterdam,1974), 218. "Trahimurregnandi libidine ... et ut dicam in summa, 12. Erasmus, De belloTurcico: vol. 5, part 3 Turcae pugnamus cum Turcis";I citeA. G. Weiler'sedition,Operaomnia, (Amsterdam,1986), 52. These argumentsare all repeated in more or less the same language in the Querelapacis; see Herding's edition, Opera omnia,vol. 4, part 2 (Amsterdam,1977), esp. 80ff. illi 5.3:50. In Crusading Weiler'sed., Operaomnia, 13. "Nostrisvitiis debent suas victorias"; rhetoricthat Heath points to the contradictory cliches of anti-Turkish Commonplaces and luxurious. bloodthirsty effeminately depict the Turk as both insatiably of 14. I cite the translation Margaret Mann Phillipsin Erasmuson His Times:A Shortened Version the'Adages"ofErasmus(Cambridge, 1967), 135. The original reads: "Atqui of propioresvero sunt,et fortassis quos nos vocamus Turcas,magna parte semichristiani quam plerique nostrumsunt,"citedfromthe 1703 Amsterdamedition Christianismo, of Erasmus'sOperaomnia, 2:967. 15. "Quum imperitamultitudoTurcarum nomen audit, protinusconcipitanimo graues nominishostesillosvociferans;non canes et christiani iras,et ad caedem inflammatur, ... reputans illos primumesse homines,deinde semichristianos nec cogitans nullos ecclesia hostes,quam impios principes";Erasmus,De belloTurcico, esse perniciosiores 53. Erasmus'sdouble logic,whichbothrejectsand acceptstheTurk,maybe registered in his verylexicon. For as he attacksthose who want to killthe Turks like dogs ("non 58)-an image to which we aliter occidere quam canem rabidum"; De belloTurcico, shall return in a moment-he describes their evil deeds as "latrocinia" (see, for but a "thief," thatoffers example, 40 and 42), a termthatstemsfromthe noun latro, "to Latin pun on theverblatro, bark."I am indebtedto MartinBloomer long-standing forhis help on the philologicalbackgroundsto Erasmus'sLatin puns. 16. "Si cupimus Turcas ad Christi religionem adducere, prius ipsi simus Christiani"; pacis,96. Erasmus,Querela and the crisisof European 17. The contradictory relationshipbetween ideals of charity Heaven unityduring the period is explored as well in the dialogueJuliusExcludedfrom of e (Juliusexclusus coelis) 1518, a textpresumed to be byErasmus but neverpublished or claimed byhim. Here Pope JuliusII and St. Peterhave a dialogue beforethe gates of heaven, as Julius seeks entry.On the last page of the text,afterhaving attacked Petercriticizes pope forhavingmeddled in politics. the love of luxury, Julius'sworldly Juliusresponds thatChristendomwould have collapsed and been overrunby Turks churchgrewthroughthe had it not been forhis policies.Peterresponds thatthe first not throughwars of conquest, but he never in fact responds to blood of martyrs, Julius'ssavvyevocationof theparadoxes representedbythe Turkishthreat.Erasmus's

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was, of course, not shared by all. For recuperationof the Turk as "semi-Christian" on example, in several treatises the Turkishquestion fromthe late 1520s, his friend and lamentingthe cruChristian disunity attacking Juan Luis Vives settledforsimply eltyof the Turks. withthe Ottoman Empire, see Clarence D. 18. For background on Frenchrelationships and 1520-1660 (Paris, 1940; in Thought, Literature, History, Rouillard, The Turk French reprinted., New York, 1973), 1-63 and 105-28. On Rincon'sembassies to Suleiman, "AntonioRincon et la politique orientalede Francois Ier," Revue see V.-L. Bourrilly, I 113 historique (1913): 64-83 and 268-308; as well as R.J. Knecht,Francois (Cambridge, 1982), 224ff.Rincon'sembassywas seen throughoutthe period as somewhat (Rome, 1589) closes of a scandal. Thus, forexample,GiovanniBotero'sRagionedestato with a denunciation of Rincon as the example of a bad ambassador. It is worth pointingout thatthe riseof theTurkishthreatafterthe fallof Constantinoplein 1453 Jean and centuries. was a frequenttopic in poetryof the late fifteenth earlysixteenth Marot, for example, wrote a "Complainte de Constantinople." For general background on the iconographyof Francisas crusader,see Anne-Marie LeCoq, Francois (Paris, 1986). Ier imaginaire of 19. All referencesin English willbe to J.M. Cohen's translation Gargantuaand Pantaare Eng., 1986). Frenchcitations fromPierreJourda'sedition gruel(Harmondsworth, 2 of FrancoisRabelais, Oeuvres completes,vols. (Paris, 1962), vol. 1. Page referencesfor both Frenchand Englishwillappear in parenthesesin the text. no 20. It is certainly accident thatthe sequence of episodes entitled"Of the Morals and Habits of Panurge," in which the character'spredilectionfor lyingis demonstrated, his immediately follows "true" account of his escape, withits play on conventionsof prisoners'stories.For an account of the catastrophicattackon Mytilene,along with on much information Frenchnaval encounterswiththe Turks during the period, see Histoire la marinefranfaise, de 6 vols. (Paris, 1914), 3:37-59. In Charles de la RoncRere, Rabelais'sliterary one of his chronicles, predecessorJeanLemaire de Belges mentions support theepisode and lamentsthe"treason"of theVenetianswho promisedmilitary ed. thatnevershowed up; see "La LUgendedes Wnitiens"in volume 4 of his Oeuvres, J. Stecher,4 vols. (Louvain, 1885), 392ff. 24:614. One of the mostremarkablefeaturesof 21. Erasmus,"De Copia," Collected Works, of nevertreatedbycritics Rabelais. In fact,in thisepisode is the factthatit is virtually I the entiregargantuancorpus of Rabelais criticism have been able to findscarcelya handfulof discussionsthateven mentionthescene. The twobestextended discussions are by Edwin Duval, DesignofPantagruel, 87ff.;and Defaux, in the second chapter of du Defaux explores at lengththe implications et Le Curieux, glorieux, la sagesse monde. le of Panurge's comparison of himselfto Odysseus. He argues that the comparison evoke in the mind of the Renaissance reader Odysseus at the would automatically court of Phaiakia-a scene understood to implytall tales and falsehood (though, as about himself when he recountshis Defaux notes,Odysseus is in facttellingthe truth life to Alkinoos and his followers).I want to build on Defaux's useful and learned of discussionbyexploring,as he does not,the implications the factthatthe Odyssean to eventreferenceis placed in directproximity the evocationof a knownhistorical a factthatattenuatesand renders the Odyssean topos even more ambiguous than it event thatthisreferenceto a specific alreadyis. It is also worthpointingout, however, thatit,too, maybe a mask. The invasionof Mytiin no way precludes the possibility and naval fiasco.The real insignificant long-forgotten lene, afterall, was a relatively relationswas Mohacs, the major encounterwiththe catastrophein Franco-Ottoman Turks before Lepanto in 1571. Mentionof Mohacs would be, however,a dangerous

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22. 23. 24.

25.

26.

27.

is gesture.In any case, thequestionof whetherMytilene a replacementforMohdcsin recognizablepolitto the no way mitigates anomalous gestureof referring a specific, of ical eventin thismostfantastic narratives. and rhetoricof travelliteraturein the late Middle For a good analysisof the history World and (Ithaca, N.Y., 1988), esp., Ages, see MaryB. Campbell, TheWitness theOther formypurposes,chap. 4. in see writing, Francois Hartog, On the relationshipof rhetoricand alterity history trans. of in of The TheMirrorofHerodotus: Representation theOther theWriting History, JanetLloyd (Berkeley,1988), part 2, chap. 6. humanist, For the use of the dog cliche in the workof the man oftencalled the first de Petrarch,see his "Trionfo della fama," 1.142-44. Here the figureof Geoffroy Bouillon, the leader of the FirstCrusade, chastisesthe princes of Europe for their none of theambivalencethatwilllatercharpetty quarrels. However,he demonstrates humanist"Erasmus'sdiscussionsof the acterizethe NorthernEuropean or "Christian wants a new crusade: "Change your ways,0 arrogant, Turkish question. Geoffroy / miserableChristians,you devour each other and it mattersnot to you/thatthe sepI ulcherof Christis in thehands of dogs" (mytranslation); citeGuido Bezzola's edition (Milan, 1984), 108. The dog image is, in any case, omnipresent in of the Trionfi the describing Turks.To takeyetanotherexample,thistimefrompamphletliterature, one of the anonymous treatisespublished afterthe massacres of Christiansat the qui du insaciable sang chrestien se nomme Les battleof Mohdcsbore the title Faictzdu chien 38). Commonplaces, And in Don Quixote, de (noted in Heath, Crusading 1'empereur Turquie part 1, chap. 41, the Captive'stale featuresa garden encounterbetweenthe Christian by prisonerand his Moorish beloved thatis both disturbedand facilitated a group of Turks described as "estos canes." It should also be noted thatRabelais's literalization thatlinksthe Turks into dogs correspondsto the folketymology of the cannibalistic to termcannibals dogs throughthe Latin word canis.This connectionis made in the Dclaration appended to Rabelais's QuartLivre,where "canibales" are defined Briefve as "peuple monstrueuxen Africque,ayantla face comme chiens et abbayanten lieu 2:249. Scholars disagree on the question of whetherthe de rire"; Oeuvres completes, D'clarationis byRabelais or not. Briefve of in Rabelais is clearlyaware of the centralrole of similitude descriptions the exotic. In the QuartLivre,themonsterQuaresmeprenantis describedthrougha two-chapter"his navel like a fiddle,""his pubic long list of completelyincongruous similitudes, see bone like a cream cake," etc. On the importanceof similitudein travelwriting, and chap. 6. For good discussionsof Rabelais's rheWorld, Campbell, Witness theOther see toricalstrategies, FrancoisRigolot,Les Langagesde Rabelais(Geneva, 1972); Cave, Text;Michel Beaujour, Le Jeu de Rabelais (Paris, 1970); and Floyd Gray, Cornucopian Rabelaisetl'ecriture (Paris, 1974). On the problemof figuraldisplacementgenerallyin Property Fat Gender, Literary Ladies:Rhetoric, see Renaissanceliterature, PatriciaParker's (New York, 1987). to underscored here should suffice demThe process of metaphoricalremotivation onstrate the complexityof Rabelais's rhetoric,as over against readings that have insistedthat tropes in Rabelais (and elsewhere) do nothingmore than fragmentor for splitunivocal meaning.On the importanceof rhetoric the "production"of historin Imagination NineteenthThe see Hayden White,Metahistory: Historical ical narrative, of Europe(Baltimore,1972); and, withspecial referenceto the representation Century trans. Tom Conley (New York, of the other,Michel de Certeau, The Writing History, 1988), 73ff. The connectionwiththe Good Samaritanparable is underscoredby the factthatthe Rabelais, Erasmus,and the Rhetoricof Alterity

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28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

33.

34.

and scorn.Though theyworshiped Samaritanswere,liketheTurks,objectsof distrust God and used the Pentateuch,the Samaritanswere seen by theJewsas an alien race his to be despised. Indeed Jesus,when he sends forth disciplesto preach in Matt. 10.5, forbidsthemfromeven enteringSamaritanvillages. 67ff.and of Duval notes the limitations Panurge's response in Design ofPantagruel, 91ff.He pointsout thatit is precisely"piedad natural"thatPanurge seeks fromPanmeeting. tagruelwhen he speaks to him in Spanish duringtheirfirst "Sodoma est vitacarnalis;qui igne et sulphureluxurie feret... mons est vitacontemplativa et ecclesiasticavel claustralisquae stabilus et tuta manet"; Pierre Bersuire, 2 Operaomnia, vols. (Cologne, 1692), 1:9. 32.26. Rabelais's conhistoria mentionedin Pliny'sNaturalis The beaver image is first The allegorical Furioso. Ariostouses itin canto 27, stanza 57 of the Orlando temporary surroundingthe image are explained in Emilio Bigi's notesto his editionof traditions the Furioso(Milan, 1982). I am gratefulto David Quint for pointingout the Ariosto one's bacon to the dogs, see Edmond referenceto me. On the proverbabout throwing du 7 de sikcle, vols. (Paris, 1927-33), Huguet, Dictionnaire la languefrancaise seizieme 2:265. Narrative a Socially as Act Symbolic (Ithaca, FredricJameson, ThePoliticalUnconscious: N.Y., 1981), 82. This aestheticizing response to the threatposed by the other is thematizedin a subThis is the famousscene in whichPanurge sequent analogous scene in thePantagruel. sicksa pack of lustingdogs on a Parisian lady who resistshis advances. As Panurge the sprinklesthe lady withthe fluidthatwillattract hounds to her,his gesture,which want him,offers a to attempts impresson her verybody his perceptionthatshe must of parallel to the earlierliteralization the "canine"Turks intodogs. Yet the laterscene accompanies its attemptto neutralizethe threatposed by the other withan explicit referenceto the realm of theaesthetic.For as the lady is chased bythe pack of hounds Panurge inviteshis master Pantagruel she is turned into a theatrical representation. whichis describedas a play,as a "spectacle" tojoin himin laughingat her humiliation, and a "mystere"(334). Moreover,in the process of this staging,the lady loses her gender,as "la plus belle [dame] de cesteville"is masculinizedintoa "mysgrammatical otherTurk, the sexuallyother tere"thatis "fortbeau et nouveau." Like the culturally her power to threatenChristianmale identity becoming a spectacle. by lady forfeits For a good reading of the encounter with the lady see Carla Freccero, "Damning Haughty Dames: Panurge and the Haulte Dame de Paris,"JournalofMedievaland 15 Studies (1985): 57-67. Renaissance connotation This metaphoricallinkbetweenpenises and "lardons"suggestsa further to the appearance of the courtesan and the "littleTurk" near the end of the scene. member is unable to function.Since the The courtesan knows that Panurge's literal it the Turk's"gestureof nibbling suggests member, "little stripof bacon is a metaphorical a simulatedhomosexual fellatio.This produces a conjunctionof both meanings and propaganda during bodies thatis reinforced the well-known clicheof anti-Turkish by but homosexuals as well. The the period thatmade the Turks not only polygamists cliche may be connected to Rabelais's own language throughthe expression nocede whichwas used to describesodomy.Luther evokesboth the clicheof homosexchiens, in Kriege ualityand the notion of "dog marriages"(Hundehochzeite) his treatiseVom mentionedearlier (see note 9 above). I have consultedthe German die widder Tuirken, in vol. 7 of Luther ed. 1967), see 113ff. Deutsch, KurtAland (Stuttgart, In his studyof themedievalfabliaux,R. Howard Bloch has suggestedthatthe curious

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35.

36.

37. 38.

may and of in proliferation the fabliauxtradition scenesof dismemberment castration itself.In Bloch's formuwiththe productionof fictionality be linked to a fascination lation,whichdrawson Freud's discussionof the workof thejoke, the break in expectation that occurs when the boy realizes his differencefrom his mother finds a linguisticanalogue in that break or rupture in the expectationof logical or linear what we call metaphor.To makejokes or metaphorsis to meaning thatcharacterizes enact in language thatmomentat whichthe fear of castrationemerges. Conversely, as is to representcastration to raise issues about metaphor, Rabelais seems to do here. Fabliaux(Chicago, 1986), 111-26. For a good See R. Howard Bloch, TheScandalofthe elsewherein Rabelais, see Lawrence D. of discussionof the representations castration Renaissance(Camand theLiterature theFrench of of Kritzman,The Rhetoric Sexuality to bridge, 1991), chap. 10. It is tempting read the storyof Panurge's escape through in The relationship, the Freudian paradigm,between Freud'sdiscussionof castration. of thelittle boy'sglimpseof thesexuality thegirl(whichleads to thecreationof fictions about female sexuality)and the fear of castration(withthe subsequent impositionof to betweenPanurge's phony"casthe law of the Father)seems parallel the relationship However,the contration" throughthe bacon and the expressionof divineauthority. cept of repression,whichis crucial to the Freudian schema, seems to have no role in the Rabelaisian scene. resoThis connectionbetween the scene of the chase and the productionof fiction The linkbetweenbacon and fiction mayexplain, for nates throughoutthePantagruel. example, the factthatPanurge's claim to have saved himselffromthe "mal de dens" recalls the narrator'sclaim in the book's preface that the popular narrativesof the imitatescan cure readers of toothache. Both that the Pantagruel Grandeschroniques is momentsmark the spot at which the process of making fiction thematized.For a good discussion of the epistemologicalproblems raised by the prologue and their see importancefor a reading of the Pantagruel, Francois Rigolot,"Vraisemblance et crgateur (1981): 53-68. dans le Pantagruel," L'Esprit 21 narrativit6 natureof here and the obviouslyfantastic and history Given both the playwithfiction to Land ofBrazil, thetale,itis worthrecallingthatmidwaythroughhisfamousVoyage the who writer Jean de Lerycriticizes Protestant cartographers the late-sixteenth-century decorate theirmaps withimages of New Worldnativesroastinghuman fleshon a spit, he "as we cook muttonlegs and othermeat."These things, goes on, "are no truerthan the tales of Rabelais about Panurge escaping fromthe spit larded and half-cooked." about himself both points Lery'sdismissalof Panurge'sclaim to tellthe absolute truth of up the obvious fictionality the episode and suggeststhe extentto whichsixteenthcenturytravelliteratureand "topography"sometimesdid sound a lot like Rabelais. rivals,Lery signals the fluBy evokingPanurge's escape to discredithis own literary in and "fiction" a world idityof the lines betweenwhat we mighttodaycall "history" of Poetics. Jean de Lery, See not yetdominatedbythe neoclassicalaesthetics Aristotle's CalledAmerica, trans.Janet Whatley to of History a Voyage theLand ofBrazil,Otherwise and moral (Berkeley,1990), 126. For a good discussionof the tensionbetweenhistory of the discourse in late-sixteenth-century prose fiction (thatis, after rediscovery ArisThe Crisisof the 'Universall see totle'sPoetics), RobertWeimann,"Fabulaand Historia: in the ed. Renaissance, Consideration'in The Unfortunate Traveller," Representing English Stephen Greenblatt(Berkeley,1988), 181-96. discussionin Duval, Design On the parallelsbetweenthe twoscenes see the important 88. ofPantagruel, It is in the contextof thistensionbetween humanistallegoryand "realism"thatone

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workof MikhailBakhtin,who makes a claim for Rabelais mightplace the influential of of life, "reality" sixteenth-century even as Bakhtin as a representative the historical offersa model of popular culture that is patentlyahistorical.See his discussions in trans.Helene Iswolsky(Cambridge, Mass., 1968). For useful Rabelaisand His World, critiques of Bakhtin's reading of Rabelais, see Richard M. Berrong, Rabelais and Bakhtin(Lincoln, Neb., 1986); and Walter Stephens, Giantsin ThoseDays: Folklore, and (Lincoln,Neb., 1989). Ancient History, Nationalism

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